My grandson is going to turn five years old in a couple days. He is fascinated with our pool table but I’ve just been letting him do his thing for a couple weeks to see if he stayed interested in it. It’s is all he talks about to his little friends at school to his mama and daddy and so I’m getting him a proper cue for his size for his birthday. Does anybody have any suggestions on how to start teaching him fundamentals while keeping him interested and having fun.
TIA,
Dave
My granddaughter is 7 and we just started playing pool. The first thing I did was focus on her bridge. Only took a couple of games before she got that down.
Basically, I let her dictate some games and I dictate others, i.e. most of the time we play "the real game". 8 ball where she gets BIH at every shot and chooses solids/stripes after I make all of mine I then have to make all of hers before pocketing the 8. Sometimes I run out on her (which I hope is helping with her sportsmanship) and sometimes I leave a ball or two in the pockets for her to win.
We also play straight pool, she gets BIH on every shot.
We recently started doing some trick shots, which is when I focus on the stance, stroke, etc. She seems to like these. She's more focused on the shot then the stance so she doesn't realize I'm teaching her things, it just happens.
The biggest thing is try to make it fun. We mix things up quite a bit, sometimes we change games in the middle of a game. I also let her bang on the object balls directly with the cue. They're old balls that came with the table, that won't happen when I get new balls. (quote that one out of context
)
Oh, and she is just learning to cut the ball. She is pretty good at hitting the ball full and determining where it goes (she called a 3 rail shot the other day
) so she generally picks her shots by seeing which way the ball goes. Once in a while I will go up and tell her she should another ball and explain why (if you hit here it will bounce off this rail and leave you straight on this ball) in an attempt at getting her to think ahead. I do this on easy cuts and I just line up my finger and say "shoot at my finger", she usually does pretty good. I don't do it too often because she's not a fan yet but I figure I have all the time in the world so I don't push it. My point here was to just let him do his thing if needed.
Funny story. She was in the kitchen the other day (and is too short to see over the breakfast bar to see the table) and I was shooting. I shot a ball, made it, the cue ball traveled a couple rails around the table and dropped in the pocket. Before I could even stand up she said "you scratched". LMAO. She heard it and knew exactly what happened. Was a very proud moment for me.
In the end, he's going to learn how he learns, you need to figure out how to teach him.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zK4zADC3jl8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XL7SRV1kOxc
