Pool teaching philosophy

[BasementDweller]

Have you tried widening your stance to get down lower?

With regards to the height and snooker stance - I'm 6'4 and have no issues incorporating a full square stance. Can I ask what issues you have when trying to incorporate it fully? I believe you referenced Gareth Potts previously. Gaz plays with a rather wide stance, perhaps a slight adjustment in to width of your feet will enable you to get down all the way. Do you step onto the shot line or not? If you don't this shouldn't effect anything, and you should be able to just position your locked leg outside the shot line a little and then move the cocked leg out a little further than normal to widen it. If you step into the line of the shot it takes a little more practice to be able to repeat stepping in outside the shot line. But again, its the same as not stepping in, all you have to do is make the step in repeatable and on the same position to the line of a shot.

Watch Gaz playing UK 8 Ball, his left locked leg is quite far outside the shot line. And he manages to get right down and play pretty decent.

Thanks for the suggestions gentlemen.

I'm not sure why I gave up on this but at some point I did. I know whenever I'm jacked up or even just cueing low on the cue ball I can get my chest on the cue but when I stroke with a level cue or basically anything above the center of the cue ball I can't get the cue stick close to my chest. I

I played around a bit with adjusting my plant foot and widening my stance a bit and it does appear promising. Pidge -- you know your stuff. I do step into the shot so moving my plant foot over to the right of the shot line sure seems a bit awkward -- just like you said. My first impression is that instead of building the shot around that plant foot you are instead locking in on the shot with your eyes and then having your feet follow. Which sounds an awful lot like what Stan Shuffett teaches. At least the eyes leading as opposed to the feet. Interesting....very interesting. I'll proceed with caution.

Thanks again for the info. To be entirely honest, this is not the sort of advice I think I would get from too many instructors on here with maybe the exception of Lee Brett and maybe Fran Crimi. That's at least judging by their posting history. The fact that the women's tour (if there is such a thing) has been practically dominated by players who use a snooker stance (Allison, Karen, and Kelly Fisher) makes me wonder why more pool instructors don't more closely study the snooker stance. I'm not saying that all players need to incorporate all aspects of a snooker stance but I would think it should be something pool instructors consider for their students. We are talking about pool teaching philosophy after all.

Thanks again.

 

[FranCrimi]

Thanks for the suggestions gentlemen.

I'm not sure why I gave up on this but at some point I did. I know whenever I'm jacked up or even just cueing low on the cue ball I can get my chest on the cue but when I stroke with a level cue or basically anything above the center of the cue ball I can't get the cue stick close to my chest. I

I played around a bit with adjusting my plant foot and widening my stance a bit and it does appear promising. Pidge -- you know your stuff. I do step into the shot so moving my plant foot over to the right of the shot line sure seems a bit awkward -- just like you said. My first impression is that instead of building the shot around that plant foot you are instead locking in on the shot with your eyes and then having your feet follow. Which sounds an awful lot like what Stan Shuffett teaches. At least the eyes leading as opposed to the feet. Interesting....very interesting. I'll proceed with caution.

Thanks again for the info. To be entirely honest, this is not the sort of advice I think I would get from too many instructors on here with maybe the exception of Lee Brett and maybe Fran Crimi. That's at least judging by their posting history. The fact that the women's tour (if there is such a thing) has been practically dominated by players who use a snooker stance (Allison, Karen, and Kelly Fisher) makes me wonder why more pool instructors don't more closely study the snooker stance. I'm not saying that all players need to incorporate all aspects of a snooker stance but I would think it should be something pool instructors consider for their students. We are talking about pool teaching philosophy after all.

Thanks again.

I think a snooker stance is a very good place to start. In fact, back when I played on the pro tour, I was using a modified version of the snooker stance even before Allison came to the U.S.. I had read snooker books and found them to be very informative and thought-provoking.

I did find however, that a modification from the classic snooker stance was necessary, at least for me. Our cues are heavier, the balls are heavier and I felt that I sometimes needed some extra swing room to allow for the difference.

I believe both Allison and Karen have modified their stances a bit as well.

 

[CJ Wiley]

playing golf and tennis through the years helped the hand/eye/physical

Yes, and you can build up your hand/eye coordination. I have been pretty dedicated to working on my physical abilities off the pool table and it's reaped consistent results. Also, playing golf and tennis through the years helped, at one time Johnny Archer, Earl Strickland, Tony Ellin, Kim Davenport and a few others played at every tournament. Kim and I played golf for $500 a hole in Vegas one time.....all of us gambled for fair amounts. Johnny and I played Pebble Beach and SpyGlass one day and had a blast.

Can go with you on this one ,, Although I would agree you don't have to be a world class athlete there is some physical ability and eye hand skill involved in a repeatable stroke



1

 

[Pidge]

Thanks for the suggestions gentlemen.

I'm not sure why I gave up on this but at some point I did. I know whenever I'm jacked up or even just cueing low on the cue ball I can get my chest on the cue but when I stroke with a level cue or basically anything above the center of the cue ball I can't get the cue stick close to my chest. I

I played around a bit with adjusting my plant foot and widening my stance a bit and it does appear promising. Pidge -- you know your stuff. I do step into the shot so moving my plant foot over to the right of the shot line sure seems a bit awkward -- just like you said. My first impression is that instead of building the shot around that plant foot you are instead locking in on the shot with your eyes and then having your feet follow. Which sounds an awful lot like what Stan Shuffett teaches. At least the eyes leading as opposed to the feet. Interesting....very interesting. I'll proceed with caution.

Thanks again for the info. To be entirely honest, this is not the sort of advice I think I would get from too many instructors on here with maybe the exception of Lee Brett and maybe Fran Crimi. That's at least judging by their posting history. The fact that the women's tour (if there is such a thing) has been practically dominated by players who use a snooker stance (Allison, Karen, and Kelly Fisher) makes me wonder why more pool instructors don't more closely study the snooker stance. I'm not saying that all players need to incorporate all aspects of a snooker stance but I would think it should be something pool instructors consider for their students. We are talking about pool teaching philosophy after all.

Thanks again.

As Fran says, Gaz is very cross dominant. You can tell by looking at him play. He's nit once mentioned this when I've asked, perhaps he doesn't know, and just positions his head in a place that makes everything look right, and the stance follows to accommodate this. When stepping in, you have to pick a part of your body to be on the line of the shot. For cross dominant players like Gaz, that's going to be something like the inner thigh of the left leg, or the belly button in more severe cases. If you are same side dominant you may have to step in with the outside of the foot in the line, get down and shuffle the feet to widen it to get right down.

I can safely say if you manage to get the cue on your chest for all shots you will notice an immediate difference in the stability of your cueing action. One thing worth mentioning about the cue on the chest is for power shots...your grip hand will slam into your chest if you lock your bridge arm. If you bend the bridge arm and have the elbow on the table then it limits this, and allows a slightly longer follow through.

All the best

 

[KRJ]

This is true, however, there's physical reasons that golfers, and tennis player/coaches couldn't compete.

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Yeah, in pool it's called MONEY. There is NOT much money is pool. There is a TON of money in golf, and tennis.

So, yeah, some folks decided to make a living and raise a family. It's kinda sad that you think you can teach anyone to be a champion pool player. It's still a sport, and there are some attributes that folks just are not born with or have the inability to ever learn.

There is a reason some folks have played this game for 30 years and have not moved past C or even B player status.... that certain "touch" could never be developed. The certain sense to know where to strike the object ball at the right angle at the precise point on the cue ball, with the exact amount of speed, is not an ability that everyone can learn unfortunately.

If they could, everyone would play like SVB For the most part, most folks seeking instruction as you know, just want to become more competitive in the leagues in which they play. They wanna move up, they wanna be better than their buddies, they wanna win more matches, etc.etc. Very few folks said they want to be a professional pool player.

But if they did, and they had the physical skills now (shortstop or better speed), then yes, it is a good time to look up a few pro's that want to help with their patterns, because they developed those abilities competing against the best players.

I've yet to see anyone play better patterns than a former teammate of mine, John Abruzzo, and at 70 years old, he's still much better than shortstop speed. How strong is that