Joe T
Well-known member
Lesson 1 on the Yips
Reporting back after my first ever lesson with a player that has a case of pocket billiard “yips”. For those of you that didn’t follow the hesitation in my stroke post, we are talking about a syndrome in which a players stroking arm refuses to come forward for the final stroke, it’s like someone or something is holding there arm back and they just can’t pull the trigger. It is a more common thing for golfers to go thru, read some here but start at the bottom of the page; yipsdiary
When I showed up I was thinking that the yips probably wouldn’t show up on demand or in my presence due to lack of pressure, that’s just usually how things work. But I was wrong, my student (and friend) I guess was just nervous enough and the yips showed up right away while I had him running some balls in rotation. His case had definitely worsened over the last few years. When it first started it would only happen once in while and now it seemed to happen a few times per rack!
Neither of us knew for sure what was causing this hesitation but there were a couple of things that I believe definitely contributed towards it. #1. He was at the end of his rope, he was about as totally frustrated as a pool player can get and this is a pretty mellow guy and #2 boy was he way out of whack (his alignment and follow thru) After having him shoot some shots in rotation and seeing the yips in action I started having him shoot some straight in shots and he was (unknowingly) approaching the cue ball with about ¾ of a tip of left hand English and his stick was about 5-10 degrees angled off line (with the butt end out to the right and the tip to the left). This is a common problem but his was painfully obvious (and painful to watch) and as usual with a player that is lined up favoring the left side of the cue ball he followed thru to the right (again, unintentionally). A few more observations were that his stick was located under his right eye (something I believe can (but doesn’t always) cause a player to favor the left side of the cue ball) and his stroke, in particular his practice strokes. Rather than have the cue tip come right up to the cue ball and all the way back to his bridge hand, his strokes were caught up in the middle, meaning his tip would stop about an inch or two before the cue ball and 3-4 inches away from his bridge hand and all I could see were these what seemed to be little short tension building warm up strokes and what would almost be a lunge towards the cue ball! There was definitely enough physically wrong to cause this subconscious yip so finding all these flaws gave us both hope.
Many of you can guess what I did next and no, this is not a freakin commercial. I took out the only thing I had brought to the lesson, (but boy do I wish I had brought my camcorder, would have made for a great before and after picture), a 3rd Eye. I put it on the cue stick, showed him what I wanted him to do, which was just to settle down to the shot, with no warm up strokes, just try to place the arms on the side of the cue ball, find center ball and aim the shot. He did that and he was straight, usually when I straighten them out it appears wrong or weird to them but to him he said no this feels okay but I did notice that his stick was now much closer to the center of his chin.
Now I let him start taking some shots. He was now lined up better but old habits die hard, his last second stroke correction to the right was still there even though his alignment was straighter. So I had to go down there and hold my finger next to his cue in between his bridge hand and the cue ball and instruct him not to let the cue stick hit my finger. I also told him to make his back hand as soft as possible and to then lift the cue only with his back hand, which is impossible to do if your back hand is soft without tension and then I said okay keep it that way. Well he was still steering and I explained that he was too caught up in the outcome of the shot and that he was actually going blind for a split second (from the time he was about to pull the trigger till the shot was over) he could not even see where his tip would end up at the end of the shot. So I set an example by shooting a few shots and had him focus on my tip at the end of each shot and he said okay, I got it. I told him it’s okay to miss, who gives a ****, just focus on the tip coming straight thru. It took a little while but he started to do it so I had him hit some about as hard as he comfortable could while staying straight and I asked him to do it without dropping the elbow, not that I think that is right is wrong, I just wanted a certain type of stroke to appear and it did. He started hitting them much cleaner and hit a few solid stop shots.
All this time that we were working, the yips had not showed back up, which was good I guess.
Once we started making some progress I had him focus on taking more practice strokes the proper way, all the way up and back and not to be a rush to hit the shot. He was doing a fantastic job of making these adjustments, most people have a tougher time of it. Once things got smooth enough I had him shooting 5 shots into one pocket and then 5 shots into the other. This is also a pretty funny thing. When you shoot diagonally across the table first to one pocket and then the other, even though it’s the same straight shot it often looks different to people. Anyway he started lining up better on the cue ball but his aim was still off. The cue ball was lined up to hit too far to the right on both sides of the table so I had to make him go against his eyes which he did but he so desperately wanted to steer at the last second. We did all this with stop shots and then I placed the object ball center table and cue ball 2 feet back and had him hit straight draw shots. He hit some well, some not so well (we only had one miscue and I could see the tension that just this one shot caused in him). At this point we were about 90 minutes into the lesson and he was feeling better so I spend some time giving him a small practice routine and showed him how to use the extended arms of the 3rd Eye with a paper cup while he was away from the table (he’s going to FL today and won’t be playing) having him focus on good practice strokes all the way up and back and had him hesitate at the cup with no hesitation at the back.
And we left it at that for now. Sorry that there wasn’t a real lot of in depth study on the yips but this will be an on going thing and we’ll see if some of the physical corrections will build enough confidence to alleviate the almighty “Yips” I’ll keep you informed.
Reporting back after my first ever lesson with a player that has a case of pocket billiard “yips”. For those of you that didn’t follow the hesitation in my stroke post, we are talking about a syndrome in which a players stroking arm refuses to come forward for the final stroke, it’s like someone or something is holding there arm back and they just can’t pull the trigger. It is a more common thing for golfers to go thru, read some here but start at the bottom of the page; yipsdiary
When I showed up I was thinking that the yips probably wouldn’t show up on demand or in my presence due to lack of pressure, that’s just usually how things work. But I was wrong, my student (and friend) I guess was just nervous enough and the yips showed up right away while I had him running some balls in rotation. His case had definitely worsened over the last few years. When it first started it would only happen once in while and now it seemed to happen a few times per rack!
Neither of us knew for sure what was causing this hesitation but there were a couple of things that I believe definitely contributed towards it. #1. He was at the end of his rope, he was about as totally frustrated as a pool player can get and this is a pretty mellow guy and #2 boy was he way out of whack (his alignment and follow thru) After having him shoot some shots in rotation and seeing the yips in action I started having him shoot some straight in shots and he was (unknowingly) approaching the cue ball with about ¾ of a tip of left hand English and his stick was about 5-10 degrees angled off line (with the butt end out to the right and the tip to the left). This is a common problem but his was painfully obvious (and painful to watch) and as usual with a player that is lined up favoring the left side of the cue ball he followed thru to the right (again, unintentionally). A few more observations were that his stick was located under his right eye (something I believe can (but doesn’t always) cause a player to favor the left side of the cue ball) and his stroke, in particular his practice strokes. Rather than have the cue tip come right up to the cue ball and all the way back to his bridge hand, his strokes were caught up in the middle, meaning his tip would stop about an inch or two before the cue ball and 3-4 inches away from his bridge hand and all I could see were these what seemed to be little short tension building warm up strokes and what would almost be a lunge towards the cue ball! There was definitely enough physically wrong to cause this subconscious yip so finding all these flaws gave us both hope.
Many of you can guess what I did next and no, this is not a freakin commercial. I took out the only thing I had brought to the lesson, (but boy do I wish I had brought my camcorder, would have made for a great before and after picture), a 3rd Eye. I put it on the cue stick, showed him what I wanted him to do, which was just to settle down to the shot, with no warm up strokes, just try to place the arms on the side of the cue ball, find center ball and aim the shot. He did that and he was straight, usually when I straighten them out it appears wrong or weird to them but to him he said no this feels okay but I did notice that his stick was now much closer to the center of his chin.
Now I let him start taking some shots. He was now lined up better but old habits die hard, his last second stroke correction to the right was still there even though his alignment was straighter. So I had to go down there and hold my finger next to his cue in between his bridge hand and the cue ball and instruct him not to let the cue stick hit my finger. I also told him to make his back hand as soft as possible and to then lift the cue only with his back hand, which is impossible to do if your back hand is soft without tension and then I said okay keep it that way. Well he was still steering and I explained that he was too caught up in the outcome of the shot and that he was actually going blind for a split second (from the time he was about to pull the trigger till the shot was over) he could not even see where his tip would end up at the end of the shot. So I set an example by shooting a few shots and had him focus on my tip at the end of each shot and he said okay, I got it. I told him it’s okay to miss, who gives a ****, just focus on the tip coming straight thru. It took a little while but he started to do it so I had him hit some about as hard as he comfortable could while staying straight and I asked him to do it without dropping the elbow, not that I think that is right is wrong, I just wanted a certain type of stroke to appear and it did. He started hitting them much cleaner and hit a few solid stop shots.
All this time that we were working, the yips had not showed back up, which was good I guess.
Once we started making some progress I had him focus on taking more practice strokes the proper way, all the way up and back and not to be a rush to hit the shot. He was doing a fantastic job of making these adjustments, most people have a tougher time of it. Once things got smooth enough I had him shooting 5 shots into one pocket and then 5 shots into the other. This is also a pretty funny thing. When you shoot diagonally across the table first to one pocket and then the other, even though it’s the same straight shot it often looks different to people. Anyway he started lining up better on the cue ball but his aim was still off. The cue ball was lined up to hit too far to the right on both sides of the table so I had to make him go against his eyes which he did but he so desperately wanted to steer at the last second. We did all this with stop shots and then I placed the object ball center table and cue ball 2 feet back and had him hit straight draw shots. He hit some well, some not so well (we only had one miscue and I could see the tension that just this one shot caused in him). At this point we were about 90 minutes into the lesson and he was feeling better so I spend some time giving him a small practice routine and showed him how to use the extended arms of the 3rd Eye with a paper cup while he was away from the table (he’s going to FL today and won’t be playing) having him focus on good practice strokes all the way up and back and had him hesitate at the cup with no hesitation at the back.
And we left it at that for now. Sorry that there wasn’t a real lot of in depth study on the yips but this will be an on going thing and we’ll see if some of the physical corrections will build enough confidence to alleviate the almighty “Yips” I’ll keep you informed.
) in order to remove the bad image which was entering my mind and causing the twitch. I also had to focus on using larger muscles (arms instead of hands for example) in order to build some confidence.
