Proper sighting for cue action (line of aim / contact point on object ball)

[reactant]

I am quite a beginner and i was wondering how to sight properly on the shot. I have found sighting on the contact point on the object ball quite difficult as the body has a tendancy to follow thru to the direction on the object ball which is not parallel to the line of aim or the direction the cue should take. ( i have tried putting the cue under both eyes or the middle with the same results) This therefore takes the cue offline and make me cue across the line of aim. However, i also find it very difficult to focus and sight along the line of aim as this means sighting into empty space. Should the proper cue action really be focusing on following through straight without having the eyes affecting the direction the cue goes?

[cantpotforshíte]

I've been giving this a lot of thought over the last few weeks, and could do with some help on it myself. Most coaches now do seem to favour the method where you get lined up on the shot on the get-down, then check to see that you are lined up on the shot once you are down, and then just move the cue in a straight line, ie. don't 'play with your eyes'.
I've always sighted the contact point on the object ball, which, as you've already said, is not the line of your cue except on straight shots. In theory, your body and brain should automatically compensate for all this if you have a clear idea of the shot that you are about to play, but something still pulls my cue across on shots where the object ball is more than 6ft away from the cueball. If I play the shot with my eyes shut, then this doesn't happen and I pot it. I think that in my case, it might be due to one eye seeing close things (ie my cue) and the other eye seeing far things (the spot on the object ball).
It takes an enormous leap of faith to just get lined up, have your eyes focused on nothing, and push the cue through straight, but it does seem to work for me on long shots.
I'm having trouble not focusing on anything and last night an ex pro advised me to think about the elbow and nothing else in order to stop myself from focusing on the object ball, and it did seem to help, but I can see that it's going to be 3 steps backward before I make any steps forward... I'd like to hear anybody's views on this. I've heard it mentioned once before on here as 'the battle between hand and eye' or something similar but it's seldom talked about.
I've also been wondering whether or not the two methods are completely mutually exclusive, or whether you can combine them in your game, ie in my case playing using my eyes for short distance shots in amongst the reds, and playing using my arm and trusting technique on the long shots.
A couple of other issues pop up if you don't play with your eyes. It's difficult to incorporate a rear pause if you don't need to focus on the object ball, but at the same time it frees your mind, makes it easier to think about position, and also I don't seem to get distracted as much. Over all, the game seems more pleasurable if you're thinking about moving the cue through straight and nothing else.
My apologies for the long post but one other important factor has just come to me... if you do play with your eyes, then on every shot where you're not perfectly lined up, you will subconsciously compensate by making tiny corrections with your elbow or grip hand/fingers, and still pot the ball, but of course by doing this you are not getting the correct mental feedback, and your getting-lined-up-correctly in the first place won't improve. Not playing with the eyes makes it more black and white: if you're lined up, you'll pot it, if you're not lined up, you won't, which surely makes for a steadier learning curve.

[nrage]

This 2-part video on the subject of aiming methods is interesting from a theoretical standpoint. It doesn't advocate any one system, but talks about the factors that define a complete aiming system, and speculates about what might make a good aiming system.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bE1hnDmHhvc
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zg2_b2NpvnM

Personally, I aim before getting down on the shot and try not to make any micro adjustments when I'm down. I have noticed that I do adjust sometimes and it does sometimes mean I pot balls I should not. I need to stop doing that for all the reasons you've mentioned, but it's hard. Most of how I pot balls came from pool, where small inconsistencies can be overlooked due to the larger margins for error etc.

So, I aim while standing directly behind the shot and I look at the contact point I need to hit, then I imagine a ghost ball, or rather I imagine a line (painted on the table) from the white to the position which will make that contact point. The line is actually as wide as the white ball. I step into the shot placing my cue on the line, in the center for a center ball hit, or to the left or right of center, if playing with side (this is why I imagine a full width line). As I play the shot I am looking at the contact point, which as you say is not the line I am cueing down, but this doesn't seem to matter - as I think my brain is making the adjustment, and my hand is not following my eyes, or I'd consistently be playing cut shots thick, for example, which does not seem to be the case. Perhaps it takes a while to learn to detach the hands and eyes to this degree.. not sure.

[cantpotforshíte]

Thanks for your input as always, nrage.
Anybody else got any ideas on this? I thought I'd post again as it seems to have slipped off the radar on the what's new page.

[reactant]

Went to practice today attempting to improve my cue action. I was pretty happy at the end of the session as I seem to find a way to correct this problem. I was looking at the object ball(contact point) as usual, but what differs is I started to following through to the chest. This seem to force the cue to go to the intended direction. However, it became harder to get through the cue ball as the cue is slowing down and there is less follow through. As a result, I used the boxer stance (with the left foot further forward) and it seemed better follow thru could be achieved.

[Terry Davidson]

react:

nrage has it correct however you are making a potentially serious mistake. You must ALWAYS drive the grip hand through to the chest on EVERY shot no matter what power you are using.

In addition, I believe every player starts out using some some part of the 'ghost ball' method for sighting and then as they gain more experience it becomes automatic. After all, if you were teaching a raw beginner the easiest way to help him detect the correct line of aim is to place another ball on the object ball in the plant position and then show him how to line up on that second 'ghost' ball and then remove it and have him deliver on that line. I believe the only time this theory breaks down a little is on very fine cuts where the player is actually trying to get the very edge of the cueball to hit the very edge of the object ball and he actually uses those two edges as his line of aim. It's a similar thing with dead-in pots where object ball and pocket are perfectly lined up.

Terry

[exolon]

You must ALWAYS drive the grip hand through to the chest on EVERY shot no matter what power you are using.

Then I'm making the same mistake, probably more consistently. Perhaps as an (erroneous and apparently impossible) attempt to cut down on movement in my upper arm during execution, I've ended up with my elbow moving strangely and my forearm perhaps trying to compensate with an opposing strange movement.

Regarding the possibility of unconsciously changing one's aim (or swing) towards what the eyes are looking at, it might be informative to try some shots with eyes closed, or looking at the cushion/ball or whatever is directly behind the aiming line?

[Terry Davidson]

Last year sometime I posted on here a closed eye exercise which I had derived from a book on golf 'The Inner Game of Golf' where he was teaching beginners how to put with their eyes closed.

A few of the members tried it and reported back that after a week of trying it out they were potting better with their eyes closed! That was the same experience I had. I would take all 21 object balls and attempt the first 11 with my eyes closed and then the second 10 with my eyes open and the success rate was better with the eyes closed because all the concentration is on the right forearm and grip.

The exercise is to place the object ball on the blue spot and cueball on the yellow or green spot, get down on the shot and feather and then close the eyes and do your final backswing and delivery. You try and guess whether you overcut or undercut the ball with your eyes closed and you can usually tell by where the object ball ends up unless you juggle it in the jaws.

I did this for 7 days in a row and the result was I potted the ball better with my eyes closed, achieving 11 out of 11 after a little while. To make it tougher I put the cueball on the brown spot and after I made 11 out of 11 of those I started placing the cueball anywhere on the baulkline but I still kept the same consistency as long as I remained absolutely still on the shot and also concentrated on my grip and forearm.

I also found out concentrating on the grip and forearm with the eyes open helps with accuracy too.

Another exercise to try is to play the same shot using no feathers but keeping the eyes open. You'll be amazed at how many you pot!

Terry

[cantpotforshíte]

Thanks for your thoughts on this Terry.
My issue is that I can't seem to pot long shots when I look at the object ball at the time of striking. If I look at the white ball, or play with my eyes closed, I have a higher pot percentage rate.
I understand that you believe that the closed eye routine works because it allows the player to concentrate on the elbow and grip, but I think (in snooker at least) that it helps because of two other things as well as the increased awareness of elbow and grip.
Firstly, when we know that we are going to take a leap of faith and play with our eyes closed, we make sure that we're lined up better than we would if we were playing with our eyes.
Secondly, I know that my eyes, when focused upon the object ball, actually pull my cueing off line. On the backswing, and on the follow through. And the movements made by my grip fingers and elbow are so small, I don't know how to stop it when I'm focused on the object ball. I know that it doesn't just happen to me alone, because one of my team mates has the same problem: I can see it when I play him. It's almost as if a puppeteer has strings attached from his eyes to the object ball; I can see the fight between eye and arm actually taking place.
Last weekend, for the first time, I took the leap of faith required and purposefully looked at the cue ball upon striking. Apart from a few times when I looked silly (only to be expected), I was cueing straighter, and can see already that I will improve much more quickly doing it this way.
Mainy because if I'm lined up, I'll pot the ball; if I'm not lined up, I won't. So it's my contention that next time I'll have had the feedback to get lined up properly. It's black and white. Right and wrong. Whereas for ten years I've been steering the balls in by twitching, cueing across etc etc.
I'd like to hear if you or anybody else has more thoughts on this 'battle between hand and eye'.

[Terry Davidson]

I've never seen this kind of problem. One thing I can recommend you try is to watch the ferrule/tip during the slow backswing as that will ensure it will be straight. At the end of the backswing either just before the rear pause or at the rear pause swing your eyes up to the object ball and deliver the cue.

If you are still having problems then instead of swinging up to the object ball, swing the eyes up to the spot of the cueball you want to strike. See if this helps a bit

Terry

[cantpotforshíte]

Thanks for your suggestions Terry. The first suggestion is what I've been doing for the last year or so, and it's the looking at the object ball that's actually causing problems for me. The other night when I determined to look at the cue ball on striking, my eyes were all over the place, mainly because I just didn't know where to put them.
I never actually thought to consciously look at the cue tip on the draw-back, and then switch to the cue ball at the rear pause, similar to what I was doing before - just swapping the cue ball for object ball. It felt so strange looking at the cue ball I suppose I had too many other things to think about.
I'll certainly try that tonight: As it's similar to my old technique of timing/eye rhythm I think it'll help a lot. When I didn't look at the tip during the backswing and then focus on the cue ball during the pause, I found that I was playing a lot of shots with a quick draw-back, no pause and a jabby execution.

Cheers,
Del

[the priest]

Ghost ball is fine on a 9 ball table.. does not.. repeat does not, work on a snooker table it will get you close no doubt but wont work.

Looking at the object ball on delivery of the cue sounds great in theory too but in practice you will be drawn towards it and hit the ball too thick.

Great players draw a line from the exact pocket opening centre back to the object ball and their experience tells them the space they need to hit the white ball into.. its all to do with memory and experience.

Try a little experiment.. set up the pink off its spot for a pot into the middle.. put the white anywhere at the same height as the pink spot perhaps halfway between the pink and the cush

get a friend to put the blue in the plant position and concentrate not on the pocket but on the blue aim to hit it bang on full ball cue as straight as you can.. get him to roll away the blue and cue to where it was.

the pink will at best hit the near jaw if you cue straight..

now set exactly the same shot up (mark the first cue ball position with a touch of chalk)

this time look at the angle.. see a dot in the middle of the pocket opening.. on your way down to the shot have your eyes on that dot and switch to the balls just before your hand lands on the table. endeavour to make the pink roll over that dot and cue till your sure it will.

Now stroke straight and watch the ball split the pocket.

Might not work if you are new to the game but anyone having played for six months will be able to do this your sub conscious will know the angle.

might sound mad but its what all good players really do especially when in the zone closely watch john higgins eyes on his way down to a shot if you dont believe me.
If you insist on the ghost ball method move it at least a millimetre thinner than it first appears and you have a good chance on most shots.

[HUFRO]

I am having the same problem, when switching my eyes to the o.b. at the resr pause it seems that on my delivery I strike the cue ball off line. I tried what Terry suggested, looking at the ferrule in the back swing, pause look at the centre of the cue ball and start my delivery. I found that in taht manner, I am more conscious of my acceleration, like Steve Maguire; but the drawback is that at the same time it takes "flow" to my rythm, It is all too conscious. My potting has improved though, may be is just a matter to get used and doing it with more fluidity.

Hufro

[cazmac1]

I just read through this post quickly and find that I'm at odds with a lot that has been said. I am not a coach so this is purley what I find works for me. So please take it for what it's worth. In my mind this is something simular to what hendry does. I say this purely by the way he moves his eyes.

Sorry for the spelling mistake in the document.

[nrage]

Where you say "Now look at the imaginary line the white will take after striking the white" did you mean "Now look at the imaginary line the white will take after striking the object ball" ? .. or are you imagining the white hitting the imaginary white?