Hey guys,
Been a while since I've been on but I was playing for well over 12 hours today while my girlfriend was in a tournament and the guy playing on the table next to me noticed something about my stroke and brought it to my attention.
I've known for a while that sometime when I'm playing I'll stroke through the cueball and pre-tip-cue-ball contact my cue would veer to the left a little bit but I didn't know why. What the guy noticed is that I shoot rail shots (where my hand is on the rail) smooth and perfect but other shots where my hand can be anywhere on the table I'll get a little funky.
What he told me is that when I'm not on the rail I stretch my bridge hand out too much, lean too far forward, and my grip hand isn't perpendicular to the floor at contact because I'm stretched out and to compensate I drop my shoulder and the my tip veers. I don't remember exactly what he said about it but there was some connection between my bridge length (I use a pretty long bridge) and stretching out.
Anyway, he worked with me a little bit til I was able to keep my bridge length while bringing my bridge arm in a little closer to my body and holy shit... I was so happy to see my cue maintaining a straight line during my entire stroke and I've never hit balls so well in my life. Now I just need to work on making this consistent because as I got a little more tired it was tough for me to focus on doing it and my bad habit started to pop back up. I'm bridging a lot more like Niels Feijen now and I can see why he does it!
No real reason to make this post except to celebrate and maybe offer a clue to anybody who might be having a similar issue.
Been a while since I've been on but I was playing for well over 12 hours today while my girlfriend was in a tournament and the guy playing on the table next to me noticed something about my stroke and brought it to my attention.
I've known for a while that sometime when I'm playing I'll stroke through the cueball and pre-tip-cue-ball contact my cue would veer to the left a little bit but I didn't know why. What the guy noticed is that I shoot rail shots (where my hand is on the rail) smooth and perfect but other shots where my hand can be anywhere on the table I'll get a little funky.
What he told me is that when I'm not on the rail I stretch my bridge hand out too much, lean too far forward, and my grip hand isn't perpendicular to the floor at contact because I'm stretched out and to compensate I drop my shoulder and the my tip veers. I don't remember exactly what he said about it but there was some connection between my bridge length (I use a pretty long bridge) and stretching out.
Anyway, he worked with me a little bit til I was able to keep my bridge length while bringing my bridge arm in a little closer to my body and holy shit... I was so happy to see my cue maintaining a straight line during my entire stroke and I've never hit balls so well in my life. Now I just need to work on making this consistent because as I got a little more tired it was tough for me to focus on doing it and my bad habit started to pop back up. I'm bridging a lot more like Niels Feijen now and I can see why he does it!
No real reason to make this post except to celebrate and maybe offer a clue to anybody who might be having a similar issue.
