Zero X Stroke Straightening Drill

67tbird said:
and 15 "push" shots (pushing ball into a pocket slowly from center table).
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That's another incredible learning aid as well. Not only does it give you a tactile feel of stroking through the ball, it also is a wonderful way to improve your stroke timing. Only when you are maintains contact with the ball are you truly accelerating your stroke. If you quit on the stroke midway, the CB separates from the tip and goes on it's way. If you are maintaining contact throughout the stroke, you are achieving true acceraration by definition, and if you maintain a light and relaxed grip on the cue your hand will communicate this feeling to your brain and store the memory of that feeling there.
 
I'm going to do a test run today. I'll shoot for 10 minutes and see how many shots it is. That way I won't need to keep count just watch the time. I figure 6 - 10 shots per minute.
 
Anybody who gives this a good try (at least an hour's worth of balls in one day, broken up into managable bites) and is not impressed with what it can do for you, try 10 more minutes with your opposite hand. ;)

It is a very useful drill IMO. Tor's stuff is great, and almost 3 hours of it is given for free on YT. I can't believe all the flak he's had to deal with on AZ because of spurious claims of plagiarism.
 
I just started playing last year. His videos where some of the first one's I've watched. They have also been the best that I've watched. I haven't bought the series yet. But as soon as I have my home table that will be the first purchase I make.
 
BeiberLvr said:
Tough to tell with his camera angle. Looks like a variation. I don't think it matters where you shoot from, as long as you're shooting across the length of the table.

Here's the original video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pm-VDuGzJS4&feature=youtu.be&t=32m32s
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The player in the video is doing what I do: take the idea of shooting from the headspot to the far corner pocket (what is shown in the Zero-X video) and adapting it to other positions. The "headspot to the far corner pocket" routine helped my stroke but my stroke would suffer during non-regular shots, particularly off the rail, along the rail and stretched out to the 5th diamond. I simply applied the same practice drill and got good results.

I don't shoot as many because I do a full pre-shot routine with each stroke. I want to get in the habit of PSR, and rapid-firing of balls would seem to work against that.

It's "muscle memory" on steroids.

I like the idea of trying it with left-handed strokes...and mechanical bridge strokes.
 
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West Point 1987 said:
I'm sure it works and if I had a table at home I'd do it for sure...but at $5-10 per hour in a pool room, I've got other priorities!
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A cheap alternative to the pool table is to set up a card table at home and practice shooting a CB into a pillow.
 
Pete said:
I'm going to do a test run today. I'll shoot for 10 minutes and see how many shots it is. That way I won't need to keep count just watch the time. I figure 6 - 10 shots per minute.
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You should be able to shoot 120 shots in 10 minutes, given 5 seconds per shot. Go for an hour and that's 720 shots.
 
Stroke drill

Yes I did it 2000 times 200 a day for 10 days straight.
I played no other pool. I believe its important that's all you do.
your mind and body cant get preoccupied with other stuff at the table that's pool related.
After a few hundred it was getting monotones but I stuck with it.
Think for a minute tennis players hit thousands and thousands of forehands/backhands
For years and years. your talent and natural ability can take you far but technique is so so important especially as something as precise as pool.
IMO. great exercise really helped my stroke
MCP.
 
I'll let you know how well it works in about 6 weeks. Tor is coming to my house at the end of March for my episode of 14 Days - The Great Pool experiment. I think we are only doing 8-9 days due to my work and tournament committments
 
I like this drill but I got to say the first few shots of Bert Kinister's 60 minute workout are much better and provide more feedback into your misses.
 
BryanB said:
I'll let you know how well it works in about 6 weeks. Tor is coming to my house at the end of March for my episode of 14 Days - The Great Pool experiment. I think we are only doing 8-9 days due to my work and tournament committments
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I really wish he would do this for me I emailed him about it as I work for my self and have the time too do this but never got reply let us know or me how it works
 
I tried yesterday that drill, and shoot 40 racks = 640 balls, it took 5 minutes per rack. 20 racks in left pocket and 20 in right pocket. After first 10 racks, I felt ache in my arms. I played stop, draw , follow shots, also shoot powerful shots, force follow and force draw, and couple racks with extreme English.

I noticed couple things, on my follow through the shaft goes slightly in left side, no perfect forward, any idea what that means?
Also I observed that on power shots, I have the tendency to raise up, so I force myself to shoot hard and stay down 3-4 seconds after shot.
Another observation is that on draw shots, I have the tendency to stop my right hand, not to do a complete follow through, so I tried to fix that, and trust my arm, played almost 20 racks only with draw.

After that drill I played couple games with friend, and noticed that my draw shots became more naturally and easy to perform.

So I would do another 2k shots, to see the results.
 
I like doing the routine for about 100 shots per day, 200 if I have time. I try to really focus on the pause at CB, slow take away with pause, and then thru to finish. It's almost like blind bailing in archery. Sometimes I'll mix up the speed of my finish, or close my eyes on the last 25 to 50 to actually feel the finish. I then like to play the ghost in 9 ball using nothing but the vertical axis on the cue ball, high, center, and low...no side. This works well for me cause I found I was using too much english most of the time, and my position play has really improved.
 
AlexandruM said:
I tried yesterday that drill, and shoot 40 racks = 640 balls, it took 5 minutes per rack. 20 racks in left pocket and 20 in right pocket. After first 10 racks, I felt ache in my arms. I played stop, draw , follow shots, also shoot powerful shots, force follow and force draw, and couple racks with extreme English.

I noticed couple things, on my follow through the shaft goes slightly in left side, no perfect forward, any idea what that means?
Also I observed that on power shots, I have the tendency to raise up, so I force myself to shoot hard and stay down 3-4 seconds after shot.
Another observation is that on draw shots, I have the tendency to stop my right hand, not to do a complete follow through, so I tried to fix that, and trust my arm, played almost 20 racks only with draw.

After that drill I played couple games with friend, and noticed that my draw shots became more naturally and easy to perform.

So I would do another 2k shots, to see the results.
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Good for you! Git 'er done! ;)

That seems like a very slow pace to me - 20 seconds/shot. Most guys runout an open table a lot faster than that. :)

I think it's possible to get too deliberate with this drill, or to add to many frills to it. Yes, take the time to set up the balls and step into the shot, but extreme accuracy isn't required here, just rote repetition of your stroke. Let the motion guide your arm rather than the other way around.

I also feel it's a mistake to try to add too many things, like draw, side, elevation, speed, etc. until you've done the entire initial set the same way for every stroke. Why introduce other variables into an exercise that's supposed to be teaching you to eliminate them? Once you own your stroke, sure, do it a little every practice session and spice it up with different things, but get that stroke grooved SOLID before you move on.

This is probably harder to get yourself to do if you are already an intermediate or advanced player, but just remember that you wouldn't be doing this in the first place if you were 100% satisfied with your stroke.
 
AlexandruM said:
I tried yesterday that drill, and shoot 40 racks = 640 balls, it took 5 minutes per rack. 20 racks in left pocket and 20 in right pocket. After first 10 racks, I felt ache in my arms. I played stop, draw , follow shots, also shoot powerful shots, force follow and force draw, and couple racks with extreme English.

I noticed couple things, on my follow through the shaft goes slightly in left side, no perfect forward, any idea what that means?
Also I observed that on power shots, I have the tendency to raise up, so I force myself to shoot hard and stay down 3-4 seconds after shot.
Another observation is that on draw shots, I have the tendency to stop my right hand, not to do a complete follow through, so I tried to fix that, and trust my arm, played almost 20 racks only with draw.

After that drill I played couple games with friend, and noticed that my draw shots became more naturally and easy to perform.

So I would do another 2k shots, to see the results.
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The biggest culprit for a not perfectly straight follow through was too tight of grip hand. Really!
 
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Sloppy Pockets said:
What are those shots? Maybe I'll add them to my workout.
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Just telling you the shots would be a real disservice to you. This was Bert's first
Video and is highly regarded. It needs to be watched I. It's entirety, many many times. It is a workout of shot that are essential in 9 ball, but the first few require an excellent stroke. Shot number one requires a perfect stroke and speed.
 
prewarhero said:
The biggest culprit for a not perfectly straight follow through was too right of grip hand. Really!
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I agree 100% with that. This goes for many athletic actions where you are holding the equipment, pool doesn't have a monopoly on it. I tell my fly casting students all the time to relax the grip because otherwise they will force the motion of the tip off the intended casting plane. This is hard to convince folks is true because of the unfortunate term "power snap" that some idiot coined decades ago.

If you watch Tor's video, you can see that be has a very relaxed grip and a loose loop bridge. This allows the tip to drop to the cloth all by itself. This action alone will improve your draw immensely because you will naturally be hitting the ball lower instead of tightening up and raising the tip without realizing it.

I'm a recovering bar banger and I used to hold the stick back at the end, grip the crap out of the butt, and try to muscle the shot through the ball because that's what I thought the better players looked like they were doing. Well, it don't work for me, and I never could draw the ball worth a dented can of beans. Things are much better since I started to cradle the cue.

After you do this drill for 100-300 reps, put some balls out about a couple diamonds away and try to soft draw them back to your tip. Just aim low, relax the hand, and let the stick follow straight through the ball. If you do it right, your rock will almost leap back toward your tip with just a smooth, slow stroke. The secret isn't in the follow through, it's the relaxed stroke is letting you hit the ball where you are aiming it.

At least that's my take on it.
 
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