Stop trying to do it. Consider what you are struggling with.
Setup a center to center alignment shot. For me it is one diamond out from the long rail and place the object ball on the line. Come back a couple of diamonds and put the cue ball on the same line. Cue ball and object ball are sitting straight in line on the first diamond line one diamond below the side pocket and one diamond above the side pocket. Any shot will do, just pick one. Line up center to center like you are going to shoot the ball into the first diamond. Put your hand down inside the line and shoot the ball in the corner pocket. Just slightly inside the line, nothing extreme. Don't measure it, don't aim it. Just look down the center to center line and shoot the ball with authority.
I was getting inconsistent results until I did this. I made every one of these shots. I feel like I could make a thousand in a row. How can this be? I wasn't even aiming at it. The thing is, if you have been playing for any length of time, your pool instinct already knows what to do. It knows about deflection, throw and all of those other things. When you place your hand down inside the center to center line, it already knows what is going to happen. It also knows where the pocket is. You just have to get out of its way and let it do what it is there to do.
If you are off line slightly you will get feedback through your stroke. You will feel like a little inside or outside. It will just feel that way. Then you can get precise with the tip. Line up this much over or whatever. We see this in the golf swing. They call it compensating moves. If the club is out of line coming down, like outside the plane coming down too steep into the ball, your body will pull up to avoid hitting the ground behind the ball. It will do all this in a fraction of a second without you thinking about it. The most efficient golf swing is the one with the fewest and smallest compensating moves.
When you force your visual sight line down the center to center line and set your hand down inside the line without aiming at anything, your instinct will make a compensating move to steer that ball towards the pocket without you having to think about it. In my case, it was dead center of the pocket. It was then I realized, I already knew how to do this and have been doing it my whole pool playing life. I just never had an anchor like CTC, CTE alignment and precise placement and cueing of the ball.
One key point I am still working on is fighting the pivot. Is is important to setup the center line of the cue parallel with the CTC/CTE line. If it is off slightly this will degrade the quality of contact with the cue ball and it will cause the cue ball to undercut the object ball.
These are my observations after watching CJs PPV and messing around with TOI for about three hours. Some background on my level of play, I can break and run multiple racks of 8, 9 and 10 ball. I run 30s regularly and 60s every now and then at straight pool. I can break and run at one pocket and banks thought it is a rare event. I have been stuck in a rut for 15 years unable to advance my game. I have played in a couple of pro events. I have the symptoms CJ describes. I come out of the gate like gangbusters and fade later in the match. If fact, I have been ahead in every match I have played with scores of 7-2 and even 7-0 in a race to 9 or 11. Wind up losing on the hill or a couple games down.
I don't know where I will wind up with this but for $17 CJs PPV is the best value I have seen in pool education.
Setup a center to center alignment shot. For me it is one diamond out from the long rail and place the object ball on the line. Come back a couple of diamonds and put the cue ball on the same line. Cue ball and object ball are sitting straight in line on the first diamond line one diamond below the side pocket and one diamond above the side pocket. Any shot will do, just pick one. Line up center to center like you are going to shoot the ball into the first diamond. Put your hand down inside the line and shoot the ball in the corner pocket. Just slightly inside the line, nothing extreme. Don't measure it, don't aim it. Just look down the center to center line and shoot the ball with authority.
I was getting inconsistent results until I did this. I made every one of these shots. I feel like I could make a thousand in a row. How can this be? I wasn't even aiming at it. The thing is, if you have been playing for any length of time, your pool instinct already knows what to do. It knows about deflection, throw and all of those other things. When you place your hand down inside the center to center line, it already knows what is going to happen. It also knows where the pocket is. You just have to get out of its way and let it do what it is there to do.
If you are off line slightly you will get feedback through your stroke. You will feel like a little inside or outside. It will just feel that way. Then you can get precise with the tip. Line up this much over or whatever. We see this in the golf swing. They call it compensating moves. If the club is out of line coming down, like outside the plane coming down too steep into the ball, your body will pull up to avoid hitting the ground behind the ball. It will do all this in a fraction of a second without you thinking about it. The most efficient golf swing is the one with the fewest and smallest compensating moves.
When you force your visual sight line down the center to center line and set your hand down inside the line without aiming at anything, your instinct will make a compensating move to steer that ball towards the pocket without you having to think about it. In my case, it was dead center of the pocket. It was then I realized, I already knew how to do this and have been doing it my whole pool playing life. I just never had an anchor like CTC, CTE alignment and precise placement and cueing of the ball.
One key point I am still working on is fighting the pivot. Is is important to setup the center line of the cue parallel with the CTC/CTE line. If it is off slightly this will degrade the quality of contact with the cue ball and it will cause the cue ball to undercut the object ball.
These are my observations after watching CJs PPV and messing around with TOI for about three hours. Some background on my level of play, I can break and run multiple racks of 8, 9 and 10 ball. I run 30s regularly and 60s every now and then at straight pool. I can break and run at one pocket and banks thought it is a rare event. I have been stuck in a rut for 15 years unable to advance my game. I have played in a couple of pro events. I have the symptoms CJ describes. I come out of the gate like gangbusters and fade later in the match. If fact, I have been ahead in every match I have played with scores of 7-2 and even 7-0 in a race to 9 or 11. Wind up losing on the hill or a couple games down.
I don't know where I will wind up with this but for $17 CJs PPV is the best value I have seen in pool education.
