Pushing Head Towards Shoulder

[tommy_boi]

Was out last night watching some professional pool players, and having a chat with some of them as i know some of them as friends, anyway i was asking one guy about summat i seen him do while taking a shot and thought id try it myself when i had a game and my god it improved my shot consistency by miles, especially the long shots,

now i will explain what it is, when you get down to the shot, you put your chin on the cue as you do, but what i am doing now is when i get down to my shot, and obviously i put my chin on my cue, the right side of my face, as i am right handed when i cue, this would be different for left handed players, (you would be pushing your left side of the face up against your left shoulder), well i push the right side of my face up against my right shoulder with a bit of force to keep it there when taken shots, that is the best i can explain it without pics, but doing this improved my game by 80% or more, i felt very confident around the table while using this method, the only problem with it, is after doing it for sometime it kinda gives you a ache in your shoulder and neck,

could anyone explain why this helps and if i should carry on doing it, i thought to myself that the ache might go away after my body gets used to doing it that way, i'm not sure if just placing your head against your right shoulder will give you the same results or you have to push your head against your shoulder to get the results, if anyone does this and can explain why it helps, i would be much appreciated.

[02aleric]

Interesting, do you have a dominant eye? A lot of right handed players who are left eye dominant play like this

[nrage]

If you can get a video of both methods, we might be able to spot a reason. I suspect having the head pushed consciously into the shoulder is causing you to keep it still on the shot, whereas before perhaps it was moving around on the shot. Or, pushing the head into the shoulder is changing the bridge length, or shoulder position for the bridge shoulder or grip shoulder. Or, perhaps as 02aleric has suggested, perhaps you're rotating your head slightly when you do it, and this changes the eye position relative to the cue. Is the cue touching the same position on your chin, or has that changed as well? You might be able to get the same outcome by pushing the head into the shoulder on setup, then relaxing it enough to stop it causing pain. Or, as you say, you might get used to it and it might stop hurting.

[cally]

It's a good thing to have in your technique and terry etc advocate the method...
And most pro's if you look will have the shoulder 'tucked' close to the face.


But.....

You should be pushing your shoulder up , NOT the head pushed to the shoulder.(there is a difference here)

The pain/aching is more than likely cos your not getting your back down quite enough on the shot, and your forcing your head and neck off line and causing 'stress' on joints, and your straining to push the head to shoulder. which is not good. Your shoulder shouldn't be pushed/forced into the face..

You need to try getting down onto the shot more so the shoulder sorta 'tucks' upto the face a little easier and more natural, without too much stress, and definately without force...

Pushing the arm out straight helps get the feel for it and naturally pushes the shoulder up more, but you need to find 'comfort' doing it.

Try getting down 'flatter' and push the arm out straight to get the feel of the 'tuck' and it should feel easier and more natural after a while.
But you must find comfort! comfort is key here.(as always)

Sure terry or some one will be along to explain better than me soon fella...

[mosconiac]

I'm not following this...is it right-handers push their right cheek into the right shoulder --or-- left cheek into the left shoulder? The latter seems more appropriate.

Pushing to the right would favor cueing under the left eye & cause a rotation of the head (the right shoulder is "behind" your right ear).

[Terry Davidson]

For right-handers I advocate having the left cheek against the left shoulder as much as possible however it must be done while keeping the left shoulder as low as possible so that the right shoulder will be as high as possible.

The other thing to be aware of is PLEASE do not introduce any discomfort into the neck/shoulder area as that will eventually have negative effects

Terry