//Crossposted from the main forum. Thanks sfleinen
For the last three years, I have been struggling to use the pendulum stroke.
I can execute the stroke itself and I understand the theory behind it. When I finish my stroke, my tip stops around the same position on the table every time. My stroke arm (right arm) is approximately 90 degrees when it hits the ball.
The problem I am having is getting my head, eyes, shoulder, elbow, bridge hand and cue comfortably on the same line. My head is constantly getting pushed over to the right of the shot line. When I try to bring my head back over to the left, I can't do it without pushing my cue off the shot line. I don't know why, but I can't setup in a way that my head has much range of motion (At least, not in the direction that I need. I could shoot with my left ear over the cue if I wanted to...).
Typically, I end up compromising, with both my eyes and cue on wrong lines. The worst of both worlds. As a result, I now miss balls completely on the wrong side. I actually cut to the left when I want to go right, and vice versa! It's either in the hole, or into the rail. I hardly rattle anymore, because I'm so far off when I miss.
The really terrible thing, though, is that I do sometimes get it right. Usually about once a month I'll make a little change and get lined up and I can't miss for maybe 20 minutes to an hour. After that I will try to figure out what I was doing right, in order to copy it, but inevitably when I come back to the poolhall next time, I'm back to my old ways. It's not like before though, when I would get into dead stroke years ago. I'm not wondering why I'm not in dead punch all the time.
The unsurprising result of this problem is that I am incredibly inconsistent. I miss really, really easy shots all of a sudden. Doing drills doesn't help, because I don't know what to change in order to fix my alignment. I either bend over and it all lines up, or it doesn't, but I don't know why. Even though I recognize that I'm not lined up properly, when I get back up, reset and bend over again, things are still out of line.
I've used Joe's Third Eye and Laser Trainer. I use Gene's Perfect Aim system (which has helped a lot, because at least it gives me something to concentrate on, even if the shot appears bizarre to my eyes). But in spite of these tools, I can't seem to get lined up straight. As an example, I used the third eye and laser trainer today, just to do up downs. Even with a laser, I couldn't get lined up to consistently hit the ball up and down the table without significant wobble.
Has anybody experienced this before? I don't know what else to do. It's so frustrating, because I never had these problems when I shot naturally. I just lined up my eyes, and the cue went straight by itself. Now it's far too late to go back to my old style. I have no idea what that was at this point.
For the last three years, I have been struggling to use the pendulum stroke.
I can execute the stroke itself and I understand the theory behind it. When I finish my stroke, my tip stops around the same position on the table every time. My stroke arm (right arm) is approximately 90 degrees when it hits the ball.
The problem I am having is getting my head, eyes, shoulder, elbow, bridge hand and cue comfortably on the same line. My head is constantly getting pushed over to the right of the shot line. When I try to bring my head back over to the left, I can't do it without pushing my cue off the shot line. I don't know why, but I can't setup in a way that my head has much range of motion (At least, not in the direction that I need. I could shoot with my left ear over the cue if I wanted to...).
Typically, I end up compromising, with both my eyes and cue on wrong lines. The worst of both worlds. As a result, I now miss balls completely on the wrong side. I actually cut to the left when I want to go right, and vice versa! It's either in the hole, or into the rail. I hardly rattle anymore, because I'm so far off when I miss.
The really terrible thing, though, is that I do sometimes get it right. Usually about once a month I'll make a little change and get lined up and I can't miss for maybe 20 minutes to an hour. After that I will try to figure out what I was doing right, in order to copy it, but inevitably when I come back to the poolhall next time, I'm back to my old ways. It's not like before though, when I would get into dead stroke years ago. I'm not wondering why I'm not in dead punch all the time.
The unsurprising result of this problem is that I am incredibly inconsistent. I miss really, really easy shots all of a sudden. Doing drills doesn't help, because I don't know what to change in order to fix my alignment. I either bend over and it all lines up, or it doesn't, but I don't know why. Even though I recognize that I'm not lined up properly, when I get back up, reset and bend over again, things are still out of line.
I've used Joe's Third Eye and Laser Trainer. I use Gene's Perfect Aim system (which has helped a lot, because at least it gives me something to concentrate on, even if the shot appears bizarre to my eyes). But in spite of these tools, I can't seem to get lined up straight. As an example, I used the third eye and laser trainer today, just to do up downs. Even with a laser, I couldn't get lined up to consistently hit the ball up and down the table without significant wobble.
Has anybody experienced this before? I don't know what else to do. It's so frustrating, because I never had these problems when I shot naturally. I just lined up my eyes, and the cue went straight by itself. Now it's far too late to go back to my old style. I have no idea what that was at this point.
At that time, I had recently changed my stance a little bit, and the result was that I was shooting straight, but I ended up having pain in my neck (as I mentioned above, I was contorting). I had written down to talk to you about it, but somehow didn't. I think the pain hadn't quite developed to the point where it was a huge concern at that time. The players I have met here told me not to worry about that kind of thing, that it would go away (one showed me the *pop* in his shoulder that he got in the process of going pro!). Anyways, it's hard for me to copy exactly what I was doing on that day. Also, it's hard for me to tell what I was doing in terms of my alignment because of the camera angles.
) - but even me was not really able to help him out of his trouble. He then found a another instructor (good and qualified^^) ...and he told him to change just a bit the position of his hip. It took just about a week and he was totally satisfied. 