The Use of BHE - FHE Theory
- Thread starter JCraig
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Potheads instinctively know better.
Incidentally, if you air shoot your shots (temporarily wrote shats) you can do three point landings.
Incidentally, if you air shoot your shots (temporarily wrote shats) you can do three point landings.
I suggest you look into Ronnie's mechanics. If you then believe his deliberate cyclic movement before striking the CB is still no different then some happenstance mechanical flaw is someone else's, then so be it. We'll just simply disagree
Once more, the method used to get the tip to CB isn't a a factor in a singular outcome. I'm not arguing that having a consistent and reliable stroke makes the likelyhood more "likely" but that's not what's under discussion. No matter how many times to elude to it being so.
PJ, the question is "does the knowledge serve a purpose?" I know that every time I push a key the information passes down through four levels to display a letter. Somebody else knows that they push a button on a keyboard and see a letter on their screen. When it comes to function we both know the same thing.
Down at the pool hall there might be two people or less that can hang in with a technical discussion of how a shot works. There are a dozen that can beat the one or two people that have a deep understanding of the shot. I doubt seriously that the top players have a deep understanding. Too much information can cause paralysis by analysis. In the abstract I think when we use the internet the information goes through seventeen layers. I know of no software that doesn't combine some of these layers. To make it more confusing, the layers combined may not be next to each other in the abstract listing.
Posts like this are the only use I get out of my abstract knowledge. People that don't know how information travels but only know it travels are just as well off.
Hu
Some thoughts about that:
Knowledge always serves a purpose even if we're not aware of knowing it (one can have "instinctive" knowledge without knowing they have it).
Those who play well without knowledge would play even better with it.
pj
chgo
To be fair, we are on a pool forum where pool is not played but rather discussed. So in this instance the knowledge serves the discussion. And in this case, there are people that that attempt to take this knowledge and apply it into an adjustment system that they leverage on the pool table. Maybe that’s not the same approach pros and feel players employ. Maybe there are countless players better than them that don’t need that system. But also there are countless players worse than them, and that system may very well be one factor that makes them better than those players. So it may be a “to each their own” situation.
I am not disagreeing or agreeing, but why is "parallel shift" probably the best?
Reference post #36.
Matt I just drifted away from a conversation with a player because I realized our approaches were so different that we didn't really have a meeting point. A good guy, no animosity involved but our approaches were too different. One of my core principles is that each inning should mentally be one continuous motion. If the cue ball is a few inches from the spot I intended it is rarely worth breaking a pattern to stand up and think and if I find myself thinking while in the middle of an inning I am going to stand up and regroup.
I suspect somewhere on an unconscious level I am evaluating every shot however I am not aware of it. The goal is no verbal thought. The conscious mind that thinks in words needs to shut up while I am shooting. Moving from point to point around the table is part of the inning, it was planned before I shot the first ball. I want the conscious mind quiet then too.
All of the thinking between shots when the shot went as planned is a waste of time and energy. I have already thought eight or ten balls ahead before I started shooting. Why should I drop back to next ball or next three balls?
When I watch Willie Mosconi running balls in straight pool it is obvious that he thought fourteen balls ahead and his break shot before he hit the first ball. One thing most are slow to notice about Willie, he was a fast player. With no wasted time rethinking what he already knew, he ran fourteen balls like most of us run the last two or three. No wasted mental effort to be seen, no wasted physical effort either. He claimed he could have ran a thousand, no doubt in my mind that if anyone else had taken his record he would have promptly taken it back.
I know you are an accomplished player, what I don't know is if you get into long battles lasting twelve hours plus. Those long battles that can last several days really demonstrate how conservation of energy, mental and physical, pays off. Too, I am a lazy man. I rarely work harder than I have to.
Hu
With BHE or FHE, there is the added factor of a constantly changing angle striking the cue ball. With parallel shift the angle stays the same. One less variable. Maximum spin contact point is a little easier to judge with parallel shift, just because of the position of our eyes when shooting.
The contact point on the cue ball can be slightly further out with parallel shift than it can be with either BHE or FHE. I have never seen this proven as an advantage, or disproven. I suspect that the biggest deciding factor on how much spin we can apply is the "grip" for lack of a better word between the cue ball and table cloth. Since that doesn't change, I suspect that the other factors offset each other and to a level far closer than we are capable of judging on a table, the amount of spin that can be put on a cue ball by all methods is basically equal. I know of no tests determining this and have done no significant testing myself so it remains a wag or swag.
I have used a parallel shift most extensively, BHE for long enough periods to be familiar with it, years total, and I have experimented with FHE and combinations of any two. Just being silly I have used all three on one shot! FHE, BHE, and Parallel offset. It works but lordy what a cobbled up mess! I shot with front hand english for about three weeks playing daily. It is superior to back hand english in my opinion, less stick angle.
I can say these things as my opinion or as what I have found. I would like to set up the same repeatability as my old test lab and flog these things but in the end I would be just satisfying curiosity as I know that no form of english offers a huge advantage, well, according to what I have found.
I once was on a list with eighteen or twenty of the best rifle shooters in the world. One thing these guys all shared was a willingness to do research and testing. I wish there was a pool group like that, people willing to go where their work led them rather than trying to prove one thing.
Hu
We went down a rather long road a little while back and discussed this at nauseam. The coles notes version. FHE skews your mechanics a tiny amount. BHE english does this as well but in order of magnitudes more. A true parallel shift does put your mechanics out of whack with your body but only a tiny amount.
I've said it back then and I'll repeat it now. A rotational shift at the waist is definitely the best. At least in terms of keeping your mechanics consistent.
Of course all these adjustments happen when you down on the shot, and the masses here generally believe that they some how land perfectly on the aim line as they get down, so we may as well consider all these adjustments as bad practice... Personally, I'll stick with FHE and waist rotation once I'm down on the ball. Want to try my koolaide...? It's got extra gluten in it
I think the first answer we need is what is parallel shift?
We know that sidespin can only rarely be applied successfully with the cue parallel to the centerball shotline - that only works when swerve exactly counteracts squirt. So "parallel" usually just means not strictly FHE or BHE, but whatever angle in between works for the shot, recognized by practiced recall, or "feel".
In other words, "parallel" = "by feel", like most players do it. Not saying that's a pro or con, just clarifying terms.
/brokenrecord
pj
chgo
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Flakeandrun
Well-known member
I am not saying his cue action hasn't been meticulously coached and crafted, and that his cue action isn't 'gold standard', he is a freak of nature and a self-confessed, obsessive freak of the game. Every part of the cue action is deliberate and happens for a reason... I'm saying that there is a moment of deliberate pause in that action. His is small. Some people's are long. Some are minute to the point we think it is entirely fluid (a lá Capito). Cue action is relative to the person holding the cue. Ronnie has one of the best aesthetically, and certainly THE best the opinion of many, myself included, in terms of productivity.
I'm not sure what you mean here.
What is under discussion then? Cue action through the ball, in the right spot, is superior to maneuvering front or back hand to compensate for anything. Find the line as part of the PSR, understand the limitations of your equipment with regard to throw (or squirt or whatever Americans call it), play your shot.
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I'll pick a small nit, here. ... when swerve and spin induced throw exactly ... (Or however the spin changes the throw.)
Isn't the front/back hand maneuvering to get aligned for the correct cue action through the ball?
pj
chgo
Flakeandrun
Well-known member
This is essentially simulation, both physical and mental, and could be considered an extension of PSR, or a secondary PSR. It's a movement of measure and contemplation. It's micro-managing your intended delivery, and generating comfort and confidence prior to delivery of the cue action. No expert, simply my thoughts on the process.