Think you're lining up correctly?

[Mikjary]

Over the years I've heard of several different methods of setting up for your shots. I just reread Richard Kranicki's, "Answers To A Pool Player's Prayers", and noticed a few things I kind of blew off the first time through.

He has a chapter on cue placement under your eye(s) and ties that in with where you should place your back foot. Whether you use one eye, like Niels, or center your cue between your eyes, there is an area that suits your back foot placement to line up right.

I'm right handed and play with the stick under my left eye at about the corner of my eye. Despite being under my left eye, I found I was still right eye dominant. I shoot straight as an arrow when I'm lined up like this. I figured I had to be left eye dominant due to my setup.

In the book, my setup is mentioned and a foot placement is given for a correct alignment. It was right. I play well using it. This simple little change has allowed me to make a lot more balls. Have anybody thought about trying to move your back foot in relation to your cue placement, instead of just moving your foot and guessing?

Best,
Mike

 

[evanandpeaches]

I have never heard thought of moving my back foot but I line the arch of my back foot up in line with the cue, but if I get lazy I will start to get down on shots with my right foot very far to the right (compared to my cue)

 

[sfleinen]

Over the years I've heard of several different methods of setting up for your shots. I just reread Richard Kranicki's, "Answers To A Pool Player's Prayers", and noticed a few things I kind of blew off the first time through.

He has a chapter on cue placement under your eye(s) and ties that in with where you should place your back foot. Whether you use one eye, like Niels, or center your cue between your eyes, there is a area that suits your back foot placement to line up right.

I'm right handed and play with the stick under my left eye at about the corner of my eye. Despite being under my left eye, I found I was still right eye dominant. I shoot straight as an arrow when I'm lined up like this. I figured I had to be left eye dominant due to my setup.

In the book, my setup is mentioned and a foot placement is given for a correct alignment. It was right. I play well using it. This simple little change has allowed me to make a lot more balls. Have anybody thought about trying to move your back foot in relation to your cue placement, instead of just moving your foot and guessing?

Best,
Mike

Mike:

Congratulations on going to the ORIGINAL SOURCE for proper head/eye placement, and not the perfect aim unapologetic knock-off. As you noticed, Richard Kranicki's work deals with much more than just the head/eye placement over the cue, but also how the REST OF YOUR BODY ties into that placement as well. Even though you may "center" your eyes correctly (i.e. where the cue falls between your eyes, or towards your more-dominant eye), you may have a slight tilt of your head, that your back foot induces -- unbeknownst to you!

Richard Kranicki's work was truly a ground-breaking one in our sport; and one that revealed a lot of secrets of the pros, that the pros themselves weren't even aware of.

I play with a snooker stance, and this stance is very conducive to a square-on head/eye placement (e.g. if one's eyes are more or less equal [binocular vision], one not overly dominant over the other, as I have). I found that the snooker stance's feet placement -- where the shooting arm side's foot is placed directly on the shot line, pointed into the shot itself -- helped "standardize" my foot placement the same way every time, so I view every shot the same way. No slightly tilted or rotated head, no yaw problems, etc. It helps with taking in visual information from a standardized point-of-view, and learning/remembering shots (in the subconscious) -- why they're made and missed -- is accelerated.

I highly recommend Answer to a Pool Player's Prayers to anyone looking for not only proper head/eye alignment, but also the reasons *why* and how to recognize/diagnose problems with the same (e.g. looking at other parts of the body, like shoulders, foot placement, etc.).

-Sean

 

[Neil]

...........

 

[SpiderWebComm]

Mike:

Congratulations on going to the ORIGINAL SOURCE for proper head/eye placement, and not the perfect aim unapologetic knock-off. As you noticed, Richard Kranicki's work deals with much more than just the head/eye placement over the cue, but also how the REST OF YOUR BODY ties into that placement as well. Even though you may "center" your eyes correctly (i.e. where the cue falls between your eyes, or towards your more-dominant eye), you may have a slight tilt of your head, that your back foot induces -- unbeknownst to you!

Richard Kranicki's work was truly a ground-breaking one in our sport; and one that revealed a lot of secrets of the pros, that the pros themselves weren't even aware of.

I play with a snooker stance, and this stance is very conducive to a square-on head/eye placement (e.g. if one's eyes are more or less equal [binocular vision], one not overly dominant over the other, as I have). I found that the snooker stance's feet placement -- where the shooting arm side's foot is placed directly on the shot line, pointed into the shot itself -- helped "standardize" my foot placement the same way every time, so I view every shot the same way. No slightly tilted or rotated head, no yaw problems, etc. It helps with taking in visual information from a standardized point-of-view, and learning/remembering shots (in the subconscious) -- why they're made and missed -- is accelerated.

I highly recommend Answer to a Pool Player's Prayers to anyone looking for not only proper head/eye alignment, but also the reasons *why* and how to recognize/diagnose problems with the same (e.g. looking at other parts of the body, like shoulders, foot placement, etc.).

-Sean

Gene's information is quite different. Certainly not a knock-off of that book, based on the description.

 

[luckwouldhaveit]

Dang I wish I'd known about that book a while back! I changed everything with my alignment including my feet. My foot position was the last thing I did - I worked on getting my arm alignment, then positioned my head over the cue where I wanted, figured out how my stroke would line up, then adjusted my feet to get it all in line. If my feet are off, it throws off everything and I have to get back up.

 

[Mikjary]

Mike:

Congratulations on going to the ORIGINAL SOURCE for proper head/eye placement, and not the perfect aim unapologetic knock-off. As you noticed, Richard Kranicki's work deals with much more than just the head/eye placement over the cue, but also how the REST OF YOUR BODY ties into that placement as well. Even though you may "center" your eyes correctly (i.e. where the cue falls between your eyes, or towards your more-dominant eye), you may have a slight tilt of your head, that your back foot induces -- unbeknownst to you!

Richard Kranicki's work was truly a ground-breaking one in our sport; and one that revealed a lot of secrets of the pros, that the pros themselves weren't even aware of.

I play with a snooker stance, and this stance is very conducive to a square-on head/eye placement (e.g. if one's eyes are more or less equal [binocular vision], one not overly dominant over the other, as I have). I found that the snooker stance's feet placement -- where the shooting arm side's foot is placed directly on the shot line, pointed into the shot itself -- helped "standardize" my foot placement the same way every time, so I view every shot the same way. No slightly tilted or rotated head, no yaw problems, etc. It helps with taking in visual information from a standardized point-of-view, and learning/remembering shots (in the subconscious) -- why they're made and missed -- is accelerated.

I highly recommend Answer to a Pool Player's Prayers to anyone looking for not only proper head/eye alignment, but also the reasons *why* and how to recognize/diagnose problems with the same (e.g. looking at other parts of the body, like shoulders, foot placement, etc.).

-Sean

Good points, Sean. I wish I had the ability to center my cue between the eyes and get an equal picture of the aiming points. I've tried it, but my eyes don't want to let me do it.

I think that even though Perfect Aim came to be after Mr. Kranicki's book, it really isn't a "knockoff" so to speak. It does address eye placement and aiming variables, but the ATAPPP book is more of a technical manual for what happens and why than how to actually pocket a ball. It addresses only straight on relationships between the eyes, cue, and balls. Perfect Aim actually shows how to get your eyes in the right place for more than just straight on setups. They kind of complement each other in a technical/real world way. The book is more technical and Perfect Aim shows an expanded view of using the same ideas.

To luckwouldhaveit... I know the feeling. Placing your foot should be one of the first things you learn to do! I'd heard it, but didn't think it was that important. I don't ask for directions either until I'm totally lost. :smile:

Best,
Mike

 

[genomachino]

Knowledge is wisdom............

Gene's information is quite different. Certainly not a knock-off of that book, based on the description.

Thanks Spidey,

Knowledge is wisdom and fortuanately you know both sides of the track. I've been accused of this before so I bought the book. There is some good stuff in this book but it really has nothing to do with the meat of Perfect Aim.

Perfect Aim stands on it's own as to what it can do for your game.

If you have your dominant eye properly identified for sure and you get your dominant eye in the proper dominant position in the preshot routine and keep it there on the way down your feet will naturally be in the right position as well as your stroke.

I address this in the new Perfect Aim video we are working on as we speak. With the hundreds of lessons and players I've helped over the phone I have found many new ways to teach this so pretty much everyone will understand how this works.

The toughest part is on the chapter that helps players find their true pool shooting dominant eye. I'm finding out that about 40 to 50% of the players out there pass every normal eye dominance test with pointing and looking through circles that says they are right or left eye dominant only to find out they are actually the opposite when they get down to aim a pool shot.

Once a player finds this out the chips can fall into place and the shots start looking pretty good as you know.

Have a great day geno.............