Level Cueing

[jas19]

Just a quick question. I visited Terry Griffiths about 4 months back and he picked up on numerous faults in my technique one being that my cue was not level enough during delivery. Now, just to try to explain my cue always brushed against the right hand side of my chest muscle ( i am right handed ) but now to try and get the cue as level as possible it is more underneath the chest muscle ( to the left of my nipple ) I have really tried to persevere with this alteration but my consistancy is non existent. I find it difficult especially with getting through the ball as well as i did before. I am not a tall person about 5'9" and i am wondering by making the cue more level has it in turn lowered my elbow and maybe i am dropping elbow on delivery. I ve noticed that even though Hendry has level cueing his cue brushes more to the right side of his chest in a similar position where i used to be. Any thoughts on this would be much appreciated.

[nrage]

I believe your old chest position was 'correct' as far as the general theory goes. I think Mark Williams is one of the few pros whose cue runs more centrally on their chest, the rest (like Hendry) are all to the side of the chest.

When he said it wasn't "level enough during delivery" did he mean it started on too steep an angle, or did he mean that it was moving up and down on delivery. Because, the first is solved by modifying your stance and the latter by working on the cue action itself.

Assuming the former ...

I think you should be able to get the cue more level without moving from the old chest position by getting lower down on the shot. You're only 1inch taller than I am so we should be fairly similar in stance etc, assuming neither of us has monkey arms

So, first off do you use the square on or side on stance? The recommended square on stance is to have a straight back leg, on the line of the shot, and a bent front leg. The legs should be anywhere from a little less than, to a little more than shoulder width apart. The front foot should be anywhere from directly in line with, to 1-2 of your own foot lengths in front.

You can experiment with widening the stance and/or adding more of a knee bend to get lower. This will feel 'odd' to begin with, and may introduce a small amount of discomfort just because you're not used to it. Make a small change, and concentrate on it for a few sessions and see how it feels. If it is uncomfortable, change back and pick another small change to experiment with. You will likely find that you need to widen to add more bend comfortably, and that this will stretch the back of your other leg more, so try shifting it backward to lessen the stretch - for example. Try closing your eyes and shifting about till you feel comfortable, see if you can find a position which is both comfortable and lower on the shot/table.

The next area to look at is how much bend you've got in your back, how your bridge hand and arm lifts your body and whether you're getting your chin on your cue. All these will affect your final height above the table and therefore how level your cue is. Is your bridge hand/arm pushing you up on the shot? Do you get your chin down on the cue?

Lastly, your grip hand/arm/shoulder. How flexible is this shoulder? How high can you raise the grip hand behind you comfortably? This should lift the cue up into the armpit area and bring the cue up the side of the chest. Combine that with getting lower on the shot and you will end up with a more level cue.

If you have a video camera, even a decent phone will do, then filming a short clip of your old and new setup would help us spot anything which you could try/change/etc. Let me know how you get on.

[Terry Davidson]

Remember always to take the chest DOWN to the cue and DO NOT bring the cue up into the chest. If you were already touching your chest and Terry said the cue was too high then the correct thing is to (as nrage states above) either widen the stance or bend the leg more to get the chest right down on the cushion so there is no more than one chalk height between the butt of the cue and the rail.

If you feel your new set-up is correct and comfortable but you've lost consistency I would look for unintentional upper body movement on the backswing and delivery or else the butt of the cue rising on the backswing and dropping on the delivery.

A good video with good lighting would really help us out

Terry

[jas19]

Thanks nrage for your prompt reply. To answer your first question yes i do have a square on stance and TG was referring to the angle of the cue being too steep at address. I thought myself to try and maybe widen my stance to get a lower body position whilst keeping my old set up intact but i stuck to TG's advice as he did not alter my stance in any way. I do have a video on my mobile of my old set up but i am in the process of working out how to get it onto my computer to post for you to look at.

[jas19]

Thanks Terry for your reply and sharing your knowledge with me. I will try to post a video off my phone if i can of my old set up for you to look at. I know that TG is correct in pointing out my cue is not level at address but the fact he did not alter my stance in any way implied to me that my stance must be ok. The thing is your mind becomes full of so many questions after you've spent a bit of time on the new techniques and not during the lesson as there is so much to concentrate on and learn. I don't feel like my new set up is correct as it feels just as out of place now as it did when i started. I will go back to my old set up and try and get lower down through widening my stance and let you know how i get on

Jas19

[nrage]

Interesting that TG did not modify your stance at all. Ideally you should go back to him and explain the problems you're having, however if that is out of the question we'll try our best, especially if you can get us a video to look at. If a picture paints a thousand words, a video must paint 1000 x 25 per second (or 1000 x 29.97 if you're in the states)