And, What is your point?
Do you NOT believe that pros play from an offset?
It is becoming more and more obvious over time that that is indeed the case.
Stan Shuffett
I don't believe.
And, What is your point?
Do you NOT believe that pros play from an offset?
It is becoming more and more obvious over time that that is indeed the case.
Stan Shuffett
I don't believe.
I find both Hal Houle and Stan very interesting. It is quite entertaining to follow Mr Shuffetts posts and I would have loved to had been around when Mr Houle was preaching his word.
Here is a fascinating write up by Mr Houle taken from the question and answer page from JohnnyArcher.net. He seems to be angry at Johnny for hiding the secrets to aiming from all of the recreational players.
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When players write to you, asking how to aim, your pat answer is to say that you get three feet back from the shot, then you shoot parallel lines. That is all hogwash. That is not how you aim. Why don't you level with these recreational players? You use the aiming system whereby you aim the center of the cue ball at the edge of the object ball for any and all shots. You know exactly what I am talking about. We both know about placing the cue tip either left or right of cue ball center, and you know why we do that. Get honest for a change. These recreational players are no threat. Tell them the truth. - Hal Houle
I really don't know why you keep writing about my aiming system. Everybody that is listening, IT IS MY AIMING SYSTEM. I hope this would relieve some pressure that you have. Thanks, Johnny
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Great stuff!
http://www.johnnyarcher.net/ask.html
Hal was aware decades ago that players aligned at an offset to their actual shot lines. It's a huge step forward when players such as yourself agree with this. IMO, Hal reversed this offset concept and explained it in terms of a slight rotation to CCB based on its 2 fixed edges.
Did the top 200 players Hal was referring to all have the same exact offsets? I doubt that as well, but I do I believe the offsets were QUITE similar.
Concerning connections, there are objective visuals and a defined rotation to CCB that connects directly to table geometry. ( CTE is a visual system and the gift of CTE is that the eyes lead to a single tick that represents a connection to pockets. That does NOT mean that CTE PRO ONE requires a CCB hit, it simply means that all CTE shots are based on an objective visual shot line.)
This subject matter will be greatly advanced in DVD2.
Stan Shuffett
You align to the shot while standing, from a position that is equal to 1/2 tip off of the shot line? You then sweep down into shot, sometimes with a sweep to the left and sometimes with a sweep to the right?I know what you're doing works, we went though it in Tunica last year and it aligned to what I normally do.
Would sweeping into the shot from an off line position, sometimes from the left and sometimes from the right, produce inconsistant results IYO?The process of going from the above position to the "down on the shot" position takes a system, and if that {system} deviates it will certainly result in inconsistency. This system should be no more difficult than the system you would use to simply drop down and look at the shot with no pool cue in your hand.
You align to the shot while standing, from a position that is equal to 1/2 tip off of the shot line? You then sweep down into shot, sometimes with a sweep to the left and sometimes with a sweep to the right?
Would sweeping into the shot from an off line position, sometimes from the left and sometimes from the right, produce inconsistant results IYO?
You align to the shot while standing, from a position that is equal to 1/2 tip off of the shot line? You then sweep down into shot, sometimes with a sweep to the left and sometimes with a sweep to the right?
Would sweeping into the shot from an off line position, sometimes from the left and sometimes from the right, produce inconsistent results IYO?
Although Shane says he discovered this on his own shaft aiming methods have been around a long time.
(((Satori))) , if you're asking questions that are relevant to the conversation...that is one thing.
If I get any feeling at all that you're just heckling the instructors....I will ban you.
Any questions?
CJ:
I agree. I have a friend who has a Break-Rak, and in letting people try it, one of the things I noticed is that while I personally focus on having the cue ball pop straight back at me, others seem not to be able to do this. They focus on "smashing" into it, and the cue ball invariably squirts or jets off to the side, bouncing around.
One particular player who plays decent I challenged to have the cue ball either pop back at him, or die somewhere in the middle of the table, and he couldn't do it, even after I asked him to "take a little bit off of it" (back-off on the power and focus on a precise hit). Then, I asked him to do the cue ball lagging drill -- where you lag the cue ball the length of the table and have it come back to the cue tip, say, 5 out of 5 times (after a few practice hits, of course, to make sure he's lined-up). What I found was that he couldn't "find" center ball -- he was cueing the ball off-center, and had altered his aim to compensate. (He was a good ball pocketer, btw -- he could run racks of 9-ball.) In watching his fundamentals, I noticed his alignment was off, but he's a particularly "strong" personality and doesn't take kindly to others critiquing his style. Nor is he open to accepting even friendly/helpful suggestions, even from better players, and even if multiple people all notice the same thing. So he's now "addicted" to the length of the table cue-ball-back-to-the-tip lagging exercise, "determined" to beat it, and he rarely does -- except on that lotto-winning rare occasion when the speed and inadvertent side he puts on the ball are perfectly balanced to score the cue ball back to the tip. Meanwhile, I can walk up to just about any decently set up table, and right out of the gate do this exercise with no problem. He just scratches his head, and when I answer his question of how I'm doing it, when I reply that I'm absolutely hitting center-ball, he exclaims, "I *AM* hitting center ball!!" ::sigh::
There is no replacement for proper fundamentals -- not even an aiming system. While one can build a good game by adaptation and rote (and I suspect that's what the player above did), ultimately, it will come to bite him/her. One will be forever searching for that "panacea" to get him/her off of each plateau.
-Sean
CJ:
I agree. I have a friend who has a Break-Rak, and in letting people try it, one of the things I noticed is that while I personally focus on having the cue ball pop straight back at me, others seem not to be able to do this. They focus on "smashing" into it, and the cue ball invariably squirts or jets off to the side, bouncing around.
One particular player who plays decent I challenged to have the cue ball either pop back at him, or die somewhere in the middle of the table, and he couldn't do it, even after I asked him to "take a little bit off of it" (back-off on the power and focus on a precise hit). Then, I asked him to do the cue ball lagging drill -- where you lag the cue ball the length of the table and have it come back to the cue tip, say, 5 out of 5 times (after a few practice hits, of course, to make sure he's lined-up). What I found was that he couldn't "find" center ball -- he was cueing the ball off-center, and had altered his aim to compensate. (He was a good ball pocketer, btw -- he could run racks of 9-ball.) In watching his fundamentals, I noticed his alignment was off, but he's a particularly "strong" personality and doesn't take kindly to others critiquing his style. Nor is he open to accepting even friendly/helpful suggestions, even from better players, and even if multiple people all notice the same thing. So he's now "addicted" to the length of the table cue-ball-back-to-the-tip lagging exercise, "determined" to beat it, and he rarely does -- except on that lotto-winning rare occasion when the speed and inadvertent side he puts on the ball are perfectly balanced to score the cue ball back to the tip. Meanwhile, I can walk up to just about any decently set up table, and right out of the gate do this exercise with no problem. He just scratches his head, and when I answer his question of how I'm doing it, when I reply that I'm absolutely hitting center-ball, he exclaims, "I *AM* hitting center ball!!" ::sigh::
There is no replacement for proper fundamentals -- not even an aiming system. While one can build a good game by adaptation and rote (and I suspect that's what the player above did), ultimately, it will come to bite him/her. One will be forever searching for that "panacea" to get him/her off of each plateau.
-Sean
What's funny is I traveled hundreds of thousands of miles on the road and not once did "aiming systems" come up. We had descriptions of different players, how they played, how much they would bet, what their favorite game is.
You would have thought someone would have been known for their "aiming system," like Buddy, Nick, Rempe, Earl, Efren, Sigel, etc.....and when I heard about "ghost ball systems" I just presumed it was just a term to keep from having to explain something that they couldn't explain.
If does make some sense to a beginner, if that's who you are teacher, I just prefer them to be aligning to a constant point on the object ball AND hitting the cue ball in a particular place. I've always thought in terms of creativity ... "creating the angles between the balls"
CJ, it is funny how road players back in the day never mentioned a aiming system. I was on the road a lot in the 70's and 80's and was around most top players back then and have never heard one player talk of a aiming system, until I came to this site when I started back playing a few years ago. I guess it was the greatest kept secret in history!![]()
Well, back then they thought smoking was healthy for you and lobotomies were considered proper treatment for mental illness
One guy I know ran around with Buddy Hall off and on for years and told me prying pool playing advice out of Buddy during those many hours of driving was like using a plastic spoon to lift a car.
He said Buddy guarded his methods religiously. I don't know if that's true but it's often been said that players didn't give up a lot back in the day. Regarding aiming systems though I remember very clearly that a bunch of us were standing around a table at the SBE 2002 or 2003 and discussing Hal's methods and an old man piped up and said he was taught something similar back in the 60s.
I personally think that the article in the mid 90s done by Pool and Billiard Magazine clearly showed that there were "alternative" methods of aiming out there at least nearly 20 years ago and so we can only assume they go farther back than that. My take on all this is that when you have the ability to discuss endlessly about a subject then invariably just about all that can be known about it will be known at some point. So even if players weren't as forthcoming or even simply didn't use any overt aiming methods at all back in the day, today's players DO use such methods and some of them openly admit to it and talk about it.
Good post. I think that the internet and this forum have provided us a way to talk about techniques and systems that you just couldn't get into in a pool room, unless you knew a roadplayer or pro personally and spent a lot of time with them. Casual conversation about techniques is sort of tough to get into when you're playing someone or having a beer with them; but when you're banging around on a keyboard it makes it easier to get into details and debate our various methods/perceptions.
I had a few guys show me some stuff off and on over the years; I was shown TOI 25 years ago after a road player beat my brains in. He saw me spinning all my shots and told me there was a much easier way to run racks...I didn't get it or believe it then, took me this forum to really re-examine it and try it out. I've had pro-speed players show me how to cinch certain shots (using ferule aiming or certain spin shots for specific angles). I don't believe there's anything new under the sun...people have come up with creative ways of presenting techniques that have been around for a long time. I'm sure some top players have avoided getting into discussing their "secrets", but I'm sure they knew then that they weren't secrets they only knew; they saw them in use against them all the time. Some folks don't like examining their own stroke/techniques in detail, for fear their perception of how it works will fall apart, they'll overanalyze it and the magic dust will blow away.....:wink: