poolguy123
Registered
Scott Lee- THANK_YOU!(fixed my crooked stroke!)
I had the pleasure of taking a short 2 hour lesson with Scott last Wed., Dec.the 29th.
I have played for easily 30yrs now and have always tried to get my stroke to be perfectly straight but have only had limited sucess at figuring it out myself. Sometimes it would seem alright but then I would get the cue tip swinging to the left at the end of my follow through again and it would show in missed shots and unintended english and in general the cue ball not going where I aimed. Even with that problem I have a decent game (sl7) and have ran 3 8-Ball games in a row along with 3 9-Ball break and runs. But of course that plateau could not be put behind me without a better stroke.
Like some other posters have said, the things he had me change were very uncomfortable and difficult to incorporate into my shooting at first. In fact I felt quite embarrassed at not being able to make even simple shots during the lesson.
WHen I went home I was a little bummed by my experience because I could not yet see for sure what I had learned. I sat around and moped for about 2 hours- then I grabbed my cue and went to the basement to try again to do what he suggested. After all, he gave me relatively simple reasons why my stroke and follow thru were not straight- I just wasn't yet able to execute it the way he said.
I started with the simple up and down the table drill with the cue ball only - trying to make it return straight back to me. Up and back once is easy-even with my old crooked stroke. Getting up and back twice was the hard part!
I worked on the four things he suggested:
1. lighten up the grip hand (I always thought that I did that! But apparently not enough and I would tighten it up as I stroked through the shot. That caused too many muscles to be in use-thus prone to errors)
2. Forearm swing only-no dropping the elbow( I thought I knew this too! I might have known it but I didn't do it well at all)
3. Finish every stroke with the grip hand under the armpit. This puts the cue straight through the ball and then in a downward motion after contact to actually hit the cloth past where the cueball was.(This was extremely hard to think about and do and hit the ball at the same time- only because it was foreign to my normal stroke.)
4. Pause at the cueball and slooooowwwww on the last backstroke. (This also threw me into a tailspin for awhile. Couldn't tell how hard I was going to hit it and wasn't sure it would go back forward straight.)
I must have done the up and down drill for nearly an hour at first because I could see no sense in going forward if I could not get comfortable with the new way of hitting the cueball. Sometimes I could only do one of the 4 ideas at a time. Sometimes I'd get 3 and not realize for the next 5 tries that I had forgotten to pull back slowly.......! Finally I felt with some focus, I could remember to do them all at once. I kept going for so long because it became apparent almost immediately that when I did get all the components in one shot- it would be a very straight up and back shot!
I did some other drills that he suggested- now that I could hit the ball right- and worked on it for another hour. The next night I spent another 2 hours just trying to make the stroke feel comfortable and trying to make it automatic. During this time I had little speed control- I had so much going on in my brain that I could not even yet think about how hard I was going to hit the ball!
Friday, I went to a tavern with free pool during the day(Oscar's in Vanc., WA)to give it a try. I expected to have a difficult time as it was still a heavy brain drain. But I kept all the parts of the stroke together and took the shape I got (out of control a little to say the least!) with good humour and shot what I had the best I could. It went better than I expected and I couldn't be happier with the results. I have confidence in knowing I'm hitting where I'm
aiming now. My cuestick ends up straight out in front of me now-right where I think I'm sending it- if it doesn't I instantly know that I forgot one of those four items!
I made some very nice long cut shots that felt like they were in a track and straight in shots from some distance were a thrill to punch in the hole- dead on! I realized after awhile that I was shooting lots of shots a lot softer than I used to. Not quite sure why this is- maybe the slow backstroke has an effect on that. All in all, I don't think my game has suffered much from the change at all- I might be a sl6.5 now but when I get the feel of the speed back I will have improved noticably from where I was. There will be no backsliding or compromising!
Sorry this is so long but you can probably tell that I now think that I may have waited 25 years to long to get some instruction from someone who knows what's going on!
So thanks again Scott! And thanks, Bill for allowing me to come to your house and table for the lessons!
----the now straight shooting Jim Bradley!
I had the pleasure of taking a short 2 hour lesson with Scott last Wed., Dec.the 29th.
I have played for easily 30yrs now and have always tried to get my stroke to be perfectly straight but have only had limited sucess at figuring it out myself. Sometimes it would seem alright but then I would get the cue tip swinging to the left at the end of my follow through again and it would show in missed shots and unintended english and in general the cue ball not going where I aimed. Even with that problem I have a decent game (sl7) and have ran 3 8-Ball games in a row along with 3 9-Ball break and runs. But of course that plateau could not be put behind me without a better stroke.
Like some other posters have said, the things he had me change were very uncomfortable and difficult to incorporate into my shooting at first. In fact I felt quite embarrassed at not being able to make even simple shots during the lesson.
WHen I went home I was a little bummed by my experience because I could not yet see for sure what I had learned. I sat around and moped for about 2 hours- then I grabbed my cue and went to the basement to try again to do what he suggested. After all, he gave me relatively simple reasons why my stroke and follow thru were not straight- I just wasn't yet able to execute it the way he said.
I started with the simple up and down the table drill with the cue ball only - trying to make it return straight back to me. Up and back once is easy-even with my old crooked stroke. Getting up and back twice was the hard part!
I worked on the four things he suggested:
1. lighten up the grip hand (I always thought that I did that! But apparently not enough and I would tighten it up as I stroked through the shot. That caused too many muscles to be in use-thus prone to errors)
2. Forearm swing only-no dropping the elbow( I thought I knew this too! I might have known it but I didn't do it well at all)
3. Finish every stroke with the grip hand under the armpit. This puts the cue straight through the ball and then in a downward motion after contact to actually hit the cloth past where the cueball was.(This was extremely hard to think about and do and hit the ball at the same time- only because it was foreign to my normal stroke.)
4. Pause at the cueball and slooooowwwww on the last backstroke. (This also threw me into a tailspin for awhile. Couldn't tell how hard I was going to hit it and wasn't sure it would go back forward straight.)
I must have done the up and down drill for nearly an hour at first because I could see no sense in going forward if I could not get comfortable with the new way of hitting the cueball. Sometimes I could only do one of the 4 ideas at a time. Sometimes I'd get 3 and not realize for the next 5 tries that I had forgotten to pull back slowly.......! Finally I felt with some focus, I could remember to do them all at once. I kept going for so long because it became apparent almost immediately that when I did get all the components in one shot- it would be a very straight up and back shot!
I did some other drills that he suggested- now that I could hit the ball right- and worked on it for another hour. The next night I spent another 2 hours just trying to make the stroke feel comfortable and trying to make it automatic. During this time I had little speed control- I had so much going on in my brain that I could not even yet think about how hard I was going to hit the ball!
Friday, I went to a tavern with free pool during the day(Oscar's in Vanc., WA)to give it a try. I expected to have a difficult time as it was still a heavy brain drain. But I kept all the parts of the stroke together and took the shape I got (out of control a little to say the least!) with good humour and shot what I had the best I could. It went better than I expected and I couldn't be happier with the results. I have confidence in knowing I'm hitting where I'm
aiming now. My cuestick ends up straight out in front of me now-right where I think I'm sending it- if it doesn't I instantly know that I forgot one of those four items!
I made some very nice long cut shots that felt like they were in a track and straight in shots from some distance were a thrill to punch in the hole- dead on! I realized after awhile that I was shooting lots of shots a lot softer than I used to. Not quite sure why this is- maybe the slow backstroke has an effect on that. All in all, I don't think my game has suffered much from the change at all- I might be a sl6.5 now but when I get the feel of the speed back I will have improved noticably from where I was. There will be no backsliding or compromising!
Sorry this is so long but you can probably tell that I now think that I may have waited 25 years to long to get some instruction from someone who knows what's going on!
So thanks again Scott! And thanks, Bill for allowing me to come to your house and table for the lessons!
----the now straight shooting Jim Bradley!
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