Inside English Drills
- Thread starter poolfoole
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3Bros Billiards
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I always have trouble with inside english too. I think it is because it is used less in most people's game.
set up a shot and mark the table where the object ball and the cue ball are. (those sticky polo-like ring binder things work best).
practice the shot at three speeds - soft, medium, and hard. make sure you're nailing it multiple times in a row till you can't miss it, and then reposition the balls for a new shot.
you're just got to keep drilling the same shots over and over again sometimes to drum them in.
practice the shot at three speeds - soft, medium, and hard. make sure you're nailing it multiple times in a row till you can't miss it, and then reposition the balls for a new shot.
you're just got to keep drilling the same shots over and over again sometimes to drum them in.
Joe Tucker has a great way to work on english. Look at the first shot in Guarentied Improvement (I know I suck at spelling, sorry). And hit it with a firm (not break speed or lag speed, a speed that will lag three lengths of the table), using max english. Inside, outside, who cares, you'll be able to shoot the cue ball straight.
Joe, if I got this wrong, please correct me.
Pete
Joe, if I got this wrong, please correct me.
Pete
I use it about the same as outside.Specially if the OB is touching or close the rail to bring the CB around 3 rails to the middle of the table. This shot comes up pretty often.
So to practice inside, I just use the same drills I would for outside. Placing the OB in situations where I would require inside.
I also practice inside with high (11 or 1 o'clock). For shots where I need to come off one rail and I would need to straighten the CB more towards the next OB.
I do this more than shots that require inside bottom. I don't know why I think it's cuz it doesn't come up as often. I should practice that shot too though..
I've detailed some stroke drills that include inside english (my problem shot also). I found that if I spend 30 minutes on these shots that my STROKE will be more in tune.
http://www.geocities.com/cincytom314/Templates_and_Drills.html
http://www.geocities.com/cincytom314/Templates_and_Drills.html
poolfoole
Banned
I just order a bunch of Joe's material last week and haven't received it yet. I"ve seen some of his material and really like what I've seen so far. I'll definitely try that out when my order arrives. Thanks.
poolfoole
Banned
Thanks a lot, Tom. That "3 rail position drill" shot has been another weak shot of mine over the years. I often scratch in the lower, left pocket or come very close to scratching, instead of hitting the 3rd rail.
The "4 rail position drill" shot is exactly the type of shot that I was talking about. I've practiced variations of that shot lots of times, and the main problem I have is scratching in the upper left corner pocket. I never can get enough spin to come into the 2nd diamond on the end rail like in the diagram. I can't figure out what I'm doing wrong. I usually end up shooting this shot with a big draw stroke, since my draw stroke is pretty good.
Here are two shots that come up all the time where you must use a fair amount of inside spin for position. Practice these a bunch of times with slight variations in positioning. The exact placement of the first shot isn't important, you just need to drill it with high and inside to get the cue ball 3 rails around the table. Because there's a lot of cue ball travel, you need to hit pretty hard, and that means you'll end up deflecting a bit (depending on what you're shooting with). In extreme cases, on a shot like this, you might need to aim to hit the ball almost full in the face to compensate for it.
This second shot could be used get shape on the side pocket nearest you. Situations come up where going 2 rails with inside will get better position for you than just going down and up again off of 1 rail (because you don't need as much accuracy in your speed control or you must dodge balls that are near the rack area). Try putting the OB in more or less the same place but giving yourself an increasingly steep angle on the CB. The goal is to hit the rail at the top of the diagram somewhere near (but not past) the side pocket. As you move the cue ball closer and closer to the center of the table, this gets tougher.
A trick I have found useful when using inside... in the past I'd usually hit heavy inside english shots with high+inside, thinking it'd help the cue ball "run" better and spin off the rails more sharply. It turns out that you'll actually get more action if you stick to hitting pretty close to center and just focus on that sidespin more. These shots in the diagrams benefit from hitting a bit high on the cue ball, but on other shots (especially where the CB is really close to the OB, or the OB is really close to the rail) you'll find you should forget about hitting high entirely. In fact, for soft touch shots where you really want the cue ball to come off with lots of sidespin after the first rail... you'll even hit a little low and inside. It's like doing a draw drag shot, but the draw is used to "preserve" the inside english over a short distance rather than to kill speed.
This second shot could be used get shape on the side pocket nearest you. Situations come up where going 2 rails with inside will get better position for you than just going down and up again off of 1 rail (because you don't need as much accuracy in your speed control or you must dodge balls that are near the rack area). Try putting the OB in more or less the same place but giving yourself an increasingly steep angle on the CB. The goal is to hit the rail at the top of the diagram somewhere near (but not past) the side pocket. As you move the cue ball closer and closer to the center of the table, this gets tougher.
A trick I have found useful when using inside... in the past I'd usually hit heavy inside english shots with high+inside, thinking it'd help the cue ball "run" better and spin off the rails more sharply. It turns out that you'll actually get more action if you stick to hitting pretty close to center and just focus on that sidespin more. These shots in the diagrams benefit from hitting a bit high on the cue ball, but on other shots (especially where the CB is really close to the OB, or the OB is really close to the rail) you'll find you should forget about hitting high entirely. In fact, for soft touch shots where you really want the cue ball to come off with lots of sidespin after the first rail... you'll even hit a little low and inside. It's like doing a draw drag shot, but the draw is used to "preserve" the inside english over a short distance rather than to kill speed.
Here are two shots that come up all the time where you must use a fair amount of inside spin for position. Practice these a bunch of times with slight variations in positioning. The exact placement of the first shot isn't important, you just need to drill it with high and inside to get the cue ball 3 rails around the table. Because there's a lot of cue ball travel, you need to hit pretty hard, and that means you'll end up deflecting a bit (depending on what you're shooting with). In extreme cases, on a shot like this, you might need to aim to hit the ball almost full in the face to compensate for it.
This second shot could be used get shape on the side pocket nearest you. Situations come up where going 2 rails with inside will get better position for you than just going down and up again off of 1 rail (because you don't need as much accuracy in your speed control or you must dodge balls that are near the rack area). Try putting the OB in more or less the same place but giving yourself an increasingly steep angle on the CB. The goal is to hit the rail at the top of the diagram somewhere near (but not past) the side pocket. As you move the cue ball closer and closer to the center of the table, this gets tougher.
haha Creedo you read my mind! Those were the exact same shots I was thinking about when I was describing the shots that always comes up that require inside on my previous post. Except you illustrated it better with the images haha! But yea, so I don't know why inside is so intimidating to some.
But yea the first example is the one I practice a lot. Often I would overhit the CB and go past the right side of the OB. I think for that shot though, you would need to trust the spin more than arm strength, specially on fast tables. I find that I usualyl over hit it out of line because I hit it too hard whereas the spin alone would take the CB far enough to my intended line.