Out of stroke.....

gpeezy

gpeezy

for sale!
Out of stroke again. I have hit that great slump again in my pool life. I feel like I'm playing with someone else's arm. My eye conversation with the ball is like its speaking a different language. My stance feels defective. My concentration is a distant thunder although I hear everything.I can blame a little of this on lack of play lately. I hope this is one of those slumps that I come out of playing better. I also hope I come out of it before the Derby. It would be a little disapointing to go to the Derby with a Bow Wow stroke. Just looking for a get well soon from some players I guess.
 
gpeezy said:
Out of stroke again. I have hit that great slump again in my pool life. I feel like I'm playing with someone else's arm. My eye conversation with the ball is like its speaking a different language. My stance feels defective. My concentration is a distant thunder although I hear everything.I can blame a little of this on lack of play lately. I hope this is one of those slumps that I come out of playing better. I also hope I come out of it before the Derby. It would be a little disapointing to go to the Derby with a Bow Wow stroke. Just looking for a get well soon from some players I guess.
Click to expand...

Get well soon, I know the feeling
Do you sit alot? Like a desk job?
I found my stroke sticks around longer between playing when I exercise more.
Freakin desk job has made me a slug.
 
Trying to get "over the hump" myself. At least I know I'm not the only one. :)

Not so much my stroke but a couple of old bad habits (head/eyes wandering towards the expected leave to soon and "hitching" my stroke rather than standing up and re-setting if it doesn't quite look/feel right when I'm down on the shot). I'm calling myself 6 ball right now. :o I can break great, pocket one on the break, run 6 balls and get out of shape or miss right before the eight ball a lot lately. I know I just need much more table time and time spent on stroke/shot drills but it's frustarting to be so close to where I want to be in my game but not quite.

I'll take a few "Get well soon"(s) as well.

Thanks in advance.

Trevor
 
gpeezy said:
Out of stroke again. I have hit that great slump again in my pool life. I feel like I'm playing with someone else's arm. My eye conversation with the ball is like its speaking a different language. My stance feels defective. My concentration is a distant thunder although I hear everything.I can blame a little of this on lack of play lately. I hope this is one of those slumps that I come out of playing better. I also hope I come out of it before the Derby. It would be a little disapointing to go to the Derby with a Bow Wow stroke. Just looking for a get well soon from some players I guess.
Click to expand...

Try to look at yourself in a mirrow. Most of the time you can see what is going on there. If you have one you can put on your table and watch yourself stroke it might show you what is going on. I use it with a lot of my students so they will understand what i am telling them. Good luck, Doug
 
gpeezy, this is my take on it.

being "in stroke" is a state of mind, when your not instroke you have to really build your confidence up, what i like to do when i get into a slump is this, find the biggest buckets in town, and hit ball and ball on them to build up my ball pocketing confidence, and im constantly telling myself that im in dead punch, if you can trick yourself into believing that you are in punch then you will get there.

the game is 70% mental in my opinion.

anyway, this is just what works for me.
 
Yeah Yeah yeah, I've heard that before, everybody says that, boy if I had a dollar for everytime I heard that come back line. :D JFWY
 
For me I like to play some banks. Start firing banks in 100 miles per hour and freewheeling a bit. Then come back to earth and shoot the other shots with confidence. :) This helps me stay loose and find that stroke that I want.
 
gpeezy said:
Out of stroke again. I have hit that great slump again in my pool life. I feel like I'm playing with someone else's arm. My eye conversation with the ball is like its speaking a different language. My stance feels defective. My concentration is a distant thunder although I hear everything.I can blame a little of this on lack of play lately. I hope this is one of those slumps that I come out of playing better. I also hope I come out of it before the Derby. It would be a little disapointing to go to the Derby with a Bow Wow stroke. Just looking for a get well soon from some players I guess.
Click to expand...

1. Do you have a distinct pause at that back (Buddy/Allison)?

One of the numerous reasons some great players have adopted that method is that it takes any "loops" out of the equation in a continuous warm up stroke to final forward stroke transition.

2. Whether you do or don't pause, try just taking ONE final backstroke (no warm ups) PAUSE for 2 seconds and then deliver a smooth, accelarating forward stroke.

3. FORCE youself (and you will have to if you are anything like me) to shoot 200 EASY, EASY shots..10 degree cuts with OB on the spot and CB a foot away. There is nothing like 200 in a row to build confidence. To counteract boredom, try pocketing dead center and SLIGHTLY left and right of center.

4. Try the Kinister drill...OB 1 diamond above the right side pocket (standing at the foot end) and the CB 1 ball below the side pocket...both about a thumb width off the rail. Shoot softly enough to make the CB run through the OB so that it occupies the OB's former space. Kinister recommends shooting NOTHING BUT that shot until you have shot it 200 times.

If you weren't looking for advice...just sympathy...I SYMPATHIZE!!
(-:
 
Have you tried putting more emphesis (sp) on your pre shot routine and fundamentals...

It always helps me.. Aslo check the back hand, after a few bad shots it can tend to tighten up
 
BPG24 said:
Have you tried putting more emphesis (sp) on your pre shot routine and fundamentals...

It always helps me.. Aslo check the back hand, after a few bad shots it can tend to tighten up
Click to expand...

Roger that re: "snatching" the back hand grip. One of my practice session techniques is to shoot 50 medium difficult cuts...taking BIH to set them up and focus ONLY on my right hand action including taking a FULL backstroke...a pause...smoothly accelerating forwards stroke and a light grip HELD ALL THE WAY THROUGH THE FOLLOW THROUGH.

Funny story...a British female pro freind I was shooting with noticed that I was tightening up my grip on the forward stroke and said...."Do you know what a snatch is?"

HONEST!! We both laughed for about 5 minutes!!!

(-:
(-:
 
One of the great things about learning SPF and the pendulum stroke, is that it's easy to identify exactly what is going wrong, so that a correction can be made immediately, all by yourself.

The obvious solution to fix your stroke is to take a class from an SPF instructor.
 
Mark Avlon said:
One of the great things about learning SPF and the pendulum stroke, is that it's easy to identify exactly what is going wrong, so that a correction can be made immediately, all by yourself.

The obvious solution to fix your stroke is to take a class from an SPF instructor.
Click to expand...

That deserves repeating. One huge benefit from learning SPF is you no longer find yourself asking "How did I miss that shot?". The new thought is more like "I know exactly what went wrong...I can fix that!".
Knowing the problem is the first step in eliminating it.
Steve
 
av84fun said:
Funny story...a British female pro freind I was shooting with noticed that I was tightening up my grip on the forward stroke and said...."Do you know what a snatch is?"

HONEST!! We both laughed for about 5 minutes!!!
Click to expand...
Then did she show you?

Boro Nut
 
gpeezy said:
Out of stroke again. I have hit that great slump again in my pool life. I feel like I'm playing with someone else's arm. My eye conversation with the ball is like its speaking a different language. My stance feels defective. My concentration is a distant thunder although I hear everything.I can blame a little of this on lack of play lately. I hope this is one of those slumps that I come out of playing better. I also hope I come out of it before the Derby. It would be a little disapointing to go to the Derby with a Bow Wow stroke. Just looking for a get well soon from some players I guess.
Click to expand...
I feel like I'm playing with someone else's arm.

Sounds like a rhythm issue. I found myself here 2 days ago. I was intently watching a better player and fell into his rhythm. Nothing felt right and couldn't figure it out. As the game came close to ending I told myself it's over might as well have some fun. I fell back into my own rhythm and started hitting everything. But is was too late. I Re-learned something there.
 
3kushn said:
I feel like I'm playing with someone else's arm.

Sounds like a rhythm issue. I found myself here 2 days ago. I was intently watching a better player and fell into his rhythm. Nothing felt right and couldn't figure it out. As the game came close to ending I told myself it's over might as well have some fun. I fell back into my own rhythm and started hitting everything. But is was too late. I Re-learned something there.
Click to expand...
This is probally what my problem is. I don't feel like I'm playing in my rhythm. I'm still in brain lock where I can't here my own band though. Its a little of everything probally. I just need to sit down and hit balls for an hour or so, win one of the weekly tournaments around here (they are easy most of the time, I might have to lock down right now), and just try to clear my mind up some. Keep it coming though. All this is a real help. I have been playing pool for some time now and have a pretty good knowledge of what I could be doing wrong but sometimes you can be too close to the tree to see the forest.
 
This sometimes help me.

Clear your mind of your problems. "You don't have any problems." Put on your favorite CD or song or think of place you'd love to be right now. Put out of your mind all negitive thoughts, words and actions. Go to the table and BE the best you can BE. KNOW that Your the Man at the table. Freewheel for a while.

Read
The Inner Game
The Mental Edge

If you've read them, do it again.
It's all in your head.
 
I had the weirdest experience recently, maybe it'll help.

I felt like there was something wrong with my stroke, it's not bad but it's not textbook. Every so often I go into textbook mode and try to set my stance carefully, make sure my practice strokes are driving straight forward and back with no wobble, and I try a pause before every shot... shooting this way, especially with the pause, doesn't quite feel natural to me, but I force myself to do it, even if I suffer and don't hit like I'm used to, even if I lose a bunch of matches.

So I did that for a while with mixed results, then played some straight pool and after a few minutes I said "screw it" and went back to my normal stroke, with no pause. I shot better than ever and made a new high run, and felt like I was really hitting them perfectly.

So maybe a helpful thing is to intentionally shoot in a slow, forced way for a while, going by the book, and then switch to your normal stroke. When you do, it'll feel like it's super natural and fluid in comparison. Maybe you'll feel like you're shooting nicely again instead of swinging someone else's arm.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top