Using Backhand English on Long Shots

Dan White

Dan White

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
So I've been playing around with the idea of using more backhand english (BHE) in my game. It's worked really well for the situation where I have to throw some heavy english on the cue ball and give a medium to hard hit on the ball. I don't have to adjust my aim point at all, which is great (and is the point of using BHE in the first place).

I'm trying to decide whether to use the BHE method on long shots, or whether just to bridge and aim normally, and use a softer stroke to pocket the ball. Just for clarity, if I want to shoot a corner to corner straight in shot (ob in the middle of the table, and cb near a corner pocket) I might want to use the BHE method, even though I'm not actually putting any english on the cue ball (say a stop shot). The theory says that if I bridge at my cue's pivot point (12.25 inches in my case), line up the aim of the shot, and then shoot a firm stroke, any unintended english will be cancelled out and the ball will split the pocket provided I aimed correctly in the first place. The firm stroke is needed in order to cancel out any swerve. When I do drills like this it often seems effortless to pocket the ball, like magic...as long as I hit hard.

On the other hand, when I'm stroking true, I can make the ball just as well with a shorter bridge and a softer stroke.

I'm trying to figure out whether it is better to go with the firm "BHE" stroke when I don't need soft touch type of ball control, or to stay with the same stroke I use on all the other shots which don't necessarily allow me to shoot so hard and still get position. If I hit that corner to corner shot a 1000 times each way, maybe I'd get my answer, but for now it is unclear whether it really is a better method or if I'm just fooling myself.

For any of you guys familiar with BHE, what are your thoughts?
 
Neil said:
You should always stay as close to the center of the cb as you can and still achieve the results you need. Use english only for position or to throw a ball in because you couldn't hit enough of the ball to make it otherwise.
Click to expand...

That is sage advice.

Back hand english is applying english to the cue ball (after initial aiming) by pivoting the cue on your bridge hand by moving your grip hand (which is behind you), left or right.

BHE "works" if the cue's natural pivot point coincides with your bridge distance.

The natural pivot point is different on every cue. It tends to be longer on so-called low-deflection cues. It may or may not vary with speed, I do not remember.

Since the cue is never level, there is also some amount of swerve introduced.
 
I have a feeling back "hand english" and "stroke methods" are the same.

Do you feel like working to develop a standard language or set of terms for cue ball manipulations with the cue stick?
 
For you guys who don't know about BHE, you can google it and find all kinds of info, including guys doing videos showing it. I really need someone who is well versed in BHE to help me out.

I'm not exactly talking about using any english on straight in shots. I'm talking about bridging at your cue's pivot point and shooting harder on long shots as a way to minimize any errors caused by hitting the cue ball lightly off center, or having a little swoop error in your stroke.
 
Dan White said:
For you guys who don't know about BHE, you can google it and find all kinds of info, including guys doing videos showing it. I really need someone who is well versed in BHE to help me out.

I'm not exactly talking about using any english on straight in shots. I'm talking about bridging at your cue's pivot point and shooting harder on long shots as a way to minimize any errors caused by hitting the cue ball lightly off center, or having a little swoop error in your stroke.
Click to expand...
BHE is appropriate only for certain types of shots. For more info, including video demonstrations and detailed articles, see:

I hope that helps,
Dave
 
Neil said:
Hitting harder won't make your stroke any straighter. And, unless you hit off-center exactly the same amount each time, BHE won't help you because you won't know which english to use, left or right.
Click to expand...

Neil, with due respect, I'm pretty sure you don't understand what I mean when I talk about BHE. Follow Dr. Dave's links or just google "back hand english" if you have any interest. Of course hitting harder won't fix a bad stroke, but a firm hit is necessary for BHE to work over long shots.

Thanks for the reply.
 
I hate thinking about what comes natural cuz then it messes u up.. like the old question do u swing while inhaling or exhaling.. now i want to go pinpoint my pivot point but im NOT going to. cool video though.
 
Dan White said:
I'm trying to decide whether to use the BHE method on long shots, or whether just to bridge and aim normally, and use a softer stroke to pocket the ball. Just for clarity, if I want to shoot a corner to corner straight in shot (ob in the middle of the table, and cb near a corner pocket) I might want to use the BHE method, even though I'm not actually putting any english on the cue ball (say a stop shot). The theory says that if I bridge at my cue's pivot point (12.25 inches in my case), line up the aim of the shot, and then shoot a firm stroke, any unintended english will be cancelled out and the ball will split the pocket provided I aimed correctly in the first place. The firm stroke is needed in order to cancel out any swerve. When I do drills like this it often seems effortless to pocket the ball, like magic...as long as I hit hard.
Click to expand...

The question is basically, should you hit shots harder to avoid the effects of any unwanted side spin that would cause you to miss if you hit the shot softer.

In my opinion, the answer is almost always no, and rarely yes. First off, when you hit a shot harder, the flaws in your stroke impact the shot more. So your "cure" may be worse than the "disease" in that case. If you want to play good pool, you need to have strong fundamentals. While shooting a straight in shot hard may "fix" the effects of any unwanted side spin, what happens when you have an angle? You'll lose the cue ball if you just slam those shots in.

Second, if you have a stroke issue then your whole game suffers. You might be able to "bandaid" the problem on certain types of shots, but you won't fix all aspects of your game. In fact, you'll just make it worse. You're far better off working on straightening out your stroke.

Third, you will lower your percentage of making the actual shot. To increase you overall percentages you'd like to play as many shots at pocket speed as possible. If you're just rifling the balls around you're going to get a lot of them bouncing out off the insides of the pockets and such.

Now, the only time I agree with shooting a shot harder than normal is to deal with poorly setup/maintained tables. Normally you don't have to hit a shot very hard to avoid weird rolls, but you do have to avoid the slow and soft rolling shots.
 
I get where you are coming from Dan. Similar to my break cue (Predator), which has a shaft that coincidentally has a pivot point at the same distance I typically bridge, I can come through the ball pretty poorly with a bunch of unwanted english and still hit dead center on the 1 ball. Interesting idea to hit those long tough shots harder on purpose to make use of this effect.

However, I would agree with Neil and others that overall you would probably be better served focusing on a pure CB hit and hitting at pocket speed. I still think the combination of slower speed and more focus on the aim would allow you to make a higher percentage of those shots over time.

Just out of curiousity, maybe you could try 25 or 50 of each and see what the results are for you and post back?
Scott
 
Ok....

Dan White said:
For you guys who don't know about BHE, you can google it and find all kinds of info, including guys doing videos showing it. I really need someone who is well versed in BHE to help me out.

I'm not exactly talking about using any english on straight in shots. I'm talking about bridging at your cue's pivot point and shooting harder on long shots as a way to minimize any errors caused by hitting the cue ball lightly off center, or having a little swoop error in your stroke.
Click to expand...

I had posted a video on BHE on youtube. It does work for longer shots with a firmer stroke as you have figured out.

Ideally, you'll want to use however firm a stroke you need for the shot and learn to adjust where needed to consistently pocket the ball.

You'll just have to weigh the benefits of using the differing methods against the liklihood that you will make the shot.

As Neil pointed out, never go farther from center than you have to, BHE works so well for so many shots that people who start using it have a tendency to use sidespin more often than they need to.

I would stick with tangent angles and follow and draw as much as possible and use BHE ONLY when you need to, to hold the ball, kill it off the rail, speed up the OB slow down the CB etc.

If you absolutely HAVE to use side spin on a longer shot, I would suggest seeing if you can get away with hitting it firmer with BHE. Hitting it firmer not only reduces swerve, it also reduces CIT (collision induced throw).

When using BHE always try to keep the CUE as level as possible. Most people who start out using BHE keep their bridge hands in the same location for draw and follow and pivot up and down with their back hand too, avoid this. Raise and lower your bridge hand for draw and follow and only pivot side to side when using BHE.

Jaden
 
Neil said:
I know exactly what BHE is and how to use it. You are missing the points I made in my post. Try reading it again.
Click to expand...

Apologies, Neil. I didn't mean my last post to you to sound so pissy. However, I didn't communicate what I was saying well enough. I'm not trying to use left or right english to counteract an off-center hit as you mentioned above. Look at some of the other replies and you'll see what I mean.

Thanks for the comments.
 
scottjen26 said:
Just out of curiousity, maybe you could try 25 or 50 of each and see what the results are for you and post back?
Scott
Click to expand...

I hit about 20 balls in a row corner to corner (9 ft table) using the pivot point and hit 'em hard method. It's hard to ignore something like that when it seems effortless, huh? Please see my next post below...
 
MF, Scott and Jaden - good comments.

Let me elaborate since I'm getting some good feedback: I play mostly straight pool, which requires a firm/hard hit shot at least once per rack - the break ball of course. Not only do you need to hit relatively hard, but sometimes you need to put english on the cue ball to make it come off the rails they way you want after contacting the pack (think of the standard side of the pack break shot). Add to the mix the fact that often you are reaching over/across the table in sometimes awkward ways, and you have a recipe for failure.

Over the years I had struggled with this shot, sometimes thinking I had it fixed, and then slumping back into a rash of misses. I've finally figured out what the problem was in my stroke and have been able to fix it (I hope:p). For the last couple of weeks, I've rarely missed a break shot! Please note that I am not trying to fix a bad stroke with BHE. My stroke is actually quite good and I typically run 3 or 4 racks if the balls are opening up OK.

Given the above, I decided to take a second look at BHE as a way to maximize my chance of success on the straight pool break shot. Previously, I think I got BHE happy and it hurt my stroke. Now I know better. So anyway, let's say I've got a break shot that is a little long, is a reach down the table, and is a bit too straight. I know I've got to pound this shot, but there is a good chance that I will not stroke perfectly under these conditions. BHE seemed like a perfect fit for this situation.

I've been hitting corner to corner shots just as a test, because it seems like BHE doesn't work sometimes . I guess I should really say "pivot point" instead of BHE as I'm using the pivot point to cancel out any imperfections in the stroke. So I've been testing the pivot point, often with success but not always, and it isn't clear whether it is that much better than a warmed up stroke. I thought someone here might know how and why the BHE stroke breaks down. It seems like you can hit off center, but you still have to have a careful stroke. I'm thinking that the miss might be caused by having a loose bridge pivot point. If you stroke hard it might cause you to change your pivot point enough to throw the alignment out of whack. (Just a guess, and I'm open to better insight from anyone who knows more than I on that).

The other point is that you see many pro players with very long bridge lengths and it makes you wonder if they know something you don't.

Anyway, in my case, for the break shot the question becomes whether to increase the bridge length to at least 12, and maybe even 15 inches for my other shaft, on the break shot. I'm still going to hit the ball firm either way, I just want that extra insurance when I'm hitting extra hard or in a funny position.

Maybe that explains things better. On the one hand a close bridge feels like better control, but on the other hand bridging at the pivot point is supposed to provide that margin of error I might need on those particular shots.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top