No practice strokes.

Practice (warm-up) strokes have a couple of useful results.

Practice strokes are for aiming at the cue ball. How many do you need and they don't have to be very long.

Practice strokes could be very relaxing.

Pool School
randyg
 
Am I mistaken or aren't there now two(2) different methods now being fostered in the thread?
 
Max Eberle described something similar in one of his videos: taking no practice strokes and just shooting the ball to see how true your aim and alignment is. I believe he said it was one of Mosconi's teachings but I don't have time right now to search through his videos to find out for sure.

The idea behind it was that people would get into the habit of "fixing" their bad alignment with practice strokes (fiddling, if you will) which is a band-aid approach.
 
Jafar "Patcheye Henry" Basheer hasnt taken a practice stroke in 70 years. ;), and im saying he does not even stroke it a little , like the guys you mentioned (0scar, alan ect) hes all set and forget, slow back swing and full follow thru.
didnt stop him from playing well.
 
Like most things in life: Do whatever feels right to you.

I like taking 3-4 practice strokes. Golfers, baseball hitters and Efren Reyes take practice strokes. I guess Efren doesn't have any confidence in his stroke and so he needs a bandaid.
 
I've tried this, can be useful to eliminate unnecessary movement, and oddly it doesn't seem to affect my speed control at all. Can also help to really focus on tip placement at the cue ball, quiet the eyes (since they aren't tracking or worried about the shaft movement back and forth), etc.

That being said, I think most players prefer at least a few warm up strokes just to rehearse the stroke and keep things loose. But every good player will eventually find their ideal rhythm, or at least one that works very well for them.
Scott
 
Watching Sylver Ochoa play over the weekend and he takes a few short strokes then leaves tip on cue ball until ready to shoot..
also Charlie Bryant, same thing...Warren Kiamco does it also...I have a friend in league who's an A player and he does that...
 
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Seems like most pros you watch rarely do full length practice strokes. They may do one and then they will do small mini-strokes of a couple of inches as they dial in, pros with long bridges especially. I mostly use small strokes to dial in, then i like to do one long practice stroke to make sure im doing everything in a straight line.
 
bdorman said:
I guess Efren doesn't have any confidence in his stroke and so he needs a bandaid.
Click to expand...

It's funny, there's always someone who wants to start an argument... the words are not my own. I think what he was talking about was the ability to actually pot the ball, not speed control and position.
 
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