Shooting Hard

teebee

teebee

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
Lately very firm shots are making me crazy! I do well until I get out of line and need to hit the ball very firmly to get shape on the next ball. I know the important thing is to not get out of shape and I am practising with that goal in mind. I often set up the missed shape and play it correctly several times before playing the next rack.
Still if a shot calls for a very firm stroke I almost always miss. I know without seeing the stroke it is impossible to tell me exactly what I am doimg wrong but if anyone could tell me the most likely mistakes made on extra firm shots and how to work towards eliminating thems I would appreciate the input.:confused:
 
the harder you shoot the smaller the pockets get, less room for error. if you are using sidespin, you will get a lot more deflection.
 
teebee said:
Lately very firm shots are making me crazy! I do well until I get out of line and need to hit the ball very firmly to get shape on the next ball. I know the important thing is to not get out of shape and I am practising with that goal in mind. I often set up the missed shape and play it correctly several times before playing the next rack.
Still if a shot calls for a very firm stroke I almost always miss. I know without seeing the stroke it is impossible to tell me exactly what I am doimg wrong but if anyone could tell me the most likely mistakes made on extra firm shots and how to work towards eliminating thems I would appreciate the input.:confused:
Click to expand...
If you are accustomed to playing outside english and letting the cueball curve some and throw the object ball you'll find that doesn't work very well when you hit very hard because there will be little of either and you'll hit the ball thick. That just means your aiming wrong, and that would be your problem. So then you adjust your aim to the correct place and try to aim there regardless of your speed.

If your not using english then you just need to hit more. It's very important to be able to loosen your stroke up concentrate on the speed of your cue instead of thinking power.

Most good players have spent a lot of time slamming balls in to build overall accuracy, even though it is discouraged by many.

unknownpro
 
Sometimes shooting hard is good. Usually when I practice or haven't played in a while I practice shooting hard (and get lectured for it but I know what my own goal is) to get the muscle coordination back. After the muscle coordination is back is when I work on the softer, touch shots.
 
teebee said:
Lately very firm shots are making me crazy! I do well until I get out of line and need to hit the ball very firmly to get shape on the next ball. I know the important thing is to not get out of shape and I am practising with that goal in mind. I often set up the missed shape and play it correctly several times before playing the next rack.
Still if a shot calls for a very firm stroke I almost always miss. I know without seeing the stroke it is impossible to tell me exactly what I am doimg wrong but if anyone could tell me the most likely mistakes made on extra firm shots and how to work towards eliminating thems I would appreciate the input.:confused:
Click to expand...

If your stroke, rather than swinging in one smooth pendulum motion, swings in a more complicated motion during which the arm muscles make lateral corrections to "guide" the cue along, then shooting hard won't work well for you. The reason is that those little corrections have to be done a lot faster when shooting hard than when your stroke is moving slower.

At some point, you're getting the cue to the CB too fast for you to make all the little corrections in time and in a coordinated manner. You end up losing some of the corrections, or over-correcting because your muscles are contracting faster, and you don't stroke straight. You don't hit the CB where you intend, and you're cue isn't travelling the exact direction you intend at contact. So you miss.

Learn to align your stroke so that there's no movement beyond a simple swinging of the lower arm, like a pendulum, from the stationary fulcrum of your elbow. I've typed out the steps to get yourself into this alignment many times on the forum in threads like these, but few seem to read the posts or take them to heart, because the explanation is long. So PM me if you're interested in a step-by-step breakdown of how to align your arm and body so you can have a simple pendulum stroke. I'll look up the posts where I've described it before and copy them to you.

-Andrew
 
teebee said:
Lately very firm shots are making me crazy! I do well until I get out of line and need to hit the ball very firmly to get shape on the next ball. I know the important thing is to not get out of shape and I am practising with that goal in mind. I often set up the missed shape and play it correctly several times before playing the next rack.
Still if a shot calls for a very firm stroke I almost always miss. I know without seeing the stroke it is impossible to tell me exactly what I am doimg wrong but if anyone could tell me the most likely mistakes made on extra firm shots and how to work towards eliminating thems I would appreciate the input.:confused:
Click to expand...
One possible reason is that your shot stroke is too different from your warmup strokes. Try speeding up the forward part of your warmups to more closely simulate the harder shot stroke. You might feel something different happening.

pj
chgo
 
Do you snap your wrist for power shots and not for slow-firm shots? That's one of the problems that I encounter from time to time...sometimes I get snapping my wrist a little off and it moves the back of the cue a little. It's hard to see when you're hitting something hard, but you'll miss the spot your aiming at when it happens.
 
Thanks, I will try to check these different suggestions and see if I can get on the right track.
 
I find that when I am shooting with a firm to hard stroke sometimes I have the tendency to sort of jab at the cue ball and not fully follow through. This always results in a miss unless the shot is near straight in. With a non-center ball hit the cue bal deflects like crazy on this kind of stroke.

If I take a few more practice strokes and concentrate on following through I usually pocket the ball. Most shots don't require extreme speed unless you are straight in and cheating the pocket.
 
teebee;

Besides the changes in swerve/deflection and pocket tolerance, the usual cause of missing shots while stroking harder is in your stroke. Everyone has a zone, a place between rolling the ball and hitting it very hard, where their stroke works the way intended. When they get out of that zone, the accuracy drops. The cue ball is hit in an unintended place or the cue is moved out of line. It takes work on your stroke, to get it straight at higher speeds, to correct the problem.

Try making sure your cue is very level when trying to force the cue ball. It requires less force and you won't have to hit as hard, thus keeping you closer to your natural stroke.
 
Andrew Manning said:
If your stroke, rather than swinging in one smooth pendulum motion, swings in a more complicated motion during which the arm muscles make lateral corrections to "guide" the cue along, then shooting hard won't work well for you. The reason is that those little corrections have to be done a lot faster when shooting hard than when your stroke is moving slower.

-Andrew
Click to expand...

When I was growing up we used to bow hunt a lot. My father always told me not to "fight" the bow movement too much. I learned that your body naturaly makes the adjustments it needs to so you are on line. I never thought about it until andrew's assesment and it makes perfect sense.
 
Last night I tried checking my allignment per some earlier posts by Andrew Mannining. I seem to stand slightly more square to the shot than suggested. I adjusted accoringly and tried to keep my cue very level. My shot percentage was much higher. I will know more in a few days.
 
Andrew Manning said:
If your stroke, rather than swinging in one smooth pendulum motion, swings in a more complicated motion during which the arm muscles make lateral corrections to "guide" the cue along, then shooting hard won't work well for you. The reason is that those little corrections have to be done a lot faster when shooting hard than when your stroke is moving slower.

At some point, you're getting the cue to the CB too fast for you to make all the little corrections in time and in a coordinated manner. You end up losing some of the corrections, or over-correcting because your muscles are contracting faster, and you don't stroke straight. You don't hit the CB where you intend, and you're cue isn't travelling the exact direction you intend at contact. So you miss.

Learn to align your stroke so that there's no movement beyond a simple swinging of the lower arm, like a pendulum, from the stationary fulcrum of your elbow. I've typed out the steps to get yourself into this alignment many times on the forum in threads like these, but few seem to read the posts or take them to heart, because the explanation is long. So PM me if you're interested in a step-by-step breakdown of how to align your arm and body so you can have a simple pendulum stroke. I'll look up the posts where I've described it before and copy them to you.

-Andrew
Click to expand...

Andrew: How many directions does a pendulum swing in????randyg
 
teebee said:
Lately very firm shots are making me crazy! I do well until I get out of line and need to hit the ball very firmly to get shape on the next ball. I know the important thing is to not get out of shape and I am practising with that goal in mind. I often set up the missed shape and play it correctly several times before playing the next rack.
Still if a shot calls for a very firm stroke I almost always miss. I know without seeing the stroke it is impossible to tell me exactly what I am doimg wrong but if anyone could tell me the most likely mistakes made on extra firm shots and how to work towards eliminating thems I would appreciate the input.:confused:
Click to expand...


Any errors made in your stroke will become magnified with speed......SPF=randyg
 
randyg said:
Andrew: How many directions does a pendulum swing in????randyg
Click to expand...

Not sure I understand your question. I guess the answer is 2, forward and back. What is it you meant by asking this?

-Andrew
 
When I shoot hard I have a tendencie to tighten my grip. This changes just about everything in my stroke and its a crap shoot if the cue ball is going where I am aiming it. It helps if I think smooth and strong rather than hard.

Hope this helps,

Andy
 
Andrew Manning said:
Not sure I understand your question. I guess the answer is 2, forward and back. What is it you meant by asking this?

-Andrew
Click to expand...


Correct, and that would be TWO smooth motions, not ONE.

One of the major myths of our game is "one smooth motion"!

Thanks....SPF=randyg
 
randyg said:
Correct, and that would be TWO smooth motions, not ONE.

One of the major myths of our game is "one smooth motion"!

Thanks....SPF=randyg
Click to expand...

Fair enough, I was only referring to the forward part when I said "one smooth motion", because I was trying to emphasize that the forward swing should be one smooth pendulum swoop rather than a complex motion that uses lateral forces to guide the cue, as I believe these lateral forces are the reason some strokes fall apart when more speed is used.

-Andrew
 
I believe that when we want to hit the cue ball harder we tend jerk our bodies and this cause us to hit the cue ball differently than we intend. Try to keep a smooth practice stroke for every practice stroke including and especially the last stroke. I have found that the concept of set, pause, finish works well for me.
 
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