Dropping Elbow Too Early?

[nrage]

The forefinger and thumb is my grip lol.

I'm not scared at all. I feather REALLY low during a deep screw shot, so that my tip is resting on the cloth during my front pause. But the problem is during the delivery. It's not an unconsious reaction to suddenly aim higher, it is a cueing fault that only happens when i drop my elbow.

If i keep the elbow up, i'll strike the bottom all the time, but i dont get the same amount of follow through as i would if my grip hand follows right through and into my chest.

I'll try and get a better video asap. All my practice partners who drop their elbow keep the cue during the delivery, just not me for some reason.

Ahh.. ok. So, your elbow is dropping before you've exhausted the full range of movement you have in your elbow joint?

Try this, as you play the shot imagine you're squashing something in the elbow joint, between the arms, really squeeze the forearm into the upper arm and only allow the elbow to drop once you're fully squashed it. It might help you shift the elbow drop till later in the action.

[Terry Davidson]

stjimmy:

Before we get you placing a squash ball inside your elbow joint (which might be a good idea by the way) let's really analyse this and try and figure out what's happening. You sound like a good player who happens to be missing one vital aspect in technique which will help you become a much better player as you must be able to perform a deep screw and a soft screw shot to open up your positional options.

Here's the way I understand it. The objective of the delivery is to return the tip of the cue to the EXACT address position at the moment of striking the cueball. With you, your tip ends up higher on the cueball than you had at address so therefore it's safe to assume your are pushing down on the butt of the cue probably at least 2in before you contact the cueball.

The only way you can push down on the butt of the cue is with the back of the grip hand palm. The back of the palm in the address position should be only LIGHTLY touching the butt, and I figure you're doing that just fine during the slower feathers but when it comes to the more dynamic and much faster final delivery of the cue the back of your palm is 'slamming' against the butt of the cue and forcing the tip upwards on the cueball.

Next point...the only way you can be driving that back of the palm downwards abrubtly and before the address position is if you are tightening the back 3 fingers of the grip around 2in before you strike the cueball. This is what I mean by gripping the cue too tight and too early in the delivery.

To try and defeat this tendency (and it will take a bit of work on your part since it looks like you've been playing like this for quite awhile now and are compensating for it too) try in solo practice to take the back 3 fingers right off the butt of the cue and only use the forefinger to 'hold' the cue, not grip it so much as have the butt laying in a bed made by the forefinger only with the thumb just touching the butt to hold the cue in the bed made by the forefinger.

Now try some deep screw shots using a lot of power and see if you can combat the habit you have of tightening those back 3 fingers onto the butt. What I mean by this is make the WHOLE stroke with those back 3 fingers completely off the butt and only use the thumb hitting the chest and 'pinching' the butt of the cue against the forefinger to stop the cue.

I'm pretty sure you are decelerating the cue at the time of strike, perhaps only when you try a deep or slow screw shot for some reason. How do you do with a power top-spin shot?

In addition to this your butt dropping like that also means the cue must be coming off your chest before you reach the cueball, so in practice only concentrate on keeping the cue on (against) the chest all the way through until the back of your thumb hits the chest.

So in summary, try these 2 things (in solo practice):

1. Take the back 3 fingers completely off the butt from feathering and all the way through to the end of the delivery.
2. Try and teach yourself to keep the cue against the chest from feathering all the way through to the end of the delivery.

I think if you can learn (or re-learn) these two things you will not only be able to successfully perform power and slow screw shots but I expect this will also make you more accurate when potting with screw

Terry

[stjimmy18-1991]

Thanks alot for your advice there Terry, you've pretty much summed me up within the first few paragraphs. I'll try those bits of advice out when i next get a chance to do solo practice.

As for a power topspin shot, i'm fairly ok with it. Alot more adept than using screw.

Another thing i may add is that this problem only seems to occur during P6+. (using Nic Barrow's rule of P = Power).

When the cue ball and object ball are fairly close together, i.e: 1-3ft, i have no problem generating a decent amount of screw. A good example would be when the cue ball is 1 foot away from a just off straight yellow, i have no problems whatsoever in screwing back towards the black spot, and even off the black cushion.

[mosconiac]

I have the same involuntary, premature elbow drop issue. This thread has been very interesting to me. Thanks for posting the thread & thanks to all that provided comment.

[Inoffthered]

I have the same involuntary, premature elbow drop issue. This thread has been very interesting to me. Thanks for posting the thread & thanks to all that provided comment.

One thing I've been doing lately ( and prob. have been for sometime now ), when my elbow drops, my grip is very loose. So when I play the stroke ( say from under the cushion ), I've had a tendency to drop my wrist, pulling my elbow with it.

However, when my grip is MORE of a grip and I hold the cue butt tighter, yes there is STILL some movement of the elbow dropping as I follow through the stroke, but not an over exaggerated one. I'm prob. telling all you folks what you already know, but something I picked up on the other day. Need to stop my wrist from getting sloppy, as it has a tendency to go anywhere.

By trying to ease the elbow through the shot on the follow through, I've def. over cooked it. Will have to work on that.