Is a Straight Stroke All That Important?

[dkleather]

Stick with that thinking, and you will never reach your potential. You have a lot to learn grasshopper. Reminds me of the the saying "you don't know what you don't know".

If you are going to quote me and reply, I would be grateful if you did not do so with glib platitudes. Your reply says absolutely nothing to me other than that you disagree with my opinion but are not prepared to back up your own opinion with anything meaningful.

If you are prepared to say anything insightful or informative then I will be delighted to consider it and possibly change my opinion, a good instructor explains the reasons for any required change. They do not get it by belittling or dismissing their student.

 

[Neil]

Yes, it's all about a repeatable PSR. And for most guys success is going to end up looking something like a straight stroke. However, which would you rather: a picture perfect straight stroke that makes you a 30 ball runner, or a stroke with a hitch in it that makes you a 60 ball runner?

Looking at the pros you can see that very few have a perfectly straight stroke. That does not preclude them from playing pretty sporty though. I'm just saying that I think there is too much emphasis on being able to stroke a cue through the neck of a Coke bottle.

Lou Figueroa

..................

 

[sfleinen]

On a larger table yes and perhaps why snooker players have the mechanics they do. But on a 9' table, not so much. And that's why pool players have the mechanics they do.

And, if a swoop is consistent, it is not a variable.

Lou Figueroa

This is true, Lou. (Say that one really fast. Sounds like the name of a tribe in Africa. )

However, what is the chance that a swoop or a hitch is "consistent"? What, that it consistently occurs, or that it occurs in exactly the same spot every time? (The former is useless, and actually is a variable. The latter is not. But how many of us know precisely where in our stroke that "known hitch" is occuring prior to -- or worse, right at -- cue ball contact?)

Also, concerning speed control (answering a reply to another poster's question) -- when in the stroke-straightening phase of one's development (whether that be the usual coaching in snooker, or SPF in pool, or even on one's own if one possesses extreme awareness and studiousness about stroke mechanics), part of the diagnosis of one's stroke includes where those swoops, hitches, and yaw occur at various speeds. By practicing stroke diagnosis at varying speeds, one sometimes finds that a hitch occurs only at slow speeds, and high speeds actually tend to "grease over" these hitches. Or, the reverse may be true -- at slow speeds, the shooter is able to deliver the cue straight, but when putting a little oomph behind it, he/she finds that parts of his/her hand (e.g. the heel of the hand) may "bump" into the cue, adding a hitch or yaw.

Stroke therapy (for lack of a better phrase?) includes significant work through all speeds, muscle-memorizing it. Some of my favorite practice shots in this regard is a very long diagonal straight-in shot (i.e. the cue ball in one of the corner pockets, the object ball on the center spot on the table, and shooting a dead straight-in to the opposite corner). I like to lag these so the object ball j-u-s-t reaches the pocket, and "falls over" into the pocket. This is not easy, but it definitely helps one's sense of "touch"!

-Sean

 

[Neil]

If you are going to quote me and reply, I would be grateful if you did not do so with glib platitudes. Your reply says absolutely nothing to me other than that you disagree with my opinion but are not prepared to back up your own opinion with anything meaningful.

If you are prepared to say anything insightful or informative then I will be delighted to consider it and possibly change my opinion, a good instructor explains the reasons for any required change. They do not get it by belittling or dismissing their student.

................

 

[Patrick Johnson]

But, but... what if you're a natural mit a crooked or side-armed stroke, as many a great player has been? Didn't Greenleaf and Hoppe have huge honkin' swerpes in their strokes?

Lou Figueroa

My post agreed with yours (but apparently in a different language).

pj <- no hablo
chgo

 

[Snapshot9]

Something that hasn't been mentioned

is that some players have an erratic stroke until the final stroke. The best example I can give is Bustamante's stroke. I have studied him intently. His first strokes look like a hully-gully type stroke, but his final stroke comes in straight and true.

Another example of a funny stroke would be Mike Davis. What in the world is he aiming at before he shoots ... lol Another one is my good friend, Cliff 'Jr' Brown, he looks like he is going to put high right english on every shot, but when he delivers the last stroke, it has the right english on it.

I am sure they all developed their stroke at a young age, and probably had to overcome some deficiencies before they perfected their stroke. The point being, though, is if you have a straight stroke to begin with, you can learn to make balls, it just takes practice, and speed control is not that tough except for a 3 or 4 rail shape with a small window for shape.

 

[lfigueroa]

Again, Lou, that is because you want to take someone that has 20,000 hours of practice to make their way repeatable for THEM, and hold them up as an example for everyone to use. As I stated in an earlier thread, you want to make an excuse for having a poor foundation, and then building on it. That is just foolish. Very few will ever get away with it.

If you look at the pros you are referring to, at the moment of impact, which is what really matters, their stroke is straight as an arrow. They have perfected their timing to make it straight at the moment it needs to be straight. Now, which is better, to teach someone to keep it straight as long as possible for the entire stroke duration, or to do whatever they want to as long as they have perfect timing so it is straight at the moment of impact?? Which one do you think is going to have more problems down the road??

We have seen videos of you shooting. Now, don't get me wrong, I am NOT knocking your playing ability in the least. However, I am using YOU and YOUR way of thinking to point out something to you...when the pressure was on, how did YOUR method hold up? You know it didn't hold up as you wanted it to. There were too many things wrong in your stroke to hold up under pressure.

Now, let's assume that your training didn't consist of having perfect timing in your swoop to hit the cb at just the right part in your swoop, but instead your training consisted of having a straight stroke to start with. Don't you think that your results would have been better not having to concern yourself at all with the timing of your hit??

My results might have been better if I hadn't just gotten off three weeks of traveling to Europe and NYC without hitting a ball. OTOH, When TAR streamed my match from the US Open last year I was quite happy with my results

Here's my bottom line on this: this thread has nothing to do with anti-instructorism and I'm going to ask you to stop trying to hijack the thread into something it is not.

Lou Figueroa

 

[lfigueroa]

This is true, Lou. (Say that one really fast. Sounds like the name of a tribe in Africa. )

However, what is the chance that a swoop or a hitch is "consistent"? What, that it consistently occurs, or that it occurs in exactly the same spot every time? (The former is useless, and actually is a variable. The latter is not. But how many of us know precisely where in our stroke that "known hitch" is occuring prior to -- or worse, right at -- cue ball contact?)

Also, concerning speed control (answering a reply to another poster's question) -- when in the stroke-straightening phase of one's development (whether that be the usual coaching in snooker, or SPF in pool, or even on one's own if one possesses extreme awareness and studiousness about stroke mechanics), part of the diagnosis of one's stroke includes where those swoops, hitches, and yaw occur at various speeds. By practicing stroke diagnosis at varying speeds, one sometimes finds that a hitch occurs only at slow speeds, and high speeds actually tend to "grease over" these hitches. Or, the reverse may be true -- at slow speeds, the shooter is able to deliver the cue straight, but when putting a little oomph behind it, he/she finds that parts of his/her hand (e.g. the heel of the hand) may "bump" into the cue, adding a hitch or yaw.

Stroke therapy (for lack of a better phrase?) includes significant work through all speeds, muscle-memorizing it. Some of my favorite practice shots in this regard is a very long diagonal straight-in shot (i.e. the cue ball in one of the corner pockets, the object ball on the center spot on the table, and shooting a dead straight-in to the opposite corner). I like to lag these so the object ball j-u-s-t reaches the pocket, and "falls over" into the pocket. This is not easy, but it definitely helps one's sense of "touch"!

-Sean

I think, if natural, or the result of a well-defined PSR, it is very likely the swoop or hitch will be consistent.

As to the speed control issue I know from personal experimentation that it is possible to have a straight stroke that, for a number of reasons, does not provide the player with optimal speed control, and it's not just a matter of practice and memorization -- it is much more, IMO, a matter of mechanics. Just because it's straight does not automatically mean it comes with a sensitive throttle.

Lou Figueroa

 

[Patrick Johnson]

To Lou:
We have seen videos of you shooting. Now, don't get me wrong, I am NOT knocking your playing ability in the least. However, I am using YOU and YOUR way of thinking to point out something to you...when the pressure was on, how did YOUR method hold up? You know it didn't hold up as you wanted it to. There were too many things wrong in your stroke to hold up under pressure.

This is uninformed nonsense. I've played Lou a few times over the years and the main thing I always notice about his game is his minimalist, pure and extremely straight stroke.

You're just picking at one of your many grudges.

pj
chgo

 

[lfigueroa]

A good student does not start out by saying what you did. You obviously have no real intention of learning anything here, going by what you have already stated. To cover all the things wrong in your post, I could write a book about it. I am not going to do that. You obviously have no real idea what or why instructors teach what they do, or you would not make the statements you did. Yet, you did make them. Which is exactly why I made the "glip platitude" that you have much to learn yet.

I will reference just one of the false assumptions you made- "There is no short cut for these hours of practice and this is the lie that many instructors sell us. " You equate short cut to mean little to no practice. NO instructor on here has EVER stated that opinion. A short cut means that you start out doing things the right way and can spend say 500 hours of practice on it to master it rather than just going by the seat of your pants to try and figure it out (if you ever do figure it out) and having spent 5,000 hours doing it a bunch of wrong ways and trying to unlearn what you where doing wrong to ingrain the right way you might have finally figured out on your own.

Neil, I'm going to ask you a second time to stop trying to hijack this thread into another one of your anti-instuctor polemics.

Lou Figueroa

 

[dkleather]

A good student does not start out by saying what you did. You obviously have no real intention of learning anything here, going by what you have already stated. To cover all the things wrong in your post, I could write a book about it. I am not going to do that. You obviously have no real idea what or why instructors teach what they do, or you would not make the statements you did. Yet, you did make them. Which is exactly why I made the "glip platitude" that you have much to learn yet.

I will reference just one of the false assumptions you made- "There is no short cut for these hours of practice and this is the lie that many instructors sell us. " You equate short cut to mean little to no practice. NO instructor on here has EVER stated that opinion. A short cut means that you start out doing things the right way and can spend say 500 hours of practice on it to master it rather than just going by the seat of your pants to try and figure it out (if you ever do figure it out) and having spent 5,000 hours doing it a bunch of wrong ways and trying to unlearn what you where doing wrong to ingrain the right way you might have finally figured out on your own.

You reference what you consider a false assumption of mine and immediately follow it with "You equate short cut to mean little to no practice". An assumption.

To make matters worse you then make the 500hrs vs 5000hrs statement immediately after telling us no instructor has ever said that. Well guess what, they have now.

I see now that you are an instructor, which is clearly why you have latched on to a part of my post you did not like rather than actually try to answer the post. I know it is a difficult post to answer but I am disappointed you did not have the courage to try.

Lou, I am sorry but this guy has completely belittled my point of view and then failed to reply with a word of sense.

 

[Scaramouche]

I think that might be overrating the merits of a straight stroke. Suppose the stroke is straight but lacks speed control?

Lou Figueroa

Suppose he has speed control on a slow bar box and tries to play on, say, a heated, newly recovered snooker table?

Speed is just another variable

 

[Neil]

Neil, I'm going to ask you a second time to stop trying to hijack this thread into another one of your anti-instuctor polemics.

Lou Figueroa

............

 

[Neil]

You reference what you consider a false assumption of mine and immediately follow it with "You equate short cut to mean little to no practice". An assumption.

To make matters worse you then make the 500hrs vs 5000hrs statement immediately after telling us no instructor has ever said that. Well guess what, they have now.

I see now that you are an instructor, which is clearly why you have latched on to a part of my post you did not like rather than actually try to answer the post. I know it is a difficult post to answer but I am disappointed you did not have the courage to try.

Lou, I am sorry but this guy has completely belittled my point of view and then failed to reply with a word of sense.

..........

 

[LAlouie]

IMO, there are straight strokes, and then... there are straight strokes.

For the vast majority of players, anything vaguely resembling a straight stroke is good enough to play a few times a week, or in a league. After all, people can make an amazing number of balls with crooked strokes, opposite-handed, with mechanical bridges, one-handed, and of course, even no-handed.



Some of us that spend many hours playing (and hoping to play at the higher levels), exhaust a considerable amount of time on the practice table, in front of mirrors, with odd gadgets and Coke bottles, chasing down the elusive straight stroke. Until, perhaps, we discover that a straight stroke, in and of itself, isn't good enough. IOW, just because you stroke perfectly straight playing air pool, or going in and out of a bottle, or even with actual pool balls, isn't the secret.



I think the reason for that is that any player can make the cue travel on a perfectly straight track, using many different methods or techniques. Put another way, you can produce a perfectly straight stroke using a wide variety of stroke mechanics -- different stances, bridges, grips, head heights, crooked or bent bridge arms, grip arm alignments, pinkies on or off, etc. But it has to be a straight (or even crooked stroke for that matter) that produces the desired/expected results for your hypothesis, each time you shoot at a pool ball. The object balls need to be going in the pockets and the cue ball has to be going where you want and expect it to go. I think that's the secret. I'm not so sure it's important if the stroke that accomplishes that is straight, crooked, a swoop, or a dip.

What say you -- is a straight stroke all that important?



Lou Figueroa

That's a really overdone analysis of stroke. Basically it sounds like you're saying "whatever it takes". However THIS ___" different stances, bridges, grips, head heights, crooked or bent bridge arms, grip arm alignments, pinkies on or off, etc." has nothing really to do with THE STROKE per se. These are ancillary points. THE STROKE is the action that carries the cue to and through the cueball. So with regards to the ACTION, straight stroke matters.

 

[Neil]

............

 

[berko]

Fish on!

 

[Neil]

This is uninformed nonsense. I've played Lou a few times over the years and the main thing I always notice about his game is his minimalist, pure and extremely straight stroke.

You're just picking at one of your many grudges.

pj
chgo

...............

 

[dkleather]

When you start to make any sense, let me know. And, thanks for proving my point so well.

Try re-reading the 500 part, maybe you will understand it the second time around.

I understood it perfectly, it rabbles on about foundation which illustrates the point that you have failed to read the part in my original post where I say an instructor should give a student the basics.

More importantly it illustrates the fact that despite quoting my post and then latching on to a part of it that suited your agenda, you either skimmed it or did not read it fully, or of course simply did not understand it.

Have the courage to read it properly and try to answer what is in it, not try to twist it to suit your own agenda. I don't think the concepts are beyond you.

 

[TheThaiger]

Let most cue sports instructors I know loose on Greenleaf, McCreadie, Alex Higgins, Earl etc and you'd have four shop assistants in no time.

Good post.

Two things;

1. I agree with your point on coaching generally, but think coaches can be useful to the more established player to iron out specific issues or flaws as they develop.

2. Following on from that, the reason aging snooker players 'fall off a cliff' can be as much to changing body shapes/muscle weakening as it is to eyesight or other priorities. Older players often have to completely redesign their stance in later life, and this is difficult. It can be a 'finger in the dyke' scenario - solving one problem creates another. Coaches can help here, I think.

But I don't like the idea of continuous, programmed coaching per se. Timing has been mentioned several times on this thread and it's good to see - it's perhaps the most important thing to master in cuesports and is rarely discussed on here, probably because it can't be taught.