Jumping up

[BRKNRUN]

"To break a "bad" habit you must create a "good" habit to take its place"

I too am a recovering Jump up addict....

Here is what I do to cure the habit.

During practice set up for a shot, take your warm up strokes and then as you "pause" at the CB (make sure your focus is on the OB...or wherever you like to focus) close your eyes and take your stroke....do this about 100 times for various shots.

Doing this will do a couple things. It will make sure your last focal point is your "object" (not no man's land where your eyes are transitioning). The other thing it will do is make you very aware of "any" body movement. If anything is moving you will miss the ball. When you get good at this you will be able to pocket balls almost as if your eyes were open.

The other thing I do is (may not work for everyone) I like to feel my right cheek to just be touching my right shoulder. This kind of "pins" my head in a position and keeps me from jumping up....(that is now the habit I try to keep that prevents the bad habit). When I "forget" to feel that cheeck touching the shoulder...I start to not jump up (per say), but raise up during the stroke. (obviously by my avitar I am left handed or I should say "shoot" left handed.......and bald)

Its a very tough habit to break...life long effort for some of us...(I am working on my 6 month pin right now...LOL)

 

[Get_A_Grip]

I've heard accustat commentators say that so-and-so was doomed to miss the long tough shot because of the way he jumped up.

But I think people are frequently mixing up what is the cause and what is the effect.

In many instances, imo, when the Efren's of the world jump up, it is *because* he missed the shot. I think it can go like this. You have a tough shot. You get into position, take your warm-up strokes and everything looks right. Then you take the business stroke. As you're striking the ball--after the point of no return--you can tell the aim is wrong, but it's too late to do anything about it. For good players who rarely pop up, I think this is frequently what is going on when you do see them pop up. They know they've already missed the shot. If so, they they're not missing the shot
*because* they jumped up, but they're jumping up *because* they missed the shot.
mike page
fargo

I'm glad that you brought this up. I've actually overheard someone talking about me "jumping up" as the reason that I missed a shot. When I can tell you, that the reason that I got up from the shot was because as soon as I stroked the shot, I new that I had missed it.

To stay down during a shot that you know for sure that you have missed is just pouring salt in the wound (IMO). Good point that you've made here, because I've seen pros do this also.

 

[dirtydog48]

Great responses

It is nice to see I am not alone. Worked on it today and it appears the cause is one of those things I seem to have to re re re re re re-learn. Why does this game seem to be one long process of re-learning what we already know??
Anyway, for me, the "pause" before my final stroke seems to let my brain catch up to what I am doing, and somehow I forgot to do it. When I pause, I do not jump up (duhh).
I feel like Brknrun should win some sort of prize for pointing it out, even though I read his response after I got home.