Illustration of BHE....

[Jaden]

You're right Fred...

This is misleading Jaden, considering most people will read this to mean that your "bridge length" is your final bridge length. In my opinion, this has only added to skepticism.

The pivot point doesn't have to be at the bridge length. The pivot point is only your bridge length in the sense that you're using your bridge hand as a fulcrum. Other than that, "bridge length" is pretty much not related to the pivot point. The fact that many normal cues have a coinciding pivot point and acceptable bridge length is the plus to this system.



Fred

BHE ENglish can work without the bridge length and the pivot point being the same...

LEt me rephrase that to say that it is MUCH easier to use BHE wihtout thinking as much about it and to have a more natural rythm if your bridge length matches your cue's pivot point.

Jaden

 

[Patrick Johnson]

Yes, I pivot at my bridge hand, but that doesn't mean I have to stroke witht that bridge length. That would be awful knowing where I'm supposed to pivot, but restricting myself to not change my bridge length after pivoting.

If you've ever tried FHE, would you pivot about your grip hand and then resign yourself to not be able to move your grip hand? I wouldn't think so.

And then there are the air pivoters.

Fred

So your "pivoting bridge length" isn't the same as your "shooting bridge length". Don't you think using the term "bridge length" without this distinction is pretty much guaranteed to confuse things?

pj
chgo

 

[Patrick Johnson]

So really what BHE is, is a way of adjusting your cue based on the original true, non-english aimline, using whatever method is necessary based on your cues pivot point.

For "backhand english" to make any sense, it must mean moving only your backhand while your bridge is at the pivot point. Moving your bridge hand to the pivot point and then back to your "shooting bridge" position is OK, but any more variation than that and the term rapidly becomes meaningless.

For instance, I don't think "air pivoting" (moving both hands simultaneously about the pivot point) is a sensible definition of BHE.

pj
chgo

 

[JB Cases]

Maybe you meant to say something else, but this statement is plainly false.

If you pivot your cue at your bridge to get it to its final angle (i.e., if you use BHE), then obviously your bridge position determines where the cue ball goes.

pj
chgo

One day when myself, a pool table and a video camera with a tripod are in the same room I will show you what I mean.

What I meant was that you can use BHE with any bridge length away from the cue ball. There is no magic spot where it works and then doesn't work in others.

I have done it with both long and short bridge distances.

But, like I said, a video camera is best to show these things.

Some day.

 

[Patrick Johnson]

One day when myself, a pool table and a video camera with a tripod are in the same room I will show you what I mean.

What I meant was that you can use BHE with any bridge length away from the cue ball. There is no magic spot where it works and then doesn't work in others.

I have done it with both long and short bridge distances.

But, like I said, a video camera is best to show these things.

Some day.

If you mean you can move your bridge to the fixed pivot point, pivot with BHE and then move your bridge back to any shooting position you desire, I agree.

If you mean you can use BHE with any pivot position, then I disagree.

pj
chgo

 

[Cornerman]

So your "pivoting bridge length" isn't the same as your "shooting bridge length". Don't you think using the term "bridge length" without this distinction is pretty much guaranteed to confuse things?

pj
chgo

I wasn't the one who confused the terms in the first place, so I guess that's a no. Those that equated the bridge length with the pivot length are going to always be confused if they can't get past that.

Fred

 

[Jaden]

I think that this one was directed at me.....

I wasn't the one who confused the terms in the first place, so I guess that's a no. Those that equated the bridge length with the pivot length are going to always be confused if they can't get past that.

Fred

Fred I think that this one was directed at me, and it wasn't a confusion of terms more than a limited explanation of the concept.

I should have included pivot points in my original discussion to eleviate and possibility of confusion.

Jaden

 

[JB Cases]

For all of those who are considering trying BHE for the first time....

BHE requires trusting in your initial aimline even though it will look wrong at first.

It's hard to trust yourself not to swerve your cue at the last second to try and adjust for it looking wrong and will often cause it to not work.

When I was demonstrating it for Joey A, he set up a fairly difficult shotand had me put three tips of outside english on it. Then he tried it and becuase he has a good solid straight stroke it worked for him, but then it became more difficult when he started to pay attention to what it looked like.

This is because until you get used to it, the aim just looks wrong.

The other thing abot BHE is that you have to train yourself to rotate your whole arm in or out depending upon what kind of English you're using and still hold your arm still for proper mechanics on the actual stroke.

Stroking straight through the CB is almost a must for BHE. I've heard of swooping or swiping, but I just don't think that it can be consistent, because I've noticed that the times that I miss it's because I'm pulling my wrist through the shot or trying to force the cue through the shot and it effectively alters the shot.

Jaden.

I am going to bring up another example from teaching jumping that applies here.

When teaching or better said learning to teach jumping I have had many discoveries along the way.

One of those discoveries was how much a person's stroking habits affect a shot.

What I mean is that a person can be lined up dead perfect and practice stroke perfectly right to the spot where they will make the cue ball jump and then on the delivery they will move their grip hand forward, or drop the shoulder, or short stroke (jab), or any number of things that all add up to ONE RESULT - they don't hit the cue ball where they intended to.

The same thing applies with the application of sidespin on a normal shot. Using any method you want to apply spin you will miss shots and miss position by doing things that cause you to not hit the spot you are aiming at.

If we accept the premise that the bridge is a fulcrum which allows for horizontal and lateral movement then it's easy to see that any extra movement that causes the back of the cue to dip, swerve, go up or anything other than straight will result in the tip contact not being in the place where it should be.

Thus it's easy to miss shots because of poor mechanics. BHE or SE (I refuse to call it Parallel English) doesn't matter if you can't deliver accurately.

 

[Jaden]

I totally agree....

I am going to bring up another example from teaching jumping that applies here.

When teaching or better said learning to teach jumping I have had many discoveries along the way.

One of those discoveries was how much a person's stroking habits affect a shot.

What I mean is that a person can be lined up dead perfect and practice stroke perfectly right to the spot where they will make the cue ball jump and then on the delivery they will move their grip hand forward, or drop the shoulder, or short stroke (jab), or any number of things that all add up to ONE RESULT - they don't hit the cue ball where they intended to.

The same thing applies with the application of sidespin on a normal shot. Using any method you want to apply spin you will miss shots and miss position by doing things that cause you to not hit the spot you are aiming at.

If we accept the premise that the bridge is a fulcrum which allows for horizontal and lateral movement then it's easy to see that any extra movement that causes the back of the cue to dip, swerve, go up or anything other than straight will result in the tip contact not being in the place where it should be.

Thus it's easy to miss shots because of poor mechanics. BHE or SE (I refuse to call it Parallel English) doesn't matter if you can't deliver accurately.

That;s why when I'm teaching someone and they ask what the best drill they can do is, I tell them that the best drill they can do is the bottle stroke drill.

When I was living in Mexico and I was trying to develop my stroke for using BHE. I would set my bridge hand on the table and practice stroking. I would always leave my bridge hand in the same location and practice rotating out on an imaginary CB following the hands on the clock. First at dead center. Then at 9 o'clock, then following all the hands in clockwise rotation.

Now, what I did was rotate to the position that I wanted to stroke and then do my practice strokes and follow through stroke straight through the spot as though I was dead center.

This drill helps to use BHE. Remember though that you want to raise and lower your bridge on follow and draw shots, so that you can keep the plane of your cue as parallel as possible to the slate. This helps to minimize swerve.

JAden

 

[whitewolf]

WW. I do not twist my cue in the middle of my stroke. After I set my aim, I BHE, then I do two small warm-up strokes and go....SPF=randyg

Yes, but your warm-up strokes have to be unnatural because you did twist your cue and your cue is no longer in line with your natural stance.

This is EXACTLY what I mean by grooving a bad habit!

 

[whitewolf]

Please watch the video again. Backhand english users (as defined in these forums for a decade) do not twist their cue in the middle of the shot.

Most BHE users pivot their cue prior to their warm up strokes, either down on the ball or in the air before planting their bridge hand. They don't in general pivot during their strokeing.

There are several people who pivot their backhand during the shot in a method I've dubbed "dynamic backhand english," while other people call it swooping or swerving into the english. That's not what's being discussed by Jaden or Colin.

Fred

Sorry everyone. I meant twisting while you are aiming and not during the actual stroke.

 

[Cornerman]

Fred I think that this one was directed at me, and it wasn't a confusion of terms more than a limited explanation of the concept.

I should have included pivot points in my original discussion to eleviate and possibility of confusion.

Jaden

Actually, it wasn't directed at you, but I'm glad to see that you understand the differences. The confusion of the terms started years ago for various reasons.

When Hal Houle introduced the term Backhand English, low deflection cues and such were relatively new, and most normal cues had a pivot point near enough to a comfortable bridge length such that you could use a pretty broad range of bridge lengths and simply pivot and shoot, and the shots would still go in.

But, when the Aim and Pivot Test started to get a bit more press time (most of us on the internet at the time had heard of the Aim & Pivot Test before we heard of the term Backhand English) with more understanding of squirt and such, people were able to test a multitude of "normal" cues and saw pivot lengths of very small (5-6") to relatively long (~16"), for some reason there was just a strange thing that happened where people didn't see or write the separation of the pivot length and bridge length and deemed some of these pivot lengths "too long or too short to be used as the bridge length." For some reason, many of the esteemed posters always connected bridge and pivot lengths as if they had to stay together. So, the confusion continued and continues.

So, for one, a specific pivot length and a bridge length don't have to coincide because there is a range near and around the pivot length that you can use as a bridge and pivot and still work. Additionally, if the pivot length is too long to use as a bridge and pivot, then pivoting first and sliding the bridge hand post pivot has been an option since we all figured out what Aim & Pivot was about.

Fred

 

[eezbank]

Sorry everyone. I meant twisting while you are aiming and not during the actual stroke.

I think you should try it with just one full tip pivot. I rarely use more than one. There isn't a twisting of the cue that feels awkward. I don't air pivot like some do on here. I find my aim line pivot and fire.

 

[whitewolf]

He clearly doesn't use BHE for the shot before, and I don't think you can see whether or not he does on this shot. I'm skeptical - why doesn't he use it on all sidespin shots (like the one before)?

pj
chgo

Good point! If you watch Shane a lot, he uses the parallel method. This shot at the end of the tape is IMHO a BHE gimmick used not to follow the object ball into the pocket.

 

[whitewolf]

If you watch Bustamante when he shoots, he actually gets down on the shot with BHE already applied. Which probably means that he is doing it in his head as he gets down on the shot.

I've heard people say that he's using a fractional aiming system or what have you, but considering that I learned about BHE from Efren and I know of atleast five other top fillipinos that use it, if you understand the concepts behind it, it makes more sense that he is using BHE.

Jaden

This is a REACH for Bustamante. Oh yeah, he does the BHE thing in his head before he gets down over the shot. What kind of nonsense is that? Personally, I think he may be the one person who pivots during his backswing, but I could be full of baloney too :grin: .

In all honesty, I think it is impossible to tell what he is doing because his stoke is all over the place on the backswing. It is crooked as hell. But he follows through nicely and when he is on, I don't think anyone can beat him, especially with his break.

 

[Rich93]

The Gospel According To Me - Learning To Aim Wrong

Given a certain shot and a desired speed and a desired amount (number of tips) of english, to make the shot you have to "aim wrong". With the correct "wrong aim" you will make the shot because your "wrong aim" correctly compensates for squirt, swerve and throw.

There are different ways of achieving the correct "wrong aim". One is BHE, where you attempt to aim the ball as if you were not applying english and then pivot around your bridge. It is a way of adjusting without thinking about it - about how far off you should aim.

Another approach is pure judgment learned by the experience of shooting a lot of shots with english. Here the mental approach could be something like "I'm shooting with two tips of outside english and hitting it pretty hard, so swerve and throw aren't going to be so important, so I will aim to miss the ball by two inches south of the pocket - there, that looks about right". Now, an experienced player will not necessarily go through all these mental gymnastics - it becomes sort of automatic after a while.

So that's the difference - achieving the correct "wrong aim" through a type of automatic adjustment, or through judgment learned from experience. Both ways work, but the BHE way seems like a quicker way of learning to deal with english and has attracted a following on this site.

One problem with pure BHE is that with a LD shaft your pivot point can be really way back so that your bridge length is uncomfortable and your stroke hard to control. So then you have to introduce judgment again - move your bridge hand a little and then use BHE, a la Joe Tucker's free video on his website.

Joe dumps on what he calls "parallel english", which he demonstrates by missing shots. I'm not sure what he means by parallel english. If he means aiming to make the shot as if you are not applying english, of course it is bad and he will miss. To make the shot you have to "aim wrong" one way or another (unless the particular shot and speed and amount of english are such that squirt is exactly canceled by swerve and throw).

What I believe - and now I'm going to contradict the simplified discussion above - it's impossible to avoid judgment by using any automatic system. Pure BHE doesn't work on many shots. Throw, for example, can be really important on some shots. You may exactly compensate for squirt by BHE but throw the ball into the rail if you ignore throw on those shots where it's significant. Similarly with swerve. You either introduce judgment by varying your bridge length for different shots, or by combining moving your bridge with BHE, or some combo. You just can't escape judgment acquired through experience.

 

[IA8baller]

For BHE to work the pivot point has to be at the bridge length. This is impossible with LD shafts or in some situations. A way of compensating for it is using a combination of FHE (front hand English) and BHE.

So if you know what the pivot point is, you can adjust your bridge hand and or your shooting arm and body so that it is effectively pivoting at the cues pivot point.

So really what BHE is, is a way of adjusting your cue based on the original true, non-english aimline, using whatever method is necessary based on your cues pivot point.

In my opinion because of how well BHE works, it is better NOT to use LD shafts and to find one with a pivot point that is closest to your actual bridge length.

JAden.

Very well put. I understand exactly what you are talking about here. But I do disagree with your statement that it's better NOT to use LD shafts.

Right or wrong............I play with the LD shafts, Predator 314-2 to be exact, and a lot of my game benefits from the LD characteristics but I also understand and do occasionally use BHE, but it's not true BHE I guess because I do have to slightly adjust the front end (the bridge) along with the back end to get consistant results because of the LD shaft just like you mentioned above.

I think the art of using BHE while using LD shafts can be used very effectively as long as you have the right knowledge and a very good stroke. But that's just my opinion.

 

[cmbwsu]

Nice video Jaden. I've posted it up on my new blog for those who'd like to take a look.
www.thepoolpack.com

btw: I'm not sure that pj is saying BHE doesn't work, just that it requires adjustments and the adjustments would [highlight]appear to be very complex[/highlight] due to all the variables.

FWIW, I've found that the [highlight]adjustments are not as difficult to overcome as one might tend to imagine[/highlight], especially for the typical shots where one is likely to attempt english.

Colin

What appears to be difficult/complex at first become no brainers once they are used/known/practiced.

(Nice Blog Colin -- that Jib Jab is classic :grin

[size=+2]Bob[/size]

 

[Colin Colenso]

Actually, it wasn't directed at you, but I'm glad to see that you understand the differences. The confusion of the terms started years ago for various reasons.

When Hal Houle introduced the term Backhand English, low deflection cues and such were relatively new, and most normal cues had a pivot point near enough to a comfortable bridge length such that you could use a pretty broad range of bridge lengths and simply pivot and shoot, and the shots would still go in.

But, when the Aim and Pivot Test started to get a bit more press time (most of us on the internet at the time had heard of the Aim & Pivot Test before we heard of the term Backhand English) with more understanding of squirt and such, people were able to test a multitude of "normal" cues and saw pivot lengths of very small (5-6") to relatively long (~16"), for some reason there was just a strange thing that happened where people didn't see or write the separation of the pivot length and bridge length and deemed some of these pivot lengths "too long or too short to be used as the bridge length." For some reason, many of the esteemed posters always connected bridge and pivot lengths as if they had to stay together. So, the confusion continued and continues.

So, for one, a specific pivot length and a bridge length don't have to coincide because there is a range near and around the pivot length that you can use as a bridge and pivot and still work. Additionally, if the pivot length is too long to use as a bridge and pivot, then pivoting first and sliding the bridge hand post pivot has been an option since we all figured out what Aim & Pivot was about.

Fred

I guess that's one way of doing it Fred. It does allow a player to stroke from whatever bridge length they want to, but it also requires intuitive adjustments (unless you've developed a method to systematize it).

Personally I almost entirely use systematic bridge length adjustments such that my bridge length = my effective pivot point for that shot. Hence, my bridge length varies from about 9.5 to 13.5 inches during play. It may be longer on long slow shots especially if the table is sticky.

The exceptions are when my bridge is impeded, in which case I change my aim (via a bit of reasoned estimation) pre-pivot.

Colin

 

[Colin Colenso]

What appears to be difficult/complex at first become no brainers once they are used/known/practiced.

(Nice Blog Colin -- that Jib Jab is classic :grin

[size=+2]Bob[/size]

Glad you enjoyed it.