Curious about pushing the cue through the cue ball

[ak615]

I see. As I always not really clear about whether the "tiger's mouth" should always keep contact with the cue during the whole action, especially on the final delivery, and I am generally understand, but have to try it out myself may be tomorrow when I will do some pratice by myself. Thanks for your advise.

Yes, you absolutely speak out my problem for what I understand about "loose grip". i.e. relaxing wrist, elbow, may be whole arm, haha. but in fact I am keep doing some wrong things as I just realise today. Thanks for your kindly indications. Cheers mate. And wish you have a happy new year.

[ak615]

Thanks very much Terry. Very details and useful explanation on grip hand. I will try it out tomorrow when I on a practice table, see what can I do, and see can this way destory my confusion on the concept of grip. ha.

Really appreciate for your kindly and patiently online coaching. Thank you very much.

Wish you have a happy year and wish you all the best on your coaching and your games. Thank you so much Terry.

[Terry Davidson]

ak615:

Just to be certain I have not messed you up I will clarify and make my comments more concise and to the point:

When I say 'keep the grip relaxed until the time of strike' I am actually talking about the GRIP FINGERS only. The wrist, shoulder and elbow should in fact NOT be relaxed.

For the shoulder, to paraphrase the great Joe Davis, it should be braced up and into the back (however do not introduce ANY discomfort when doing this - my words). When looking at a player from straight ahead when he is in the address position the head should be hiding the shoulder so almost none of the shoulder is visible. So brace it up as far as comfortably possible and into the back as much as is comfortably possible.

For the elbow, ideally it sould be right over the butt of the cue however if it is an inch or two in either direction that doesn't really matter as long as the player can still deliver the cue straight. However, again try and get the elbow directly behind the shoulder and directly over the butt of the cue as this will eliminate the need to coordinate extra movement.

The wrist should be slightly cocked which aligns the butt with the long straight bone of the forearm. To correctly achieve this the thumb of the grip hand should point directly at the floor and be as vertical as you can make it. This forces the butt of the cue slightly towards the finger tips but also forces the player to cock the wrist correctly.

Terry

[CoachGavin]

The tigers mouth will tighten slightly as the cue goes back and loosen on the delivery but this is natural to keep the cue on line.

[ak615]

Hi Terry,

you are so kind. So what will happen if my wrist and elbow are too relaxed? Will it cause my delivery off the line? As my coach told me that if I want to produce more spin to the cue ball (I usually use top spin and back spin, very less to use left & right spin), he said the more relax of the wrist the more spin/power will come out from the cue ball. To some extend, I would say yes, but it is very easy for me to delivery the cue off the line. Very obvious to be happened on deep screw shot especially long pot. Thank you very much Terry.

[ak615]

Yes, sometime I will throw my cue out when I played for a power shot. I think my grip may be too loose sometime, so a bit tighten of the tiger's mouth can help me on this problem, but I feel not really natural when doing delivery. I think I might be too tight before. Thanks for your kindly advise. Happy new year mate.

[Terry Davidson]

ak615:

What your coach is talking about is keeping the wrist relaxed in the front-to-back plane and not side-to-side. Some players keep their wrists flexible in the front-to-back plane and will get what is called a 'flick' of the wrist forward at the time of strike which will generate extra power and thus more spin on the cueball. Steve James used to do that as did Jimmy White but I'm not sure if Jimmy still does the same thing.

I do not recommend having the wrist flexible in the front-to-back direction as it becomes just another movement the player has to coordinate and time absolutely correctly (doing it just as the cue contacts the cueball) and as a player gets a little older timing and hand-eye coordination become more difficult.

The correct idea for a snooker technique is call the 'KISS' principle, which means Keep It Stupid Simple or else Keep It Simple Stupid! (your choice) and what that means is get the number of moving parts down to an absolute minimum so the player has less to coordinate perfectly at the time of delivery.

Steve Davis in his prime is the best example of this lack of extra moving parts

Terry

[ak615]

Yes, he said exactly what you called front-to-back and the action of "flick" to increase the power of striking. But I found it really difficult to handle, and I absolutely agree with your point of "KISS", as I am not that talent to coordinate too many things in every single shot, ha.

After tried to loose my grip and remain a bit pressure on my tiger's mouth in order to control the proportion of my back swing , I found my delivery is more smooth and natural than before, but of course I need more practice to get used to it. Thank you very much Terry.

[chris_147]

I have always found the best player to watch in terms of a good follow through is Mark Williams. Great single ball potter as a result of the very consistant and straight cue action this helps him develop=)

[Guy3103]

Hi Terry,

Could you please elaborate a little more on "ALWAYS DRIVE THE GRIP HAND THROUGH TO THE CHEST ON EVERY SHOT".

Do you mean that with every shot when completed there should be contact between the lower part of the wrist and the chest?

Thanks ahead

linglomsri:

The amount of follow-through you can achieve is governed by the distance you have between the front of the grip hand and the chest when you are in the address position. This amount can be increased a bit by dropping the elbow at the end of the delivery but with most people the average is around 6inches or so although some good players drop the elbow even more on power shots and will achieve around 8-9inches of follow-through.

If you have let's say 5inches between the front of the grip hand and the chest when in the address position and then when you deliver the cue you only follow through say 3-4inches, even on a power shot, then you are doing what's called 'clutching' the cue or in other words decelerating through the cueball. This is very bad and very counter-productive to delivering the cue consistently straight.

Here is the best advice I can give to any player --- ALWAYS DRIVE THE GRIP HAND THROUGH TO THE CHEST ON EVERY SHOT --- This allows the player's body to complete the delivery of the cue in a consistent manner but more importantly has the cue ACCELERATING THROUGH AND BEYOND THE CUEBALL.

To achieve this the player must learn to NOT TIGHTEN THE GRIP ON THE BUTT OF THE CUE UNTIL THE CUEBALL HAS BEEN STRUCK.

There is no other way to play this game well however there are good players that have shorter follow-throughs, like for instance Graeme Dott, BUT the absolute best players like ROS, Higgins, Selby, Muphy, Maguire, Hendry, Davis (both Steve and Joe), etc., etc. ALL have good follow-through of 6inches or more and if you think a bit about it there must be some reason they are (or were) excellent players and follow-through is one of the most important reasons

Terry

[Terry Davidson]

guy:

It should be the back of the thumb that hits the chest all the time and yes, on EVERY shot no matter what power. You must allow your body to complete the stroke and you must accelerate through the cueball no matter how much power you are applying. This is very hard to do with very low power shots but should be mastered.

I don't see how the wrist would hit the chest unless you grip the cue with a really weird grip hand

Terry

[calvinlim]

hey terry.. for now i still only can follow through for my top spin around 6 inch but o still can't perform follow through on screw back.. how can i work on it?

[eel57]

Hi Terry

I have a few unrelated questions for you, can you message me to start a dialogue.

Regards
lee

[Terry Davidson]

eel57
You have to have 10 posts before you can send/receive PM's on here. My email address is 'terrydavidson45(at)gmail(dot)com' and you can use that however as I do this for a living don't expect really detailed answers plus I normally practice every day too.

calvin:

Since you follow through on top spin I think it's a confidence thing, or actually lack of confidence when you're trying to screw a ball. So here is a little exercise for you (thanks to Nic Barrow) taken from thesnookergym.com webinar called 'How To Screw Like a Pro' (you can join the site for free and watch the webinar if you like, it's in the bronze forum I think).

Object ball on brown spot, cueball one foot behind and straight in to either green or yellow pocket (always start with the easy shots). Now here's the tough part...grip the cue with just the tip of the thumb and forefinger. The back 3 fingers are curled into the palm and not touching the cue at all and the thumb and forefinger must not be bent at all so it's just the very tips that are gripping the cue butt.

Now get down into the address position and using the VERY LOOSE fingertip-only grip use a long and slow backswing (be very careful) and then try and screw the cueball back perhaps 6 inches (15cm). You have to use a long backswing and you absolutely HAVE to keep everything smooth with absolutely no shoulder movement as you will miscue.

Once you feel comfortable with 6in of screw, increase the power gradually, getting use to each step-up in power. You should end up being able to screw back off the side cushion and out to the middle of the table around the blue spot and by that time you've learnt to allow the cue to drive through the cueball just a couple of millimeters above the cloth without miscueing.

Now revert to your normal grip, keep it nice and loose and relaxed and try the same exercise, starting with 6in of screw and progressing to 6ft of screw. Then switch to the pink spot with cueball 18in behind and just of straight towards the black so you can pot the pink and screw back to the green pocket. Try it and remember to place the cueball on the same spot for every shot

Terry