Practice Stroke Routine

[PGHteacher]

Most people think a consistent pre-shot routine results in good pool. It's actually the other way around. Good pool habits lead to a consistent pre-shot routine.

I have not found this to be true

If you visualize any non-100% shot before you get down, that's a good pool habit. If you settle into your stance carefully, so that you're already on the correct line, and you're comfortable, that's a good pool habit. If you chalk while you decide the next shot, that's a good pool habit.

All of these good habits grouped together will form a pattern that gets repeated over and over. That pattern is your pre-shot routine. You don't need to go out of your way to make the pattern happen. It's just the result of approaching every shot intelligently and with care.

I agree and this doesn’t happen out of thin air (for most), most people have to be taught this and then force themselves to do this stuff on every shot.

With that in mind, ask yourself... does taking exactly 4 warmup strokes make a player better?

I don’t think anyone here is foolish enough to believe that there is some “magical number of warm-up strokes that will make anyone who picks up a cue a better player”. But; “does taking exactly 4 warmup strokes make a player better?”
It will for some; for others it will be 2, for others 3, for others between 5-7 and for others between 2-6. Just because you know it wouldn’t help you or think that it couldn’t help you is no reason to think that it couldn’t help anyone.

There are things in peoples PSR that are simple idiosyncrasies that help them. If someone tells you that adjusting their hat, pulling up their pants or scratching their balls helps them in some way you better believe them.

I am of the opinion that this question “can a set # of strokes help me to get better?” cannot be answered definitively by a “below “A” player” without several hundred hours of practice.

What if you don't feel ready to shoot after 4?

After a very short time of consistent practice 4 will be the only # that makes you “feel ready” if you do 3 or 5 you will have to start over. (if 4 happens to be the # you have chosen, it of course can be ANY #)

Picking some arbitrary number like "4" is like setting a personal shot clock for yourself, which is just added pressure you don't need. You should never pull the trigger until you're 100% ready. If that means 4 strokes, great. But if it doesn't, you keep fine tuning. Then you fire.

For you! Not for everyone! That’s why you see some pros with a fixed # of warm-up strokes and others not and others a between X-X this differs greatly from player to player in its importance from player to player also varies greatly.

Obviously, don't keep sawing wood if you feel 100% ready for the shot (does anyone really do that?). If you find yourself taking an excessive number of strokes, that's probably a sign that you need to stand up and figure out why you can't pull the trigger. Maybe you suspect it's the wrong shot subconsciously.

There could be 1,000 reasons but the most common reason people have this problem occasionally is that they have not switched over to the execution phase of the shot mentally (at least not 100%). They are still analyzing while they are in their crouch and that’s a big NO NO.