RiverCity said:
Your stroke needs to flatten out, and that means no shoulder movement in the stroke. Your preshot routine seems to consist of mainly how you plant your feet. There is nothing right or wrong with that, but try walking "into" the shot and trust where you are. Then step forward and out at about a 45 degree angle with your lead foot to a comfortable distance. This should set you correctly to bend down and be pretty much lined up, with body clearance.
To Xidica,
I'm going to go against the grain here, and say that although shoulder movement is not considered to be good these days, it doesn't mean you can't shoot that way. Check out Mike Davis's stroke to see what lots of elbow and some shoulder movement looks like. Not saying what he's doing is "wrong" or "right" just that it's "different".
Lots of folks will probably disagree with me on this, but so be it.
Don "The Preacher" Feeney showed me several different strokes one afternoon, and shot a certain ball a special way, potted the ball, and got exactly the shape he was gunning for. And he said, "Now that was a
legitimate stroke." He showed me a slip stroke, the Filipino pump stroke, all sorts of things, and why some are especially good for certain kinds of shots. He also changed my thinking on several things. Very helpful couple of hours spent with him.
As for flattening out your stroke, it's usually good advice, but it's not something dogmatic. With time, you may wish to spend some quality time, in other words
several hours, shooting slightly jacked up shots with a touch of stun draw, just to see how to shoot the shots and to know how they work on different tables, at different distances, with different balls, and so on. One BCA instructor saw me shooting some of those and yelled or rather thundered at me from across the room "Flatten out the butt of that cue!!" (I knew what I was doing, and told him I stroked the ball incorrectly and that's why it popped off the table, also told him I could do the same thing with a level cue. It's the stroke stupid! BTW, he didn't insist that I level out the cue after I explained what I was doing and why.)
As for the 45 degree suggestion, it might just work for you. Try it. Also, you might need 40 degrees, or 50 degrees, or somewhere in between for that suggestion to work for you. You might want to get one of Bert Kinister's videos... "Advanced Fundamentals" to find out about how to determine your own personal alignment, based on your skeletal structure. It's well worth the trouble to go through the drills he has on it to help you figure it out for your body.
There's a ton of good knowledge out there. Much can be learned with a good instructor; I've heard Randy is great, so too is Scott Lee, and also Jerry Briesath, and Mark Wilson, most of whom post here. Getting a good instructor will go a long way in helping. Maybe they'll all say what I've posted here is of little use, no good. So be it. You won't go wrong with them, although an instructor isn't an absolute prerequisite to improvement. They may really shorten the learning curve though.
Good luck once again!
Flex
