Major downsides to a snooker stance in pool?

Slh

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
But I disagree with this. With a straighton snooker stance you are parallel to the aiming line, and actually have to twist your body slightly to get a sighting line. Also, your grip hand will brush or hit your hip since your hips are even and forward. Not to mention, for instance, like a right hander that is left eye dominant. Snooker players have a tendency also to bend their back instead of bending from the waist with their back straight. I would not recommend a Snooker stance generally for Pool. Yes, I know Allison and Karen have Snooker stances, and it could be cause of the problem for Allison's neck problems she had, and Karen's back problems she experienced.

if your grip hand hit your hip you are doing it wrong or you have huge love handles lol.
 

lee brett

www.leebrettpool.com
Silver Member
But I disagree with this. With a straighton snooker stance you are parallel to the aiming line, and actually have to twist your body slightly to get a sighting line. Also, your grip hand will brush or hit your hip since your hips are even and forward. Not to mention, for instance, like a right hander that is left eye dominant. Snooker players have a tendency also to bend their back instead of bending from the waist with their back straight. I would not recommend a Snooker stance generally for Pool. Yes, I know Allison and Karen have Snooker stances, and it could be cause of the problem for Allison's neck problems she had, and Karen's back problems she experienced.

hey snapshot, you need to learn to sight the ball back from the table, roughly 90% of all sighting is done here, the last 10% whilst down on th shot, this will be the reason your having trouble sighting.

Also your lead leg is to far inside, make sure your lead leg is not to far forward, this is the reason why your hitting your body. Also easily fixed by turning your foot out slightly, but heel on the line still, this opens the hip up and takes the strain off the back.
 

Snapshot9

son of 3 leg 1 eye dog ..
Silver Member
hey snapshot, you need to learn to sight the ball back from the table, roughly 90% of all sighting is done here, the last 10% whilst down on th shot, this will be the reason your having trouble sighting.

Also your lead leg is to far inside, make sure your lead leg is not to far forward, this is the reason why your hitting your body. Also easily fixed by turning your foot out slightly, but heel on the line still, this opens the hip up and takes the strain off the back.

I don't have a snooker stance, I have a standard Pool stance with my body turned 45 degrees to my stick, so when I bend over, my chin is right over my cue.
 

Island Drive

Otto/Dads College Roommate/Cleveland Browns
Silver Member
add some barbacue sauce :)

Nice....I like the way you think LOL here's a bit for ya da.

An Irish priest was transferred to Texas. Father O'Malley rose from his bed on morning to find it was a fine spring day in his new Texas mission parish.

He walked to the window of his bedroom to get a deep breath of the beautiful da outside.

He then noticed there was a jackass lying dead in the middle of his front lawn. He proptly called the local police station....

The conversttion went like this: Good morning, this is sergeant Jones, how may I help you?

And the best of the day te yerself. This is Father O'Malley at St. Ann's Catholic Church.......
There's a jackass lying dead on me front lawn.

Seargeant Jones, considering himself to be quite a wit, replied with a smirk,
Well now father, it was alwyas my impression that you people took care of the last rites!

There was dead silence on the line for a long moment...................................

Father O'Malley then replied: "Aye, tis certainly true; but were are also obliged to notify the next of kin."
 
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sfleinen

14.1 & One Pocket Addict
Gold Member
Silver Member
But I disagree with this. With a straighton snooker stance you are parallel to the aiming line, and actually have to twist your body slightly to get a sighting line. Also, your grip hand will brush or hit your hip since your hips are even and forward. Not to mention, for instance, like a right hander that is left eye dominant. Snooker players have a tendency also to bend their back instead of bending from the waist with their back straight. I would not recommend a Snooker stance generally for Pool. Yes, I know Allison and Karen have Snooker stances, and it could be cause of the problem for Allison's neck problems she had, and Karen's back problems she experienced.

This is a common misconception of those that either have never tried the snooker stance (and are "poking holes at it from afar"), or if they have, tried what they "thought" was a snooker stance but it was incorrectly implemented (i.e. bad form).

With a straight-on snooker stance, yes, your planted leg (the leg on the same side of your body as your grip hand) is directly on and pointed into the shot line, but what a lot of these "analysts analyzing the snooker stance from afar" don't realize, is that when you place your weight on that planted leg, your hip on that same side "seats" inward a bit, giving enough clearance for your grip hand to freely swing by your side. Additionally, the snooker stance is NOT "100%" straight-on. If that were the case, your head would be a full shoulder's distance away from your cue; your bridge hand would be crossing under your face at a near 45-degree angle; and you'd have to crane your neck over (or twist your body as this poster mentions) to get your head over the cue. As we can see, this is a case of the poster's incorrect analysis of what a correct snooker stance is.

The correct snooker stance implements the following key points:

  1. Foot on same side of body as grip hand (i.e. the "planted foot") is planted onto, and pointing into, the shot line.
  2. When weight is applied to the planted foot, the hip on that same side of the body will "seat" or shift inwards slightly. This is the natural effect of placing all of one's weight on one leg. (Try it -- go in front of a mirror and shift your weight so you're standing on one leg, with the other leg off the ground. Notice how your hip no longer "juts out" as it does normally when you're standing on two legs, but now seats inwards such that the edge of your hip is even/level with the side of your leg?)
  3. The opposite foot is placed approximately a shoulder's distance away, and only slightly forward of the planted foot. By side-stepping a shoulder's distance like this, the combination of the hip seating inwards and the slight shift of the body away from the shot line, gives more than enough clearance for the grip hand to swing freely in pendulum fashion.
  4. Once that opposite foot is placed, weight distribution between the two legs is approximately 70/30 or 60/40 in favor of the planted leg.
  5. Placing the bridge hand on the shot line, and bending the upper body over onto the table, one finds that the seated hip and the body's already-implemented slight angle (via the placement of the opposite foot, which, remember, is slightly forward of the planted foot) is quite natural and automatically places the chin over the cue. You just bend over like a hinge, and your chin automatically is placed over the cue. There is absolutely no craning of the neck or twisting of the body as the above poster's incorrect "from-afar" analysis states.
As far as back problems, a correctly-implemented snooker stance does NOT place any pressure on the back (in fact, your back should be straight as an arrow!). All of the pressure is placed on the hips. Any craning or arching in the back is indicative of an incorrect stance, and yes, will cause pain right at the outset. I disagree with the "Snooker players 'have a tendency' also to bend their back instead of bending from the waist with their back straight" notion. This is entirely incorrect. If that were the case, snooker players would look like giant question marks ("?") in their stance. The classic correct snooker stance looks like a hinge, where the upper body "flops over" onto the table with the chin already aligned onto the cue.

I once had the "snooker stance looks like a pansy" discrimination as some posters here have mentioned, and I also once "analyzed it from afar" trying to shoot holes in something I didn't understand. But after personally witnessing a snooker pro that came to the pool room I was playing at, and watching him resoundingly whack the back of the pockets at these incredible distances effortlessly, I suddenly realized how mechanically correct that snooker stance is. It was beautiful to watch, like a precision machine. From that point forward, I made it a point to take some lessons, read, absorb, and practice-practice-practice until one day I "got" it, and it finally was automatic. After the initial aforementioned stretching of the muscles in the planted-leg's calf and hamstring (usual fare for anything the muscles do which they've not done before), those muscles adapted, and the stance is actually quite natural now. I can play for hours on end, and even kick into second and third gears in really long sets. The only part of my body that may get tired, is my bridge arm -- but this is to be expected when "reaching out" in front of your body like that for long periods.

Anyway, I hope the above points help illustrate what is a "correct" snooker stance, and dispels some of the myths about the snooker stance.

-Sean
 
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