Wrist Curl

Dan White

Dan White

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
My stroke mechanics are pretty solid – good alignment and I keep the elbow still through the shot. However, I notice that when I look at video from the back of the stroke, the butt of the cue pulls inward a little bit in the middle of the forward stroke only and then straightens out again as I follow through. It appears that this is due to a small amount of wrist curl. I seem to be able to lessen this problem by focusing my attention on keeping the thumb pointing straight down all the time. It seems like I have to introduce a little tension in my arm to counteract the “natural” tendency to curl the wrist inward. I saw something online about a snooker cue that is weighted on the bottom to counteract this problem. It got me thinking that this is something that is just a natural part of the anatomy that has to be overcome.

Anybody have any experience correcting this kind of thing? Any thoughts?
 
Happens to me too when I am pressing and causes me to revert back to bad habits (wrist curl). I simply concentrate on keeping my wrist perpendicular to my cue. I find that when I am playing well concentrating on keeping my wrist straight becomes part of my PSR.
 
It is normally caused by tightening the grip or moving the fingers as a lot of players tend to do. It can also be caused by your eyes been out of alignment with the cue which causes people to try and manipulate the cue onto the perceived line the eyes have locked in.

Try and drive the hand into the chest when practicing. This is what all the top snooker players do to overcome turning the wrist and tightening the grip. You can do it with or without dropping the elbow and it really helps to keep the wrist nice and relaxed and on line. The reason this is such a great habit to get into is that those prone to turning the wrist tend not to follow through to their full potential and try to give the shot a little bit extra with the wrist. People say the follow through is pointless, it isnt.
 
Hi Dan,

Some good info has already been offered.

I'd like to say that everyone's muscle & skeletal make up is not exactly the same. The angle of our hands as they hang naturally & when the hand tightens is not exactly the same. When I take my golf grip with my left hand & it looks great & then just slightly tighten & lock out my elbow the club face opens. Hence, my slice before I stumbled onto this issue. So... I need to turn my hand significantly clockwise & have what looks to be a very closed & shut club face if held loosely & in my 'natural' position.

Everyone can not get their best results by holding a golf club or a baseball bat exactly the same as another that is having much success holding them in THEIR manner.

CJ Wiley advocated a firm 'grip' on the cue when he was still here. When I was experimenting with his version of TOI I naturally 'gravitated' to a more firm connection to the cue & found that I then had to rotate my hand clockwise to get the cue to find & stay in 'the channel' as CJ called it.

Take a look at your hand when your wrist is flat. Does your thumb point along the same line as your forearm? Mine does not & doubt that anyone else's does either. Hold the cue & then tuck the elbow on line. What does tip of the cue want to do? CJ also advocated connecting the cue 'on top'. But CJ & I do NOT use a full pendulum type swing.

Besides seeing a true straight line I think how we connect to the cue to be the next most important aspect of the bio-mechanics if they are not tied for that honor.

There is much going on in just how one connects to the cue & imposing cookie cutter mechanisms as supposed fixes can lead to other compensations to where one is fighting one bad thing with another bad thing. Very seldom is any real fix of a single component.

Just some food for thought.

I hope you find YOUR solution.

Best 2 Ya.
 
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Pidge said:
It is normally caused by tightening the grip or moving the fingers as a lot of players tend to do. It can also be caused by your eyes been out of alignment with the cue which causes people to try and manipulate the cue onto the perceived line the eyes have locked in.

Try and drive the hand into the chest when practicing. This is what all the top snooker players do to overcome turning the wrist and tightening the grip. You can do it with or without dropping the elbow and it really helps to keep the wrist nice and relaxed and on line. The reason this is such a great habit to get into is that those prone to turning the wrist tend not to follow through to their full potential and try to give the shot a little bit extra with the wrist. People say the follow through is pointless, it isnt.
Click to expand...
I don't hear people saying the follow through is pointless; I hear them saying it doesn't do anything special to the tip/CB hit, but its point is to help prevent "hitches" in the stroke, exactly as you say.

pj
chgo
 
If you are slightly ahead of 90 degrees at impact, the wrist may curl.
Check out your back hand position at set up.

randyg
 
randyg said:
If you are slightly ahead of 90 degrees at impact, the wrist may curl.
Check out your back hand position at set up.

randyg
Click to expand...

Impact of cue tip to cue ball, or impact of cue ball too object ball?
 
Try this;

Keep your index finger off the cue, and point it downwards. So, when you line up your shot, grip the cue with the index finger pointing straight down to the floor. After you complete your full shot, stop, and always check what happened to your wrist.

Doing this will also keep you down on the shot, and not so anxious to get up and look at your "work", and at the same time, keep you loose and your mechanics correct.

Give it a try, eventually you won't need the "finger trick" once it becomes automatic for you after a few weeks.
 
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

:thumbup2:

Yes. The index finger is generally more in line with the forearm than the thumb. The finger down was the end result of rotating my hand clockwise to get the cue to channel in the slot when my connection to the cue changed when experimenting with TOI.

IMO, I think this is more general 'fix' than the thumb down, BUT... we are all individuals.

Best Wishes to All.
 
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There is a video of Morris doing an instructional session on YouTube and he mentions holding a cube of chalk between index and thumb whilst holding the cue to give the feeling of how the wrist and hand should work and asks to hit some balls trying it. Very ingenious.
 
If I remember correctly, I think Fran Crimi ultimately went to a connection to the cue with both the thumb & index finger off of the cue.

I tried it & it worked rather well but was a bit uncomfortable for me, as I've always used them in other sports & it's just awkward, for me, to take them out of play & only use the last 3 fingers.

That means that there is a good chance that it's probably a good method, as CJ has said, that if it feels uncomfortable it's probably the right thing to do.

Best Wishes to All.
 
As an experiment try one of those wrist support gloves. You can get them at Walgreens for a few bucks. They have a metal piece inside that prevents the bending in of your wrist. They don't cover the fingers or thumb. My wife uses them to relieve corpal tunnel pain.
 
randyg said:
Impact of cue tip at cue ball, but you knew that my friend.

thanks
randyg
Click to expand...

I know, but sometimes the readers may be just learning and take and idea wrong. I asked a guy I gave a lesson to, where he learned to stand and hold his cue? He said he saw the shooting position on a trophy and copied it.
 
flyrv9 said:
As an experiment try one of those wrist support gloves. You can get them at Walgreens for a few bucks. They have a metal piece inside that prevents the bending in of your wrist. They don't cover the fingers or thumb. My wife uses them to relieve corpal tunnel pain.
Click to expand...

I broke my right hand and when they put it in a cast they left just enough room for me to cradle the cue with my thumb and the first digit. I really didn't think much about it until I started hitting some balls around. The cast kept my wrist perfectly still absolutely no curl. My game jumped up 2 balls almost over night. I actually went out and bought one of those bowling gloves that does about the same thing. However, after having that cast on for 5-6 weeks it pretty much straightened out my curl problem. I wouldn't recommend breaking your hand but the bowling glove might help.
 
This is just something that helps me, but it may be worth a try for practice

When I have my shot lined up and am ready to shoot: I concentrate on a spot on the heal of my cueing hand that is lined up directly with where I want to hit the cue ball. If you follow thru your stroke with this spot going directly at the spot on the cue ball, it may correct your problem of moving off center while stroking.
 
lol Bmore...

Thanks for all the interesting/useful replies. I mainly wanted to see what level of problem other people had with the wrist, and I think this thread answers that for me. I hit a few with the thumb down idea and it worked out pretty well. I guess I had this figured out once before and never ingrained it into my stroke.
 
After years of a "Normal (?) Grip", I was practicing one day with the middle finger & the web of the thumb & forefinger as a primary means of holding the cue (lightly with a slight space. Been doin' that since 2012.

I also saw on Freddy's CD, where he suggested holding the cue in 3 different ways, to agree with the demands of the follow, draw & stun stroke. The jury is still out....
 
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