What is the best practice drill that you have ever herd of or have used? What drill brought about the greatest amount of improvement in your game?
Post drills and any information you think may be helpful to others.
Thank You 
The Best Pool Drill??
- Thread starter MichaelKendall
- Start date
As a general thing, drills should be "progressive" as described in the December 1992 article at http://www.sfbilliards.com/articles/BD_articles.html where a lot of the other columns describe progressive drills for various shots and levels, including a progressive masse drill.MichaelKendall said:
The best drill is the one that helps to fix your current weakness. How to make a progressive drill based on specific shots you have trouble with -- so the drill fits your game -- is described in http://www.onthebreaknews.com/Jewett3.htm#October04 with other drills in other articles at that site.
First off, listen to Bob Jewett before a nitwit like me.
Second, the drill that I feel kept my focus and improved my game over the past few years is a drill found on Burt Kinister's "The Short Game".
Try to runout in rotation, comming off the back rail first;
Second, the drill that I feel kept my focus and improved my game over the past few years is a drill found on Burt Kinister's "The Short Game".
Try to runout in rotation, comming off the back rail first;
From what I know, progressive drills are the best especially because you can track your progress over time. They say the most important shot in pool is the stop shot so I would only think that the 'most important' drill would be related to the most important shot. In my opinion, putting the object in the middle of the table and then shooting a stop shot (from progressive distances) into the corner pocket is a valuable drill. It will help you pocket balls from a distance, learn how to make the cue ball completely stop, but most importantly point out any flaws in your stroke.
That looks like a good one that could be made progressive by adding balls. Start with four and if you get through all of those, try five your next time. If you do five go to six. But if you fail to get through all the balls, you have to drop back to one fewer balls on the next try -- you have to "earn" a shot at more balls.Gregg said:
This drill is a lot like the "L" which has been described by a lot of different people in a lot of different places. Search out the "L" to find lots of comments that will apply here.
The drill is good for working on several different techniques. If you want the toughest challenge, do it with just draw and without hitting any cushion. Four balls in the progressive style would be a good goal for most players.
Another technique is soft follow with outside english. This is the "natural" way to play the shot, keeping about a half-ball cut on all your shots.
Another is to play a plain stun or a stun with a little outside english. This will be required if you get too full on the shot by mistake.
I'm not much of a "drill" person, but here's one I use on occasion to try to get in stroke.
Simply put, it is 3 variations of the longest possible straight-in shot. I vary the position of the object ball (positions 1, 2, 3) as well as the english on the cueball to adjust the difficulty. This drill is especially effective when applied with a high degree of specificity, so rather than just trying to make the ball, I might shoot the shot in position 3 while trying to draw the cueball as near as possible to the center of the table, or I might shoot the shot in position 1 while trying to follow as near as possible to the head-string, etc.
I actually got the idea from a Bert Kinister shot in which he repeatedly shoots a long straight-in and tries to make the cueball assume the position of the object ball (1 1/8" of follow, basically). Obviously, the drill doesn't guarantee that one willl develop textbook mechanics, but if I can achieve a high level of success at making these shots while controlling my cueball, then I feel confident that my stroke is pretty straight, and that I am striking the cueball pretty accurately. There are few things more frustrating to me than missing a ball because I put a bad stroke on it, and this drill seems to help my muscles remember what a straight stroke feels like.
Good luck!
Simply put, it is 3 variations of the longest possible straight-in shot. I vary the position of the object ball (positions 1, 2, 3) as well as the english on the cueball to adjust the difficulty. This drill is especially effective when applied with a high degree of specificity, so rather than just trying to make the ball, I might shoot the shot in position 3 while trying to draw the cueball as near as possible to the center of the table, or I might shoot the shot in position 1 while trying to follow as near as possible to the head-string, etc.
I actually got the idea from a Bert Kinister shot in which he repeatedly shoots a long straight-in and tries to make the cueball assume the position of the object ball (1 1/8" of follow, basically). Obviously, the drill doesn't guarantee that one willl develop textbook mechanics, but if I can achieve a high level of success at making these shots while controlling my cueball, then I feel confident that my stroke is pretty straight, and that I am striking the cueball pretty accurately. There are few things more frustrating to me than missing a ball because I put a bad stroke on it, and this drill seems to help my muscles remember what a straight stroke feels like.
Good luck!
I do this drill, only without running into another ball, and not using any rails.Gregg said:
I got it out of the book "Black Belt Billiards".(I think
)
Cheez Dawg said:I do this drill, only without running into another ball, and not using any rails.
I got it out of the book "Black Belt Billiards".(I think
Somebody is getting the idea from somebody. Kinister also does not want people to run into other balls as well, or to start over if you do.
I must have at about 200 hours of focus on this drill. Very challenging to a beginner. I have ran it about four or five times without a miss/foul. I would have laughed if you said I would be doing that two years ago.
Cheez Dawg said:I do this drill, only without running into another ball, and not using any rails.
I got it out of the book "Black Belt Billiards".(I think
I use a similar drill which is very difficult but helps master english and Q ball control. It is a Circle and you must start in the middle then you hit in all the balls in no certain order in to any pocket of your choice. You may go outside the circle and use the rails but you may not hit any other ball on the table.
Its fun and challenging!
Gregg said:
Here is the above posted drill.
mszelis said:
I also use a "L" drill no hitting the rail or any other ball and you must make all of the balls into the same corner pocket.
I like the drill where you throw out a rack of 15 balls, making sure there is nothing closer than about 4 inches from a cushion, then take ball in hand and run all the balls without allowing the cue ball to hit a rail. This drill really teaches cue ball control and pattern recognition.
Please post all of your Favorite Drills and games or anything it is an educational post...Thank You
The drill that I've been doing the most recently is one where you put a ball on each spot around the table frozen to the rail, then starting with ball in hand your pocket each ball continuing until you disturb (even simply bump) another ball, miss, or scratch. Tom Simpson suggests that every player does this drill at least one time for one hour and you WILL see very steady improvements in your ability to shoot balls frozen to the rail and accurately tell where you will end up. Recently I've been doing this drill for 20 minutes a day and rail frozen balls have went from my phobia to an automatic shot.
more rail shots
I like Thrasher's rail drill but I also upgrade it to a 9 ball rotation by only putting two balls on each rail and hitting them in rotation. I don't know how to be fancy and use the wei table but it's balls on the two end diamonds of the short rails and the middle diamonds of each half of the long rails.
I like Thrasher's rail drill but I also upgrade it to a 9 ball rotation by only putting two balls on each rail and hitting them in rotation. I don't know how to be fancy and use the wei table but it's balls on the two end diamonds of the short rails and the middle diamonds of each half of the long rails.
For position play, I like playing three ball with ball in hand. I created an excel spreadsheet so that I could count how many times out of 100 I was able to run out. Once you can do it 70 times out of 100 (67 and 69 doesn't count), move on to four balls. It will help you to see paterns well.
Morning Bump...