There's just no way this is true for many players. I understand that you can stay "in stroke" for the most part if you're playing all the time, but I think there are maintenance shots that you just have to practice because they don't come up in competition enough to keep them fresh. Jacked up, frozen to the rail, long straight draw and follow shots, those are just 3 shots that I have to practice to keep them in line.
What drills are best to get that smooth stroke like Buddy Hall , or Chris Melling?
- Thread starter jimstone
- Start date
if you play all the time and cant do long draw or follow you got different issues because those 3 i see come up regularly
The Old Jaybird
Well-known member
I used to play with myself all the time, my pool game didn't improve much.
Oh, never mind.
There have also been many down the years who say that a stroke should be developed on looser pockets and adapted to tighter pockets.
I only recommend trying to fix a broken stroke on tight pockets if you have visual feedback or on site coaching otherwise you will end up choking your stroke even more!
boogieman
It don't mean a thing if it ain't got that ping.
If you shot as bad as I do you would play all of the above in almost every rack!
If you're playing the extreme versions of all those shots while you're playing, you must really be playing a lot.
it doesnt matter at all what you do. just get your stroke to go straight on all shots. smooth, pokey, jerky, all the same as long as its straight.
***your body controls the stroke. your mind controls the speed.***
and few have a straight stroke as it wrongly changes for them, based on the shots and pressure.
and its the easiest thing to practice and do. and you dont even have to be at a pool table.
***your body controls the stroke. your mind controls the speed.***
and few have a straight stroke as it wrongly changes for them, based on the shots and pressure.
and its the easiest thing to practice and do. and you dont even have to be at a pool table.
I love practice. I'm unbeatable and every shot finds a hole.
Put a regular set of balls on a snooker table. You'll get tuned up fast.
Good for buddy hall… I bet he has more natural ability then most everyone on here combined. Just about all the best players in the world do drills now so they can’t hurt
Coming late to the question, I haven't read all the responses. My favorite stroke drill was to lay a long neck beer bottle on its side and stroke through the hole to touch the bottom without touching the bottle with the sides of the shaft as it passed in and out of the mouth.
I did always try to balance my practice with competition. The competition showed me where I was but didn't allow a chance to improve through experiments or repetitive exercises. I also tried to balance my play between matches that were easy and playing better players. The first financed the play with the second.
I did always try to balance my practice with competition. The competition showed me where I was but didn't allow a chance to improve through experiments or repetitive exercises. I also tried to balance my play between matches that were easy and playing better players. The first financed the play with the second.
Except rail shots and anything similar that requires speed and/or lots of spin.
That was the quintessential drill until it got discussed here.Coming late to the question, I haven't read all the responses. My favorite stroke drill was to lay a long neck beer bottle on its side and stroke through the hole to touch the bottom without touching the bottle with the sides of the shaft as it passed in and out of the mouth.
I did always try to balance my practice with competition. The competition showed me where I was but didn't allow a chance to improve through experiments or repetitive exercises. I also tried to balance my play between matches that were easy and playing better players. The first financed the play with the second.
And probably all the top players of way back
Mosconi
Segal
Reyes
Varner
How many did drills
Or just played
They all did something in practice and not just play games..
do you think great golfers become great just by showing up and playing a round? Absolutely not. They spent countless hours on the driving range and putting greens. Hitting the same shots over and over again for hours until they could hit every shot at will when needed. Tiger famously hit 1000 balls a day. He said it was the only way to make everything you can feel 2nd nature.
Basketball players are shooting shots over and over again.
QBs are learning to throw the ball in every scenario they can and doing it over and over again for hours.
Unless you’re an idiot savant the only way to get better is to put in the work and just showing up for league night will only get you so far. Somehow to you old heads in pool to get good you just have to gamble and play.. working on shots and skills is unnecessary unlike any other sport or game being played lol it’s silly
i dont care about golf or watch it
or any sports
pool is nearly physically effortless to play
somehow archer after a certain point still was one of the best of his time didnt spend hrs doing what he already could do
and im willing to bet he wasnt the only great to do the same
In general, aspiring players who aim to reach a professional level typically spend 80% of their time on drills and 20% on gameplay. As they progress, this ratio begins to reverse.
Established professionals, on the other hand as mentioned in this thread, often skip drills altogether unless they are focusing on refining a specific skill.
Established professionals, on the other hand as mentioned in this thread, often skip drills altogether unless they are focusing on refining a specific skill.
It's simple math really. Certain positions come up kind of rarely in play, but could show up at a very crucial time. You could play in money games a whole year and see it only a few times. What is more effective, setting that shot up in practise and shoot it 100 times or wait til you have played 10000 money games, some of which were lost because you didn't know that shot? It doesn't help to play money games in order to "get mad" about missing, if you don't follow up with practising what you failed to do. Most people need a large number of reps to learn a shot. Pros I've listened seems to think you need maybe as much as 500 reps, certainly at least 100. Most shots in pool are easy and come up 90% of the time. Everybody knows how to shoot them. It's the other shots that separate the wheat from the chaff.
Shooting a single- or a limited selection of shots in a short time frame also lets you focus deeply on mechanics etc.
Every other sport practises certain skills over and over. It's only pool in which this is frowned upon. It's a stupid mindset from a bygone era of "never wisen up a sucker", ie keep players down for your own advantage. Some things can only be learned from competition (steadying nerves etc) but basic skills are not among those things. If pool players were pistol shooters, would they be angry at people practising their draw, their magazine changes or dry firing to hone their trigger pull? I'm guessing yes?
If you never practice without pressure you won’t get to a high level. You have to be able to spend time thinking about details clearly. You don’t know what you are talking about.
if you cant get comfortable under pressure, your not going to be high level