Does your heartbeat throw your long distance shots off?
On "The Hustler" DVD, Mike Massey explains how to shoot one of the shots and I thought it interesting to note that when he actually shoots the shot that his eyes are on the cue ball, and right after the CB is on its way his eyes look at the object ball. He makes the shot, of course.
I know or have at least heard that many pros lock onto the object ball before pulling the trigger, but ole Mike shot the long one with his eyes on whitey.
Got me thinking about those shots. If one's stroke is pure and guaranteed to hit the cue ball in exactly the right place, I can see where fixing one's gaze on the object ball is the way to go, but if the cue ball is struck just 1/16 of an inch off on those super precise shots, the effect on the cue ball traveling way down table can be dramatic.
Also, I noticed a little while ago that looking at a fine detail of something with a clearly defined shape, say a match stick, that depending on when my heart beats, my eye's perception of the match stick shifts right to left and back again. At a distance of 5 feet or so, the wobble is something like 1/16 of an inch. On a table length super thin cut, that is more than enough to either hit the object ball too full or to miss it completely.
How do you deal with these sorts of problems?
Flex
On "The Hustler" DVD, Mike Massey explains how to shoot one of the shots and I thought it interesting to note that when he actually shoots the shot that his eyes are on the cue ball, and right after the CB is on its way his eyes look at the object ball. He makes the shot, of course.
I know or have at least heard that many pros lock onto the object ball before pulling the trigger, but ole Mike shot the long one with his eyes on whitey.
Got me thinking about those shots. If one's stroke is pure and guaranteed to hit the cue ball in exactly the right place, I can see where fixing one's gaze on the object ball is the way to go, but if the cue ball is struck just 1/16 of an inch off on those super precise shots, the effect on the cue ball traveling way down table can be dramatic.
Also, I noticed a little while ago that looking at a fine detail of something with a clearly defined shape, say a match stick, that depending on when my heart beats, my eye's perception of the match stick shifts right to left and back again. At a distance of 5 feet or so, the wobble is something like 1/16 of an inch. On a table length super thin cut, that is more than enough to either hit the object ball too full or to miss it completely.
How do you deal with these sorts of problems?
Flex
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