stroke question
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For the center of the cue ball, use a stripe as the cue ball and line it up like a tire. If it wobbles on the way to the object ball, you have hit it off-center. For some related drills on extreme basics, see the March column in http://www.sfbilliards.com/articles/cols2010r.pdf
A really cheap tool for finding the center of the cueball is Joe Tucker's 3rd eye stroke trainer... For the price everyone should own one and keep it around for occasional use...... http://www.ozonebilliards.com/joetucker.html
That might be the best pool invention of all time.
The simplest way to check this is alternate straight in shots with putting the cueball on the spot and shooting it to the short rail center diamond. If you aren't hitting the cueball in the center, it will rebound left or right. You must shoot this shot hard to get the best results. If you are getting unwanted english, then you have to work on hitting the cueball in the center. And I would suggest looking first at your stroke plane--align shoulder, elbow, wrist and foot on the vertical plane. Most typically, players are too over the cue with their shoulder joint and too much the other side of the cue with their elbow. It's a very common pattern, even with good players. Observe Max carefully. He has as good stroke mechanics as anyone in the game.
You might also work on eye alignment. Basically, there are two ways to align your eyes--centered or favoring your dominant eye. Be aware, if you use the centered method, you cannot sight down the shaft; you can only sight (aim) the line from the cueball to the target (the shaft will appear to point elsewhere). If you use dominant eye aiming, or want to, try closing your non-dominant eye to aim. That will force you to sight like a rifle down the shaft. Eventually, you'll see how to do this with both eyes open. Lastly, most players prefer to use both eyes, even with dominant eye aiming. Therefore, to engage both eyes, begin moving your head so that the shaft falls between your dominant eye and your nose. For me the sweet spot was the closest I could get to centered while still being able to sight down the shaft; I'm probably 1/2 way between my dominant eye and my nose.
Getting all this to work takes time. Max says in his DVD it took him three solid months to correct his mechanics and aiming. Obviously, if you have access to video or a friend with a sharp eye, it will help a lot. A mirror is useful too.
One last thing, when making a change in, say, your elbow position, what will feel like a huge change will in fact be much less. As you are learning, exaggerate your change; even then, you probably aren't doing it enough. "Feel" and "real" are at times very distant partners.
While I agree that this some good information, the only reason you might have to shoot this shot with more speed is if the table is not level. With a level table you can shoot this shot at lag speed, and get the same result(s).
Scott Lee
www.poolknowledge.com
Scott Lee
www.poolknowledge.com
There are two reasons I advised a hard stroke. One, too soft a stroke and most or all of the side spin may dissipate before it gets to the top rail. The other is, a hard stroke reveals flaws that might be hidden by a soft (shorter) stroke.
You know, most people's eyes are actually lying to them. your perspective of what straight is from your eyes may not correlate to where your cue is pointing. You can retrain your eyes by learning to sink shots with both the cue ball and object ball frozen against the long rail. I actually had to aim to almost the left edge of the ball when I first started the drill. It's weird.
tedkaufman...We'll have to agree to disagree. None of the sidespin is lost on a lag speed stroke in less than 9' of travel. Sidespin (rotational energy) stays on the CB 10x longer than any directional spin (draw, stun, or natural roll/follow). It is true that it is more difficult to bring the CB straight back to the tip with a higher stroke speed. That's why we start with a lag, and learn to do 10x in a row, before moving on to more of a power stroke.
Scott Lee
www.poolknowledge.com
Scott Lee
www.poolknowledge.com
really? is this worth buying dave?