Cueing

[cuebru]

Help please, when cuing I caught a problem, after taking my eyes off of the cue ball to OB discovered that the cue tip was hitting off the mark from where I wanted. In other words I'm not hitting the cueball right when I take my eyes off it. I'm a decent potter occasionally 7/10 blues.

[nrage]

Help please, when cuing I caught a problem, after taking my eyes off of the cue ball to OB discovered that the cue tip was hitting off the mark from where I wanted. In other words I'm not hitting the cueball right when I take my eyes off it. I'm a decent potter occasionally 7/10 blues.

When do you move your eyes from cue ball to OB? Do you have a front pause? That is, a pause where you spend 1-2 secs with your eyes and tip as close to the cue ball contact point that you want, just prior to taking the shot? If not, add one, really focus your eyes on the spot on the white. Then move your eyes to the OB and really focus on the spot you're trying to hit (or the path the white must follow, if that's how you do it). Once you have the spot/line in focus, then pull back slowly, and drive the shot right through to your chest.

[Terry Davidson]

cuebru:

After thinking about your problem I've come to the conclusion there can only be one possible explanation for your problem and that is upper body movement at the start of the delivery.

The only way you'll believe me though is to video yourself from head-on and then watch the video in frame-by-frame.

However, if you happen to be in Southern Ontario then you could come to my facility for a 2hr session with the video analysis software and we would soon cure the problem or at least get you on the road to curing it quick

Terry

[cuebru]

Thankyou nrage and Terry, played for a couple hours using nrage suggestion and it helped me as I was a little unsettled in my preparation routine to hit the cueball. However it will take a bit of time to build it in but I believe it will help.

Terry you are probably quite right suggesting upper body movement (sounds like a tough one to catch and correct) so I will pay close attention to that. I practice in front of a mirror but am trying to find a reasonably priced camera to try and catch to cure problems such as you suggested. As far as I know we are a little short of qualified coaches out here. I am on the west coast otherwise I would definitely be on your client list.

[cuebru]

Thankyou nrage and Terry, played for a couple hours using nrage suggestion and it helped me as I was a little unsettled in my preparation routine to hit the cueball. However it will take a bit of time to build it in but I believe it will help.

Terry you are probably quite right suggesting upper body movement (sounds like a tough one to catch and correct) so I will pay close attention to that. I practice in front of a mirror but am trying to find a reasonably priced camera to try and catch to cure problems such as you suggested. As far as I know we are a little short of qualified coaches out here. I am on the west coast otherwise I would definitely be on your client list.

[Terry Davidson]

It's a fairly common problem of turning the wrist during the delivery however it is normally done into the body rather than out but after checking your post I realize you didn't say which way the tip was moving on the cueball.

The easiest way to check a wrist turn (if you use an ash cue) is to hold the cue with the arrows straight up in the address position and then see where they are at the end of the delivery. If you use a maple cue then put a light pencil mark near the ferrule and have that straight up in the addfress position.

Really the only way to catch some upper body movement is with a video camera as usually the movement is small and there's a tendency for a player to correct it at the end of the delivery (I'm doing this right now and I only caught some movement to the right with frame-by-frame analysis).

Terry

[cuebru]

Getting Better

Thanks nrage and Terry, building in the front pause and concentrating harder seems to help keep me steadier on the shot. I don't think that I always hav a wrist turn problem but I did catch one while trying to get that elusive deep screw. Also a major distraction of occasionally brushing cue hand against my pant pocket, which always puckers out, is being eliminated by placing the cue down on the line of aim which ensures my hip is out of the way.
My game is slowly coming together as long as long as I don't let progress and confidence break down my consistency