Seems like this has been discussed little so I thought I'd pop up here with my thoughts on what it is. Sometimes if you take something to an extreme it helps clarify what it is. So lets take 'playing a shot by feel' to it's most extreme. What would that be? ....(waited about 3 second) and several of you would simultaneously say...'The Tom Cruise Shot'!
Anyone want to try to deny the fact that this is making a shot by feel? Yup, it was made by feel. But I wouldn't recommend trying it with a shot that has any difficulty to it at all. When doing this you feel the cue stick, with both hands, moving in the correct direction. (or close enough to correct)
So much for clearing that up. Now that we have determined that a pool shot can be made by feel lets get into how this effects the rest of your game when looking at the shot rather than getting cocky and looking your opponent straight in the eyes. (fun to do though, isn't it. LOL)
(insert A)
I had better clear this up right now. Other than the mention of the 'Tom Cruise Shot' I'm talking to and about people that look at the object ball when making the final stroke. If your looking at the cue ball, I don't have the beginnings of an idea how you could make a shot by feel. I even look at the object ball on jacked up shots and jump shots. So if you look at the cue ball on your final stroke you might want to ignore this entire post.
Anyone here ever thought just after pulling the trigger on a shot...Oh shit, I didn't stroke that one straight... and then watch the result expecting to miss and pleasantly surprised when the ball goes in the hole. I'll admit it, it has happened to me. The question that this brings up is, why did you make the ball. The obvious answer is that the shot was easy enough that it had a big enough margin for error. Your little stroke mistake wasn't bad enough to make you miss the shot. Is it only easy shots that this happens on? I don't think so. I think there is a second possible answer why you made the shot. Your feel for the shot noticed on the last stroke that you were not lined up correctly and made a correction for you. You made the shot by feel rather than missing it because of your incorrect line up. The reverse of this can happen also. Your feel for the shot could be wrong and alignment could be right. Then when the feel part of you makes that last second adjustment it could make you miss. Man, that sucks when that happens, doesn't it.
With this line of thinking one could say that every shot that anyone makes is done at least in part by feel. Since you can't see your back hand you are doing that part of your stoke by feel. That is unless you have three eyes. One to look at the object ball, one to look at your front hand and cue ball, and one protruding out of you 'adams apple' to look back at your back hand. Problem, we only have two eyes, and those two only seem to be able to focus on one thing at a time. So what you could say is we only have one line of sight. All this adds up to playing shots by feel is a product of hand eye coordination.
What is this hand eye coordination doing? I think one of two things. (maybe more but these are the two I'll talk about.)
1. It guides the cue stick concentrating on the end result so that it sends the cue ball to a particular spot on the table. (playing by feel)
or
2. It guides the cue stick concentrating on moving the cue stick straight back and straight forward to make the cue stick strike the cue ball in a certain spot. (playing by aim)
Again, both of these use feel. But the 'shooting by feel' that pool players are talking about on this forum is represented by number 1. (Incidentally, I used the 'Tom Cruise Shot' to get your attention in the beginning of the post, but I actually think this is more like #2)
Part 2: Yup, I am going to get around to aiming systems.
I'm going to start of by saying that I'm convinced that Hal's system works and works very well. I can't deny it cause there are just to many people using it. Fred's version of it even mentions the contact point so I really think it has merit. This next sentence should get a rise out of someone. I think Hal's system uses the contact point. Something has to be used to initially determine how to use his system or which part of his system to use on a certain shot. Something has to be used to determine what your dealing with on a certain shot. Otherwise you could miss the shot by six feet. If it is an angle, something has to be used to determine that angle. An angle has to have two lines to be determined. One of these lines would probably be the rail adjacent to the shot, another could be from the pocket to the object ball. Guess what is at the end of this line to the object ball being used to determine the angle. Yup, the contact point. I realize that saying Hal's system uses the contact point in this sense is a stretch, but it is there. Don't take this wrong. I'm not saying this to cut down Hal's system. I'm saying it to validate it.
From what I see the majority of professional pool players say they use feel to pocket balls (the type of feel I'm talking labeled #1 above). I've read that several use the ghost ball and some use the contact point. And yes there are a few that use Hal's system or something similar.
I've mentioned this before and it has been ignored so I'll mention it again. About these pros that use feel. I've watched most of them at one time or another on TV. Not once have I watched a match that I didn't see each participant shoot at least one difficult shot. When the have a difficult shot, they (all of them) walk around and look at the object ball from behind, looking at the line to the pocket. They are looking so they can be very accurate about where they want to send the cue ball, by feel. They are looking at where they want the cue ball to hit the object ball. Whether it is conscious or not doesn't matter. They have to have something to feel and it has something to do with where they want the cue ball to hit the object ball. A contact point. Depending on what they are trying to do with the cue ball, this may or may not be the same contact point that is referred to when someone is talking about using a contact point system. None the less it is a contact point. Again, when using feel, you have to feel something. That something has something to do with where you want the cue ball to go and thus where you want the cue ball to contact the object ball. A contact point. Even if it doesn't, one thing for sure is that it doesn't have anything to do with 1/4 or 1/8 of a ball.
That said, amongst the pros there are feel players that I think use a contact point (or maybe they don't, they definitely don't use an approximation), there are Ghost ball players that are using the ghost ball to hit a contact point. Feel and contact point players out weigh other system players by a vast majority. Remember, I'm talking about pros now. I basing this on what pros have said and what I've seen them do.
Since the vast majority of pros use feel or contact point, I would say that these are the best ways to pocket balls. If you are dealing with a league player that just needs something to help him get a little better at pocketing balls a system like Hal's would be great. If you dealing with an young new player that has a lot of talent or an up and coming player that has a real chance of becoming something in the pool would, it would be better serving them something that will lead to playing by feel and some kind of contact point system will do this more readily.
Prolog:
I've used a lot of common sense in the above paragraphs. I welcome responses with common sense or reasoning. If your going to just say, JR's is wrong because you think so or because you think I don't know enough to state this, I'll just ignore it. If you use foul language, I won't respond regardless of what you say.
Anyone want to try to deny the fact that this is making a shot by feel? Yup, it was made by feel. But I wouldn't recommend trying it with a shot that has any difficulty to it at all. When doing this you feel the cue stick, with both hands, moving in the correct direction. (or close enough to correct)
So much for clearing that up. Now that we have determined that a pool shot can be made by feel lets get into how this effects the rest of your game when looking at the shot rather than getting cocky and looking your opponent straight in the eyes. (fun to do though, isn't it. LOL)
(insert A)
I had better clear this up right now. Other than the mention of the 'Tom Cruise Shot' I'm talking to and about people that look at the object ball when making the final stroke. If your looking at the cue ball, I don't have the beginnings of an idea how you could make a shot by feel. I even look at the object ball on jacked up shots and jump shots. So if you look at the cue ball on your final stroke you might want to ignore this entire post.
Anyone here ever thought just after pulling the trigger on a shot...Oh shit, I didn't stroke that one straight... and then watch the result expecting to miss and pleasantly surprised when the ball goes in the hole. I'll admit it, it has happened to me. The question that this brings up is, why did you make the ball. The obvious answer is that the shot was easy enough that it had a big enough margin for error. Your little stroke mistake wasn't bad enough to make you miss the shot. Is it only easy shots that this happens on? I don't think so. I think there is a second possible answer why you made the shot. Your feel for the shot noticed on the last stroke that you were not lined up correctly and made a correction for you. You made the shot by feel rather than missing it because of your incorrect line up. The reverse of this can happen also. Your feel for the shot could be wrong and alignment could be right. Then when the feel part of you makes that last second adjustment it could make you miss. Man, that sucks when that happens, doesn't it.
With this line of thinking one could say that every shot that anyone makes is done at least in part by feel. Since you can't see your back hand you are doing that part of your stoke by feel. That is unless you have three eyes. One to look at the object ball, one to look at your front hand and cue ball, and one protruding out of you 'adams apple' to look back at your back hand. Problem, we only have two eyes, and those two only seem to be able to focus on one thing at a time. So what you could say is we only have one line of sight. All this adds up to playing shots by feel is a product of hand eye coordination.
What is this hand eye coordination doing? I think one of two things. (maybe more but these are the two I'll talk about.)
1. It guides the cue stick concentrating on the end result so that it sends the cue ball to a particular spot on the table. (playing by feel)
or
2. It guides the cue stick concentrating on moving the cue stick straight back and straight forward to make the cue stick strike the cue ball in a certain spot. (playing by aim)
Again, both of these use feel. But the 'shooting by feel' that pool players are talking about on this forum is represented by number 1. (Incidentally, I used the 'Tom Cruise Shot' to get your attention in the beginning of the post, but I actually think this is more like #2)
Part 2: Yup, I am going to get around to aiming systems.
I'm going to start of by saying that I'm convinced that Hal's system works and works very well. I can't deny it cause there are just to many people using it. Fred's version of it even mentions the contact point so I really think it has merit. This next sentence should get a rise out of someone. I think Hal's system uses the contact point. Something has to be used to initially determine how to use his system or which part of his system to use on a certain shot. Something has to be used to determine what your dealing with on a certain shot. Otherwise you could miss the shot by six feet. If it is an angle, something has to be used to determine that angle. An angle has to have two lines to be determined. One of these lines would probably be the rail adjacent to the shot, another could be from the pocket to the object ball. Guess what is at the end of this line to the object ball being used to determine the angle. Yup, the contact point. I realize that saying Hal's system uses the contact point in this sense is a stretch, but it is there. Don't take this wrong. I'm not saying this to cut down Hal's system. I'm saying it to validate it.
From what I see the majority of professional pool players say they use feel to pocket balls (the type of feel I'm talking labeled #1 above). I've read that several use the ghost ball and some use the contact point. And yes there are a few that use Hal's system or something similar.
I've mentioned this before and it has been ignored so I'll mention it again. About these pros that use feel. I've watched most of them at one time or another on TV. Not once have I watched a match that I didn't see each participant shoot at least one difficult shot. When the have a difficult shot, they (all of them) walk around and look at the object ball from behind, looking at the line to the pocket. They are looking so they can be very accurate about where they want to send the cue ball, by feel. They are looking at where they want the cue ball to hit the object ball. Whether it is conscious or not doesn't matter. They have to have something to feel and it has something to do with where they want the cue ball to hit the object ball. A contact point. Depending on what they are trying to do with the cue ball, this may or may not be the same contact point that is referred to when someone is talking about using a contact point system. None the less it is a contact point. Again, when using feel, you have to feel something. That something has something to do with where you want the cue ball to go and thus where you want the cue ball to contact the object ball. A contact point. Even if it doesn't, one thing for sure is that it doesn't have anything to do with 1/4 or 1/8 of a ball.
That said, amongst the pros there are feel players that I think use a contact point (or maybe they don't, they definitely don't use an approximation), there are Ghost ball players that are using the ghost ball to hit a contact point. Feel and contact point players out weigh other system players by a vast majority. Remember, I'm talking about pros now. I basing this on what pros have said and what I've seen them do.
Since the vast majority of pros use feel or contact point, I would say that these are the best ways to pocket balls. If you are dealing with a league player that just needs something to help him get a little better at pocketing balls a system like Hal's would be great. If you dealing with an young new player that has a lot of talent or an up and coming player that has a real chance of becoming something in the pool would, it would be better serving them something that will lead to playing by feel and some kind of contact point system will do this more readily.
Prolog:
I've used a lot of common sense in the above paragraphs. I welcome responses with common sense or reasoning. If your going to just say, JR's is wrong because you think so or because you think I don't know enough to state this, I'll just ignore it. If you use foul language, I won't respond regardless of what you say.
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