Training for a backstroke pause

FranCrimi said:
If the player is moving their cue back and forth in a straight line there would be some sort of transitional pause, but not if they are looping their stroke. Upon closer look, what people refer to as the 'pump-handle' stroke, is really a continuous loop. I see the Filipinos do it and even Mika is doing it more and more. It's like running around a track or turning a wheel. You don't have to pause to change directions.
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This pump handle stroke or looping stroke is like the stroke in a cars engine. In a cars engine, the piston stops at the bottom and top of the stroke while the crank is still turning causing the change of direction of the piston.

The cue tip is like the piston, the cue stick the rod, and the grip where the rod meets the crank and the arm from the elbow to grip is the crank throw.

The cue tip stops moving but the arm still can because of that rotation of the grip and arm like that of a crank.

The pause maybe very small, but its there. The length of the pause is determined by the speed of the rotation of the grip hand. Slow rotation, the cue tip pause longer. There can be no cue tip change of direction without a pause.

The cue tip must slow down before the pause, pause and then slowly start moving again. I say slowly because to try to make these changes instantaneously is not possible. What you would have is a jerky stroke and not a smooth one.

There are only two stop points in a stroke. One at the forward stroke and one at the back stroke. The thing is that where the stop point is on the forward stroke depends on if the stroke is a warm up stroke or the final stroke. On the final stroke the end point will be past the CB while on warm up strokes the stop point is before the CB.

No matter, there are only two stop points in a stroke. no matter what anyone else wants you to believe.

Time to go play with the boat and learn more about how to shoot pool.
 
If you take a tennis ball and throw it up in the air, you might not see it unless you pay close attention but it pauses momentarily before it starts down. Anything that is going in one direction (such as up with a tennis ball) pauses for at least a split second before it starts in the opposite direction (tennis ball going down.)

Personally I think that the pump stoke does this also, just in a more concealed way. I think that when the pump stroke has gotten as far back as it will get, it's pause is in the slight upward motion, before the forward motion begins.

Thus making the "Definition of the pause": The time between the backward stokes finish, and the forward strokes start.

There is a pause in either (or both) stroke method/methods as long as you would define pause as time, instead of movement (or the lack there of.)

As Fran Crimi stated, only the stroke going straight back and straight forward has a stationary pause, (such as a tennis ball going straight up and down).

The pump stroke has its pause (yet not a stationary one) and would be defined in the terms of, end of backward motion, and start of forward motion. A change of direction pause (or "moving pause" if you will).

Of coarse this is just my opinion, as a student of the game. I wonder what all the trained instructors have to say about this? I am interested to hear!
 
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duckie said:
This pump handle stroke or looping stroke is like the stroke in a cars engine. In a cars engine, the piston stops at the bottom and top of the stroke while the crank is still turning causing the change of direction of the piston.
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It seems like that, but it isn't technically true. There's no measurable amount of time in which the piston (or a ball thrown straight up in the air) is motionless. It changes direction without stopping.

Here's an analogy that might help show that's true (even though non-intuitive):

If a locomotive weighing 500 tons, and pulling 75 rolling stock, is heading down the track at 60mph. And, a fly is coming in the opposite direction....and hits the front of the train head on, due to superior weight and inertia of the locomotive the fly will start going in the same direction as the train. So therefore the fly must stop at the instant it hits the train. Well, if the fly stops, then so must the train....right?

Of course, an arm swinging a cue isn't a fly hit by a train or a ball thrown up in the air, so I don't know if a cue must stop momentarily between the backstroke and forward stroke. I'm just saying the examples given don't prove that it must.

pj
chgo

P.S. There's a physics joke that goes with that analogy:

Q: What's the last thing that goes through the fly's mind when he hits the train?
A: His ass.
 
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Speaking only for myself, I don't understand how people can focus on things like their stroke, stance, the sound the cue makes as it strikes the cue ball, the "feel" of the cue, and still play at a high level.

My thoughts are on two things, pocketing the ball and getting position. I guess I'm just not smart enough to think about all that other stuff and play pool.
 
alstl said:
Speaking only for myself, I don't understand how people can focus on things like their stroke, stance, the sound the cue makes as it strikes the cue ball, the "feel" of the cue, and still play at a high level.

My thoughts are on two things, pocketing the ball and getting position. I guess I'm just not smart enough to think about all that other stuff and play pool.
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Focusing on those things is for practice.

pj
chgo
 
If you look at the cue from the standpoint of where the cue contacts your bridge hand, the cue has to stop at the end of the back sroke, no matter how much pivot you have. At some point, the cue stops going back on you bridge and starts going forward. You can't reverse directions at the point of your bridge without stopping.
 
It is impossible to have a perfectly straight stroke --- there has to be some looping movement in the real world. A looping stroke does not HAVE TO stop any more than the hands on a clock HAVE TO stop as they continue on a circular motion.

But back to the original post: I think the pause has tremendous benefit to those who try it. At least you will know if it is good for your game.:p

Thanks to those who contributed.
 
Tennesseejoe said:
It is impossible to have a perfectly straight stroke --- there has to be some looping movement in the real world. A looping stroke does not HAVE TO stop any more than the hands on a clock HAVE TO stop as they continue on a circular motion.

But back to the original post: I think the pause has tremendous benefit to those who try it. At least you will know if it is good for your game.:p

Thanks to those who contributed.
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Really? Take a look at the point of contact of the cue and your bridge during your stroke. At some point it is going backward through your fingers. At some point it is going forward through your fingers. How does it do that without stopping at some point?
 
If anyones back hand moved in a perfect circle I would agree with you, though there is still two places on the circle where forward and backward motion stop. It is just so small that in is not noticed by the human eye.

In most cases the pump stroke is more like an an elongated circle (elipse) in which there is a small point at which forward motion stops, before backwards motion starts.

Is it small... sure is..... The only way to see it clearly is by viewing the motion frame by frame.
 
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Here is why the "pause" works for me. When I do not "pause", the cue makes an immediate transition in direction...as do the muscles that are required for the motion to occur.

Without the "pause", my muscles have the opportunity to twitch/steer/guide the cue in any way they wish...because my mind has a very little opportunity to settle into/focus on what it's about to do. A poke stroke results because my mind has very little opportunity to coordinate an accelerating motion.

With the "pause", my muscles have very little opportunity to twitch/steer/guide the cue in any way they wish...because my mind has the opportunity to settle into/focus on what it's about to do. A smooth stroke results because my mind has the opportunity to coordinate an accelerating motion.
 
mosconiac said:
Here is why the "pause" works for me. When I do not "pause", the cue makes an immediate transition in direction...as do the muscles that are required for the motion to occur.

Without the "pause", my muscles have the opportunity to twitch/steer/guide the cue in any way they wish...because my mind has a very little opportunity to settle into/focus on what it's about to do. A poke stroke results because my mind has very little opportunity to coordinate an accelerating motion.

With the "pause", my muscles have very little opportunity to twitch/steer/guide the cue in any way they wish...because my mind has the opportunity to settle into/focus on what it's about to do. A smooth stroke results because my mind has the opportunity to coordinate an accelerating motion.
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True. Your brain has to tell your body every motion to make. If you pause, you reduce the load your brain has to process, allowing it to apply more focus on stroke speed, cue ball impact point and follow through.
 
itsfroze said:
If you take a tennis ball and throw it up in the air, you might not see it unless you pay close attention but it pauses momentarily before it starts down. Anything that is going in one direction (such as up with a tennis ball) pauses for at least a split second before it starts in the opposite direction (tennis ball going down.)

Personally I think that the pump stoke does this also, just in a more concealed way. I think that when the pump stroke has gotten as far back as it will get, it's pause is in the slight upward motion, before the forward motion begins.

Thus making the "Definition of the pause": The time between the backward stokes finish, and the forward strokes start.

There is a pause in either (or both) stroke method/methods as long as you would define pause as time, instead of movement (or the lack there of.)

As Fran Crimi stated, only the stroke going straight back and straight forward has a stationary pause, (such as a tennis ball going straight up and down).

The pump stroke has its pause (yet not a stationary one) and would be defined in the terms of, end of backward motion, and start of forward motion. A change of direction pause (or "moving pause" if you will).

Of coarse this is just my opinion, as a student of the game. I wonder what all the trained instructors have to say about this? I am interested to hear!
Click to expand...

Very interesting. Is there such a thing as a moving pause? I would think that a pause is a temporary stop, but a stop, nonetheless. If something is continuing to move, then isn't it technically still defined as moving and not pausing, even though it slows down?

Fran Crimi
(Trained Instructor)
 
FranCrimi said:
If the player is moving their cue back and forth in a straight line there would be some sort of transitional pause, but not if they are looping their stroke. Upon closer look, what people refer to as the 'pump-handle' stroke, is really a continuous loop. I see the Filipinos do it and even Mika is doing it more and more. It's like running around a track or turning a wheel. You don't have to pause to change directions.
Click to expand...

Lets say you use a closed hand bridge. I assume you will agree that, at some point, the cue stick is going in 1 direction through your fingers and at another point the cue stick is going in the opposite direction. If that is true, at some point the cue stick has to pass through a speed of zero to get to the opposite direction through your fingers. At that instant, a speed of zero means it isn't moving forward or backward.
 
Wileydog said:
Really? Take a look at the point of contact of the cue and your bridge during your stroke. At some point it is going backward through your fingers. At some point it is going forward through your fingers. How does it do that without stopping at some point?
Click to expand...

I didn't state anything about forward and backward. I only stated that it does not have to stop.
 
Wileydog said:
...at some point the cue stick has to pass through a speed of zero to get to the opposite direction through your fingers. At that instant, a speed of zero means it isn't moving forward or backward.
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Movement and stillness don't exist in "an instant"; they only exist over a period of elapsed time. Balls in the air, for instance, don't "pass through a speed of zero"; they simply pass from moving in one direction to moving in another, with nothing between. This is counterintuitive to me too, but it's what the physics says.

I don't know if this is true of pool cues swung by human arms - but I also don't know how it matters one way or the other.

pj
chgo
 
duckie said:
This pump handle stroke or looping stroke is like the stroke in a cars engine. In a cars engine, the piston stops at the bottom and top of the stroke while the crank is still turning causing the change of direction of the piston.

The cue tip is like the piston, the cue stick the rod, and the grip where the rod meets the crank and the arm from the elbow to grip is the crank throw.

The cue tip stops moving but the arm still can because of that rotation of the grip and arm like that of a crank.

The pause maybe very small, but its there. The length of the pause is determined by the speed of the rotation of the grip hand. Slow rotation, the cue tip pause longer. There can be no cue tip change of direction without a pause.
Click to expand...

This is not true. There is no "length" of pause at any speed. The object simple has zero velocity for an instant. There is no time duration when an instant is spoken of in mathematics.

For example, shoot a bullet straight into the air. Gravity is acting upon the bullet from the minute it leaves the end of the barrel. This force will slow the bullet down until it reaches an instant where the bullet has zero velocity, and then gravity will accelerate the bullet in a downward direction. At that point, the bullet will appear to have paused, but there is no way to measure the length of that pause because it occurs only for an instant.

You could graph out the velocity change over time and get a velocity for every instant of its travel. That is what differential calculus is all about. But if you were to zoom in on that graph line, you would easily see that there is only one time that the bullet has zero velocity. It is never at rest for even a billionth of a second, only at the very limit of its upward travel, which is an instant, not a time duration of any measure.

Another interesting thing is that this action is independent of the initial velocity. Shooting a bullet with twice the muzzle velocity has no impact on the duration of the pause. There is no duration, only an instantaneous rate of change, just like at every other point along the curve.
 
Patrick Johnson said:
Movement and stillness don't exist in "an instant"; they only exist over a period of elapsed time. Balls in the air, for instance, don't "pass through a speed of zero"; they simply pass from moving in one direction to moving in another, with nothing between. This is counterintuitive to me too, but it's what the physics says.

I don't know if this is true of pool cues swung by human arms - but I also don't know how it matters one way or the other.

pj
chgo
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PJ posted that while I was writting, and used a lot less words to do it. lol

Yes, PJ is correct, and I see it as very relevant to the discussion here. A pause is the stroke is not always necessary. Fran is quite right IMHO, those loop strokes that you see the Pinoys using have no real pause at all, at least at the stroke driving end of things. Some part of the stroking arm is always in motion until the cue tip comes to rest on the table surface.

I have tried to mimic that type of stroke action, and I have gotten it down fairly well. A lot of power potential there with little effort, and that suits a diminutive player well. But control is a whole other issue. I have trouble making even the simplest of shots using that kind of stroke. I imagine it takes years to perfect that, something I just don't have at this stage of the game.
 
There is a big difference between adding a deliberate pause in your backstroke compared to your arm changing direction.
Francrimi, look what you started.
 
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