What causes inconsistency?

[Terry Davidson]

dennett:

The 4 (or 5, which I recommend) are:

1. ABSOLUTELY no upper body movement from start of feathering through backswing and through delivery to when your grip hand hits your chest.

2. LOOSE grip, with cue resting on the pads of the 4 fingers and no lateral thumb pressure.

3. SLOW backswing, slow enough so you can control it and pull the cue back straight.

(Rear pause of 1 second or so here)

4. Drive grip hand through to the chest on EVERY shot and STAY STILL with cue extended, no body movement (except the eyes) until the ball drops or hits the cushion.

Terry

[miscuehamburg]

miscuehamburg:

The reason for a missed shot is normally that the player hasn't delivered the cue straight along his chosen line of aim (of course for a beginner the line of aim could be wrong too).

Problems with confidence or any other mental problem always show up as a fault in the technique. That is what I'm trying to educate people on.

If they develop a good technique along with a solid stance then even with the most extreme mental pressure they should still be able to rely on their solid technique to deliver the cue straight along the line of aim.

The other side of this coin is, the less moving parts the better since you need to have a perfect rhythm and timing to get the cue back to the intended line of delivery. Pumping the upper body, which is very common with a lot of players, dictates they must get that cue back on the correct line at the time they hit the cueball and in order to do this they need perfect rhythm, which under pressure is much more difficult to do.

This is why I insist on absolutely no upper body movement, no turning of the wrist, no closing the grip before the cueball is struck and finally do not move once the cue has been delivered until the ball drops or hits a cushion.

The KISS principle definitely comes into play in the snooker technique. Exactly the same as golf, where a coach will tell you to keep the 5th & 6th vertebrae still in space during the backswing and delivery, in snooker it's exactly the same principle, keeping the right shoulder socket (for right-handers) still in space during the backswing and delivery, and also keeping the wrist on the same plane.

This also includes keeping the cue as much as possible on the same plane too.

THE LESS MOVING PARTS THE BETTER

Terry

I wholly agree with your excellent analysis. Confidence & pressure have an impact on how one execute a shot for sure. Technical faults will come visible in pressure situations. Therefore it is vital to have a solid, routine way of executing every shot you attempt.

My intention was only to warn of the danger there is when you start questioning your technique occassionally when you miss easy balls. Then you could really put yourself off for the whole evening, even if you are actually doing the right thing, but just haven't the run of balls. I have seen many players struggling a bit, doubting everything they do technically wise, and thus destroying their game completely for a significant period of time without a reason.

Assuming there are no grave technical faults in your game the inconsistence seems to me mostly a mental problem. Often I have seen how just keep on going can turn the tables around. There is actually no such thing as 'a bad day at the office' but a chance to make the best of it:snooker:

[gem]

I would agree that usually an off day is due to factors that make concentration difficult like tiredness or other distractions.
I would also say to just check the basics are correct as sometimes we can all creep into bad habits.
Look at the golfer Paul McGinley, every new season he goes to Bob Torrance (his coach of around 20 years) and they go over the same basic checks as usually Paul falls into old habits during the season and he just needs a slight tune up.
I feel this can happen in snooker also although to a lesser extent.

[1lawyer]

I would agree that usually an off day is due to factors that make concentration difficult like tiredness or other distractions.
I would also say to just check the basics are correct as sometimes we can all creep into bad habits.
Look at the golfer Paul McGinley, every new season he goes to Bob Torrance (his coach of around 20 years) and they go over the same basic checks as usually Paul falls into old habits during the season and he just needs a slight tune up.
I feel this can happen in snooker also although to a lesser extent.

Bang on and a good comparison to make I think. Many people overlook the basics but this is often were the problems are.

[C-J]

Bang on and a good comparison to make I think. Many people overlook the basics but this is often were the problems are.

yes,when you play well it seems like you can get away with everything but when you start to miss it's difficult to analyse where it went wrong

[noel]

I, like most of us, consistently play badly yet inconsistently well.
Pros play consistently well and yet inconsistently badly.

The common factor here is attention.

When it comes to shots and frames and tournaments, Pros just want to "do it"
as they know they can. We want to "do it" even though we worry we can't.
We fret over doing all the stuff we're told we should do while the Pros worry about paying their bar bill.
It's very different, but similar in that we're all human and prone to losing our concentr

[jrc750]

... we're all human and prone to losing our concentr

Like what you did there

[C-J]

I, like most of us, consistently play badly yet inconsistently well.
Pros play consistently well and yet inconsistently badly.

So the question really should be;what causes consistency?We all know that answer of course but do we want to pay the price......

[noel]

So the question really should be;what causes consistency?We all know that answer of course but do we want to pay the price......

My friend, isn't it so often true that what might seem to be the simplest, isn't.



=o)

Noel

[vmax4steve]

Higgins was the most naturally gifted player the game has ever seen, even more so than Ronnie who has an awful lot of natural talent (and some glitches) too. When his timing and rhythm were correct he would play better than anyone else, but when his timing was out because he had to counter-balance that movement he shot absolute crap. If he was so damned great then why didn't he have a much better record between '72 and '82 and why couldn't he be more consistent? He had his own style but his timing had to be perfect to control it consistently.

Terry

Are you saying that his timing had to be so fine tuned that he struck the cue ball fractionally before he moved ? I have a lot of video of Higgins and when I replay in super slo mo, one of his shots where he practically throws himself at the ball, and gets it, I cannot see that the cue arm moves first, everything just explodes at once.
As for his record between '72 and '82, his own explanation was the breaking of his original Burwat Champion cue right after his first WSC win in '72, and the fact that his attacking style needs the run of the balls in order to succeed.
Higgins was a great player, not a great champion, there is a difference.

[noel]

*r*a*n*t*a*l*e*r*t*

Are you saying that his timing had to be so fine tuned that he struck the cue ball fractionally before he moved ? I have a lot of video of Higgins and when I replay in super slo mo, one of his shots where he practically throws himself at the ball, and gets it, I cannot see that the cue arm moves first, everything just explodes at once.
As for his record between '72 and '82, his own explanation was the breaking of his original Burwat Champion cue right after his first WSC win in '72, and the fact that his attacking style needs the run of the balls in order to succeed.
Higgins was a great player, not a great champion, there is a difference.

Good point.

Higgins may have lost the individual battles but he sure as hell won the war.
Like White. Like O'Sullivan.

It is increasingly my opinion that we need more "break-the-rules" [ whose rules are they anyway? ]
players with flair and character and individuality... those who "play" snooker not "execute" it.

I won't bore you to death with the list of robotic [ lack of ] style players who are as uniformly flat as a plate of urine.
You can look up the List and mark them all appropriately with those yellow highlighter pens.

Who exactly will Hearn market after Ronnie exits the scene?
Taylor vs Davis again?



=o\

Noel

[Csmith]

Are you saying that his timing had to be so fine tuned that he struck the cue ball fractionally before he moved ? I have a lot of video of Higgins and when I replay in super slo mo, one of his shots where he practically throws himself at the ball, and gets it, I cannot see that the cue arm moves first, everything just explodes at once.
As for his record between '72 and '82, his own explanation was the breaking of his original Burwat Champion cue right after his first WSC win in '72, and the fact that his attacking style needs the run of the balls in order to succeed.
Higgins was a great player, not a great champion, there is a difference.

Yup Alex timed his spasms quite well.

In general, if you can place the cue on the line of the shot and contact the cue ball on that line, you'll pot every ball regardless of what you do. That's what Alex did. That's not to say that he always timed it perfectly though.

You can certainly become a good player with unorthodox technique, but why would you want to try? Orthodox is orthodox because it's easiest way to get it done. Any time you pull the cue off line in the backstroke you have to work harder to get it back on line before you've contacted the cue ball.

As Terry Davidson said, inconsistency is bred by poor mechanics. It's only mental if you are making poor decisions missing position. A good player can still pot every ball even if their concentration is off.

[The Doctor]

Inconsistency is mostly down to poor technique.
If you take John Higgins for an example.
He is so consistent because his technique is consistent. He has won loads of events when only playing his "B" game.
Then have a look at someone like, Joe Swail. He would probably need to be at his "A" game to win an event.
There is also the matter of mental strength, however, i have found in all my years as a player and coach that even mental strength is somewhat down to strong technique.
The reason for this is simple, A strong Technique is always reliable under pressure and gives you the trust you need under pressure.
The opposite applies, if you have "twitched" under pressure this will probably be down to bad technique.
It is difficult to separate the 2(technique and metal strength, but here we are talking about inconsistency and i feel the main cause of that is as Terry highlighted is poor mechanics

[Terry Davidson]

vmax:

Not quite the point I was making regarding Alex's timing. In explanation...

when a player moves on the shot, either during the backswing or at the start of the delivery, if his timing is bang on he gets the cue back to his address position during the delivery and just prior to hitting the cueball. Normally younger players can do a better job at getting this right.

Alex, when he was playing brilliant, had his timing right on so his cue returned to the original line of aim he determined during his feathers, but as he got older (and perhaps the effects of the drink and other factors) he was not able to do this as well as he could as a young man.

It's only my own theory, but I think if Alex had managed to control that 'jerk' he had and became a smooth deliverer of his cue, I think it's entirely possible he would have been the greatest player who ever lived because everyone, including Steve Davis, believe he was the most naturally gifted player the sport has ever seen.

It's just too bad about his lifestyle and personal problems and the moving on the shot that he had.

Terry

[vmax4steve]

vmax:

Not quite the point I was making regarding Alex's timing. In explanation...

when a player moves on the shot, either during the backswing or at the start of the delivery, if his timing is bang on he gets the cue back to his address position during the delivery and just prior to hitting the cueball. Normally younger players can do a better job at getting this right.

So do you think that this "timing" is dependant upon the eyes being focussed on the point of contact on the object ball at the moment the tip strikes the cue ball. ?
The body moves but the focus of the eyes do not, thus the cue remains on the correct line of aim, which is my theory.