me playing a 9-ball rack..thoughts?

[evergruven]

The control in a loose flowing stroke comes from lack of control....from letting it go and trusting it will continue on its line without your adding anything extra beyond a point. This goes hand in hand with wrist action as once the forward motion in the wrist is initiated there is nothing to do but let it complete.

thanks for the replies. I agree with this- the loose (but balanced) grip makes sense to me, and I'm working on consistently feeling the wrist more on shots

to try to get to that arbitrary distance through the ball without consideration of your own setup and mechanics could do more harm than good.

When you are that low, you just don't have enough room for such a long follow through. Earl allows his stroke to finish, it just finishes well short of where it would if he were higher off the cue. And that was really my point...you should allow your stroke to finish without doing anything to stop it. For classically set up players that finish may come at 6-8inches beyond the ball, for low setups with no elbow drop, they will barely get through the cue ball. Both are perfectly fine, but you can ruin the latter by trying to achieve a follow through distance appropriate for the former.

good stuff, thanks again

I think the reason a lot of pro players end up hitting the cloth with the cue tip when breaking is because they shift the body upward/forward into the break shot, which causes the cue tip to move downward just after contact with the cb.

yea..I see this, now that you mention it..

and I'll try the exercise you mentioned- thanks b.

Light grip, smooth stroke, tight tip gap, near-level cue stick, good touch and feel, balanced stance, there is some lateral head movement but you seem relaxed and smooth more than tight.

appreciate it, matt. I'm trying

The issue is not a tight grip, though you do have tension in the wrist to lock it in place which is common.

there is definitely some tension, in general- working on that. I also really think this has something with the feel of my current cue- I want a cue that I feel more comfortable with. working on that, too-

One thing u can work on, Evergruven, is shot selection/pattern play. The ball in hand on the 5ball was just the wrong shot imo.

totally agree- I could have done better on that one.

and the beat goes on..I plan on getting back to the table after a two week layoff this weekend, will check back in a bit! cheers all-