Weird thread title right?
Well I bought the Darren Appelton Perfect Practice and I have to say it is a great investment. Better than the SVB videos (except for his breaking vid). One of the subjects he talks about when doing the straight back draw shots (stroke builders) is making sure that your forward stroke and back stroke are at the same speed. Sounds really simple right and its a point easily disregarded by many players. Mike Page made a great video discussing this but I never implemented it.
Well I was working on my table length draw thinking about this concept. I can already draw full length of the table but I noticed that I tend to accelerate my forward stroke faster than my back stroke. So I started to try to feel the speed of the stroke needed for the draw and ensured that I made the backstroke the same speed the forward stroke. I started to put more spin on the ball with less effort!!! Who doesn't want that?
So this led to me experimenting with how much draw I can put on the ball stroking this way. This led me to trying to level out the cue even more. In turn I had to drop my elbow a hair which took the cue off my chin. The cue was much more level and combined with the the equal stroke I was drawing table length with much less effort.
A bonus of putting in this work, I noticed my body alignment was very square when addressing the ball. I would twist my upper body to get online when getting down on the shot. This led to me stroking ever so slightly across my body and putting a bit of left english on the ball with my natural stroke. I now stand doing some air strokes and line those up with the shot line before getting down. My body is more inline now and my natural stroke is inline with the shot instead of slightly across it.
Many of you might think these little things are not a big deal. I have been playing for far to long to know better. If I can stroke smoother and easier with the same amount of spin (kinda like Efren!) that should lead to me missing similar shots from 10% of the time to maybe 5% of the time, or even 2% of the time!!! Usually this kind of fundamental work carries over into most shot making so maybe I drop my miss percentage on all shots by 2~5% that would be awesome.
Implementing these changes takes conscious work which is taking me out of my preshot routine. Again another reason many don't make improvements in their game. I am willing to accept this short term slump in order to focus on implementing these changes. Besides it should only take 2~4 weeks of conscious effort until it starts to become automatic enough that I can go back to focusing on making the ball with the right spin/speed for position.
In summary by trying to equal out my stroke, it led me to leveling out the cue more, which led me to noticing my poor body alignment. All it took was time at the table practicing the RIGHT THINGS. I hope this mini story opens the eyes of some of you newer players struggling to improve.
Well I bought the Darren Appelton Perfect Practice and I have to say it is a great investment. Better than the SVB videos (except for his breaking vid). One of the subjects he talks about when doing the straight back draw shots (stroke builders) is making sure that your forward stroke and back stroke are at the same speed. Sounds really simple right and its a point easily disregarded by many players. Mike Page made a great video discussing this but I never implemented it.
Well I was working on my table length draw thinking about this concept. I can already draw full length of the table but I noticed that I tend to accelerate my forward stroke faster than my back stroke. So I started to try to feel the speed of the stroke needed for the draw and ensured that I made the backstroke the same speed the forward stroke. I started to put more spin on the ball with less effort!!! Who doesn't want that?
So this led to me experimenting with how much draw I can put on the ball stroking this way. This led me to trying to level out the cue even more. In turn I had to drop my elbow a hair which took the cue off my chin. The cue was much more level and combined with the the equal stroke I was drawing table length with much less effort.
A bonus of putting in this work, I noticed my body alignment was very square when addressing the ball. I would twist my upper body to get online when getting down on the shot. This led to me stroking ever so slightly across my body and putting a bit of left english on the ball with my natural stroke. I now stand doing some air strokes and line those up with the shot line before getting down. My body is more inline now and my natural stroke is inline with the shot instead of slightly across it.
Many of you might think these little things are not a big deal. I have been playing for far to long to know better. If I can stroke smoother and easier with the same amount of spin (kinda like Efren!) that should lead to me missing similar shots from 10% of the time to maybe 5% of the time, or even 2% of the time!!! Usually this kind of fundamental work carries over into most shot making so maybe I drop my miss percentage on all shots by 2~5% that would be awesome.
Implementing these changes takes conscious work which is taking me out of my preshot routine. Again another reason many don't make improvements in their game. I am willing to accept this short term slump in order to focus on implementing these changes. Besides it should only take 2~4 weeks of conscious effort until it starts to become automatic enough that I can go back to focusing on making the ball with the right spin/speed for position.
In summary by trying to equal out my stroke, it led me to leveling out the cue more, which led me to noticing my poor body alignment. All it took was time at the table practicing the RIGHT THINGS. I hope this mini story opens the eyes of some of you newer players struggling to improve.
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