What is your FAVORITE Drill using only a cue ball?

D

Dakota Cues

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
Hi all,

I'm looking for your favorite drills that build stroke/accuracy/etc. using ONLY a cue ball.

I've seen some of the timeless classics, like driving the cb down the table and trying to make it come back and hit the tip of the cue.

I know there are some more gems like this out there, so please post what you use!

Thanks!
 
I use Mother Drill #1 for Stroke Training. I usually always use a stripe ball in most of my drills rather than a cue ball....SPF=randyg
 
Dakota Cues...Mother Drill 1 is used to ingrain your stroke and shooting template. It verifies that you're holding your cue in the correct place, not gripping too tightly, and not dropping your elbow, while you shoot the CB/stripe (I prefer using a stripe too, for a visual aid in hitting the vertical axis accurately) into a corner pocket, at your three principal speeds...lag, playing, and break speed.

Scott Lee
www.poolknowledge.com

Dakota Cues said:
What is mother drill #1?
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I am particularly enamored with Mother Drill # 5. I love that drill. A combination of Mother Drill 4 and 5 is also interesting and as we know the faster you swing your cue the more the errors are magnified.
 
Good point. I had a student this week that was trying to shoot 8 and 9 speed, and couldn't keep the ball from working to the side rail. I had him back on MD 1 and 4 real quick!

Steve
 
Not sure what "mother drills" are. Perhaps it is one of mine. Here's some of the single-ball drills I do when I assess a table I don't know:

- The old classic: ball on head line, shoot straight toward the foot rail, stay down on the table after the shot, ball comes back and, if you did it right, the ball stops on your cue tip, ready for another shot. If you do 10 in a row without shifting position (too much), you speed and aim is good.

- Ball near a corner pocket, about 5 inches from the long rail, shoot straight toward the opposite long rail (parallel to the short rail) with a little english, pocket the ball (bank shot). Move ball one full ball away from the short rail, along the long rail, do it again with more english, etc... until you reach just under the side pockets. This gets you used to how the rails react and gets rid of any "dryness" in your stroke.

- A variant of the previous drill: ball on head line, 5 inches from the long rail, shoot straight toward the foot rail with english, ball does 2 rails and gets pocketed into the opposite head corner pocket. Then move ball away from the long rail and do it again with more english.

- Another variant: ball on head spot, execute a classic 3 rail shot to pocket the ball into the head corner pocket, without english. Then shoot higher on the long rail and progressively increase english.

- Ball on head spot, cue as horizontal as possible, shoot straight toward the foot rail and progressively increase english and work on your speed until you pocket in the foot corner pocket somewhat reliably. Then elevate your cue until you can pocket in a side pocket. This gets you used to how the cloth reacts to massés.

- Ball on head spot, shoot the point in the side pocket until the ball repeatedly comes straight back to you more or less. This is excellent for working on shooting accuracy, but requires rails in good working order (that is, forget about doing that on an old tired bar table).

- A jump shot drill, if the table owner allows it and you use the overhanded method: ball 5 inches from a side pocket, shoot from the opposite side of the table so that the ball lands inside the pocket, without any rebound on the table. Do that 2 or 3 times. Then do it again, with the ball on the center spot, then again with the ball near the opposite side pocket.
 
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Scott Lee said:
Dakota Cues...Mother Drill 1 is used to ingrain your stroke and shooting template. It verifies that you're holding your cue in the correct place, not gripping too tightly, and not dropping your elbow, while you shoot the CB/stripe (I prefer using a stripe too, for a visual aid in hitting the vertical axis accurately) into a corner pocket, at your three principal speeds...lag, playing, and break speed.

Scott Lee
www.poolknowledge.com
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OK, but how do you do them? Posting names for drills without describing how hte drill is actually performed is pretty worthless IMO. I mean you guys are instructors, right?

If these are listed somewhere as a link or something, the post a link. Otherwise all you are doing is wasting time with responses like this...
 
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Dakota Cues said:
OK, but how do you do them? Posting names for drills without describing how hte drill is actually performed is pretty worthless IMO. I mean you guys are instructors, right?

If these are listed somewhere as a link or something, the post a link. Otherwise all you are doing is wasting time with responses like this...
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Scott quite clearly explained 3 things that you can do with one ball to improve your game. That is a nice freebie. These people are professionals who will gladly teach you--for a price and that is only right. The drills that they are mentioning are part of their teaching programs. I now know one of the drills. Thanks, Scott. See you in a few weeks.
 
Guy said:
Scott quite clearly explained 3 things that you can do with one ball to improve your game.
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Um, no, actually he didn't. Why don't you re-read his post:

"Dakota Cues...Mother Drill 1 is used to ingrain your stroke and shooting template. It verifies that you're holding your cue in the correct place, not gripping too tightly, and not dropping your elbow, while you shoot the CB/stripe (I prefer using a stripe too, for a visual aid in hitting the vertical axis accurately) into a corner pocket, at your three principal speeds...lag, playing, and break speed."


Notice that he described what it (this mother drill, or whatever) "does", but not how to actually do it. All he said was to hit a striped ball into a corner pocket at 3 different speeds. In his post he said that his little mama drill will "Verify that you are holding the cue in the correct place and not gripping too tightly or dropping your elbow." Shooting the ball into the pocket is just the "What" and not the "How."


I'm not looking for trade secret/dvd crap like this. All I was asking for was if some people wanted to share basic, cueball only drills for practicing, and I got worthless responses from what are supposed to be instructors.


I can tell you 3 things:

1. I'm glad you're the one that's spending money on lessons from him and not me.

2. Scott and Randy can forget about me ever getting their DVD's. With information like this, I'm better off learning on my own, and

3. Fastolfe if YOU ever make a DVD, put me down for one. Your response was light years ahead of the responses of 2 instructors.
 
I will tell you exactly how to do Mother Drill number 1. This is the drill Scott explained it's purpose in a previous post.

Place a ball 7 inches from the head rail and 7 inches from the side rail. Using an open rail bridge, shoot the ball down along the side rail and into the corner pocket at the other end of the table.

That is it. That's all there is to the drill.

Now, here's the problem. You have learned how to do the drill, and you know it's purpose. But without knowing where you are supposed to be placing your grip hand, what your personal template is, whether or not you have the proper stance, knowing where your home position is,or what makes a proper set position, it really doesn't do much good.

The Mother Drills aren't trade secrets. But the things you learn when you take the class help you to understand what you are looking for when you do the drills. (Hint: Making the ball in the pocket isn't the goal of the drill. Checking all the parts of your consistent, repeatable stroke is the goal of the drill.) So unless you know what you are to achieve with the drill, it really isn't worth much on it's own.

Mother Drills re-enforce the things you learn in the class. If you haven't already learned those specific things, Mother Drills won't do much for you.


Steve
 
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Dakota Cues said:
3. Fastolfe if YOU ever make a DVD, put me down for one. Your response was light years ahead of the responses of 2 instructors.
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Thanks. But I do need to make one thing clear: I probably had no business replying to this thread, as I am NOT an professional instructor, and I am NOT certified or anything. All I do is teach pool basics for free to beginners who join our local club. So these were just MY drills, and I didn't mean to step on professional teachers' toes and businesses here.

At any rate Dakota Cues, you definitely should consider taking lessons from an instructor (and buy their DVD if they sell one) if you feel you need it. There is no sense in practicing if you practice wrong, and 2 hours with a good instructor can save you years of frustration at the table. The only thing I'd advise is this: pick an instructor who explains to you how to assess your own body position, stroke, tension, strategies,... YOURSELF, who teaches you the feedbacks that turn you into your own instructor eventually, and not one that corrects your game while he's around, and 2 weeks after he's gone, your game is messed up again and you don't know why.
 
Dakota Cues said:
1. I'm glad you're the one that's spending money on lessons from him and not me.
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anyone who has read many posts by me knows I'm not afraid of a little text combat.. I call em like I see em.. and will cry BS if needed...

I took a lesson from RandyG a a little over year ago...

if it was BS I would be the first in line leading the charge to discredit them..

there is one problem... IT WORKS!!!

I can honestly say that I get better every day..

I put the time in.. and it paid off..

they can't teach you the secrets until they see you..

because it's different for everyone..

it's a tailor made stroke unique to you and they help you find it..

all the mother drills do is reinforce that taught stroke... if you do them correctly..

the drills without the lesson groove flaws which will take even more effort and even more time to remove..

there are two types of pool players ... those who think they know what they are doing... and those that actually know


I used to be one ... now I am the other... and it's a whole other world...

don't trash what you don't know:rolleyes:
 
Dakota Cues...That's too bad, because you'd learn a LOT about what we're describing here...and exactly what softshot posted (Pretty cheap for $30, if you ask me...Vol. 1 has this information). The drills by themselves mean little to nothing (and much information about them has been posted here, both by us, and by other students), without the information about how to USE them...which is dictated by who YOU are, how YOU'RE built, how YOU learn, etc. Those things are difficult to teach without seeing the actual student, and why we have a lot of success with people who choose to seek us out for help in improving their stroke, and ultimately their game. As was mentioned, you can groove in bad habits for years and years, and make them work. We just try to short-circuit that looooong wait! Best of luck with your game!

Scott Lee
www.poolknowledge.com

Dakota Cues said:
2. Scott and Randy can forget about me ever getting their DVD's. With information like this, I'm better off learning on my own.
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@Dakota Cues

For sure each instructor, or even so an advance helpful player would try to help u as good as he can (here on Az especially). But there are some *things* you CAN T describe from far away- some problems have to be *detected* stayin with your Instructor/Helpful guy/ to your next.
In this case it wouldn t be serious if someone would give u some special advices over the internet or by phone, because just senseless.

lg

Ingo
 
I'm not afraid of some debate, either, so I'll make one last post on this subject and enjoy the real feedback on the other forum, instead of just listening to a bunch of instructors stroke themselves here.

Again the purpose of this post was to get basic, cueball only excercises like the first one I posted. If the drill was too complicated to explain, than it should not be in here. Period.

The problem is that I didn't even get responses. I got smart ass comments like, "I like mother drill #1".

Let me clarify this in a different way with the last post...

pooltchr said:
So unless you know what you are to achieve with the drill, it really isn't worth much on it's own. Steve
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Yes... then it's probably a waste of time to post it, so don't waste our time here.


Scott Lee said:
Dakota Cues...That's too bad, because you'd learn a LOT about what we're describing here...
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This would be true if you were actually describing something, Scotty. What you are saying is that you can't describe what this drill is so buy my DVD and learn exactly what it is and how it works. Again, NO CHANCE of that now, and from your posts, I can see that there are clearly better instructors to spend my money on.



softshot said:
they can't teach you the secrets until they see you..
because it's different for everyone..
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Again, so don't waste our time posting something that might not be true for everybody AND you can't even fully describe on here since it is different for everybody.

fastolfe said:
I am NOT certified or anything. All I do is teach pool basics for free to beginners who join our local club. So these were just MY drills, and I didn't mean to step on professional teachers' toes and businesses here.
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Fastolfe, yours was the ONLY post that actually gave what I asked for. I thought it was a simple question, and your answer was exactly the type of response I was looking for. It's unfortunate that the supposed certified instructors were too busy trying to impress other instructors with how intelligent they thought they were to actually give any kind of intelligent input.

Anyway, thanks for showing me the wealth of knowlede this forum has to offer.
 
Dakota Cues said:
Again the purpose of this post was to get basic, cueball only excercises like the first one I posted. If the drill was too complicated to explain, than it should not be in here. Period.

The problem is that I didn't even get responses. I got smart ass comments like, "I like mother drill #1".

Yes... then it's probably a waste of time to post it, so don't waste our time here.




.
Click to expand...

You asked a question. Your question was "what is a Mother Drill" I told you exactly what one of them is. Scott told you the purpose of the drill. Your questions were answered completely and accurately.


Maybe you aren't asking the right questions.

We don't know what we don't know.

Steve
 
wow what a disrespectful turd you are.....these guys go far out of their way to help

Dakota Cues said:
I'm not afraid of some debate, either, so I'll make one last post on this subject and enjoy the real feedback on the other forum, instead of just listening to a bunch of instructors stroke themselves here.

no one is stroking themselves except you, the instructors give good info on here for free, pretty nitty of you to complain about free info from some of the most knowledgeable people in the game

Again the purpose of this post was to get basic, cueball only excercises like the first one I posted. If the drill was too complicated to explain, than it should not be in here. Period.

steve explained it very well, so easy a cave man could do it


The problem is that I didn't even get responses. I got smart ass comments like, "I like mother drill #1".

no ones being a smart a** but you


Let me clarify this in a different way with the last post...



Yes... then it's probably a waste of time to post it, so don't waste our time here.

don't waste ours then


This would be true if you were actually describing something, Scotty. What you are saying is that you can't describe what this drill is so buy my DVD and learn exactly what it is and how it works. Again, NO CHANCE of that now, and from your posts, I can see that there are clearly better instructors to spend my money on.

so everyone should just bow down to you and give you free info, info that cost much$$$ to learn and years of experience




Again, so don't waste our time posting something that might not be true for everybody AND you can't even fully describe on here since it is different for everybody.

everyone is different, thats what great about proper instruction


Fastolfe, yours was the ONLY post that actually gave what I asked for. I thought it was a simple question, and your answer was exactly the type of response I was looking for. It's unfortunate that the supposed certified instructors were too busy trying to impress other instructors with how intelligent they thought they were to actually give any kind of intelligent input.

Anyway, thanks for showing me the wealth of knowlede this forum has to offer.
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again nothing in life is free, it either takes time or money and time is more expensive than money. You want a lesson come get in the box with me and see how worthless the info that guys like scott, steve and randy give out is. Your better off paying for lessons unless you feel like getting busted till you learn something. I don't even know you but you have action sir, and you got weight....comments like yours show me you have no game, and no knowledge what so ever.

s**t or get off the pot,
Grey Ghost
 
Grayghost,
There are some people who actually want to learn, and there are some who's ego gets in the way.

Remember, it's what we learn after we know it all that really counts!

Steve
 
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