What does a good stroke feel like?

cueball2010 said:
During practice:

I keep my arm still and swing my forearm back and forth from a hinged elbow. My wrist also naturally moves to keep the pool cue connected to the bridge hand. When I think about this motion during a shot - most notably, how my arm creases against my bicep and ending position of my wrist. I feel like I have done it correctly. I get a sense of satisfaction. The satisfaction does not come from pocketing a ball or not. It just comes my brain telling me that I stroked correctly. Usually my cue tip ends on the cloth or within an inch of the cloth unless I'm putting follow on the cue ball.

There are 2 problems with this. I am thinking so much about the stroke that my speed control usually goes out the window - either too fast or too slow. 2nd- It sometimes blurs my brain from thinking about where I need to contact on the object ball.

During matches:

In competitive play all this thinking about strokes disappears for the most part. My first objective is just to pocket balls and get position. When I'm relaxed sometimes I can feel a good stroke without thinking about how I am stroking, because my brain is thinking about object ball contact points and position plays, but at the end of the stroke it just feels correct. That is a good scenario. If I get nervous, my stroke rarely ever feels satisfying, I am just struggling to keep my back hand from shaking... let alone swing straight, and it never feels satisfying. I don't think about my arm. I think about the pool cue shaft traveling in a straight line as the tip hits the cue ball.

Please share your thoughts. How do you lock in on a perfect stroke each and every shot? What goes running through your head? I really feel like I am on the cusp of becoming an advance shooter, and people that I talk to mainly just say what I think I need to get better... A good stroke, and with a good stroke I think will come the consistency to run racks consistently.
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Mark Wilson has a video from the Derby City Classic on YouTube that really helped my stroke tremendously, he was Allison Fisher's coach at one time, you will probably find out like I did it's not only your stroke but your whole pre shot routine, I find when I start to cut corners in the entire pre shot routine I start missing shots that seem very easy, I set up the same shot and make it multiple times with ease when concentrating on the whole pre shot routine, my goal is to make it automatic, uncomfortable to not follow, I'm working on it....
 
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DeeDeeCues said:
Read, 'the inner game of tennis'. It's only marginally about tennis and a lot of coaches make their players read it, including Pete Carrol of the Seahawks.
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Available on Biblio, used, for < $7.00.


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Like a warm waterfall cascading down a mountain into a flowing river leading to the sea where sailboats catch the offshore breeze through the Gulf Stream while whales and albatross are singing Hallelujah.
When you hit a home run you don’t feel it but there’s no mistaking the sound of the bat. It’s super clean.
 
The perfect stroke is different for each of us. When it happens, we don’t always know why but make no mistake, we
always know when it occurs. It could be a long bank shot that you get to watch on the way to the object ball on the
head rail and then observe it bounce off the rail and start a 5-6 seconds journey pocketing the OB all net in the CP.

Maybe it’s that perfect draw stroke reversing the the cue ball for perfect shape or the long cut shot where you play 2 rail shape dead on the OB you wanted. It’s not so much the perfect outcome on these shots that qualify the stroke as being executed perfectly, despite the ideal shape attained. When you stroked the cue ball, it left differently, almost in rhythmic
roll to the object ball you never really felt. Your stroke extended beyond the cue ball yet you can’t recall how it felt. It’s
almost as if the stoke was so well timed that your grip and arm muscles and tendons relaxed just as you made contact
with the CB. Your follow thru was so effortlessly completed it was like it didn’t happen yet you saw it did.

One of the great legends in golf once attributed to saying golf is a game where you strive to make the most out of your
worst shots. How true that is. It is a far easier game played from the middle of the fairway that off it, in the rough, barren
ground, trees, bunkers, or any of the infernal other lies that can torment any golfer. Pool is a game played as much as
against your opponent’s skills as it is is your own. Just remember don’t let your ego call the shot. Respect the table or
else a corner pocket hanger can turn into unintentionally hooking yourself. To be good at pool, you must be consistent.
 

What does a good stroke feel like...​

No idea. My stroke is gone. Not sure if it's me, the cue, the floor, the balls, the legs. Lost. Stroke. Momentum, Focus. I'm on the verge of taking up knitting.
I can describe a pathetic stroke. I own it lately.
 
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any stroke that is repeatable every time is the right stroke for you. and it comes without thinking or preparing.
same as throwing a ball. or picking your nose. your hand goes where it is told by your mind.

if you try to duplicate someone else or some other idea of a stroke you are doomed to failure. and best you can ever be is a mediocre player.
 
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It doesn’t “feel” like anything, anymore than how breathing “feels” in that it’s just something that occurs naturally and effortlessly without any thought.
 
"When the opponent expands, I contract, and when he contracts, I expand!, and when there is an opportunity I do not hit, it hits by itself". Bruce Lee in 'Enter The Dragon....
 
cueball2010 said:
During practice:

I keep my arm still and swing my forearm back and forth from a hinged elbow. My wrist also naturally moves to keep the pool cue connected to the bridge hand. When I think about this motion during a shot - most notably, how my arm creases against my bicep and ending position of my wrist. I feel like I have done it correctly. I get a sense of satisfaction. The satisfaction does not come from pocketing a ball or not. It just comes my brain telling me that I stroked correctly. Usually my cue tip ends on the cloth or within an inch of the cloth unless I'm putting follow on the cue ball.

There are 2 problems with this. I am thinking so much about the stroke that my speed control usually goes out the window - either too fast or too slow. 2nd- It sometimes blurs my brain from thinking about where I need to contact on the object ball.

During matches:

In competitive play all this thinking about strokes disappears for the most part. My first objective is just to pocket balls and get position. When I'm relaxed sometimes I can feel a good stroke without thinking about how I am stroking, because my brain is thinking about object ball contact points and position plays, but at the end of the stroke it just feels correct. That is a good scenario. If I get nervous, my stroke rarely ever feels satisfying, I am just struggling to keep my back hand from shaking... let alone swing straight, and it never feels satisfying. I don't think about my arm. I think about the pool cue shaft traveling in a straight line as the tip hits the cue ball.

Please share your thoughts. How do you lock in on a perfect stroke each and every shot? What goes running through your head? I really feel like I am on the cusp of becoming an advance shooter, and people that I talk to mainly just say what I think I need to get better... A good stroke, and with a good stroke I think will come the consistency to run racks consistently.
Click to expand...
Smooth is a good thing to focus on. It is the number one quality I cultivate in students' strokes.

Also, a lot of fine players, including some pro friends, have a stroke with a feel we can describe as tension and potential energy that is released, either to begin the backstroke or on the forward stroke before cue ball contact.

My friend Tom Kennedy can be seen doing this at any time in his career:

Think of punching with a closed fist, the fingers squeezed into the palm, then just before you strike the punching bag, there is a release.
 
hang-the-9 said:
You could describe a good pool stroke in one word I think.. "Smoooooth"
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When I am having trouble shutting down the verbal part of my brain I reduce things to one word, smooth. Excellent thought for a pool stroke and delivery, perhaps oddly to some, an excellent thought when I am trying to draw and shoot five steel plates in two and a half seconds. Worked driving circle track too.

I think if I had to pick one thought to improve performance at anything it would be "smooth". Even benchrest, after the shot I want the single shot to be reloaded ASAP. I took a second or more I suspect, never timed it. I watched a man who had a set-up where he could fire the second shot into the echo of the first, a half second or less!

Hu
 
Scratch85 said:
Available on Biblio, used, for < $7.00.


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What a great read, I started using some of the info I learned from it today, it really ties in with what I learned from the Mark Wilson video, I always considered myself a slow player, but using the "self 2" mentality my play speed increased.
 
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