Drop The Elbow?.

[tommy_boi]

I am quite confused, maybe i have been reading it wrong on here or something, but lately i have been reading on the internet and on here that you should drop the elbow on your shots, i watched the del hill video and he said it too, for some reason i have been understanding from reading on here that you shouldn't drop the elbow, so in my game i have been going against this and trying not to drop it, with still me missing some very easy shots, but now i am thinking this could be the reason why, as it seems you do have to drop the elbow, if someone could post here and clear this one up for me, that would be great.

[Sidd]

The elbow drop is not an easy thing to achieve. Normally it is done to get that extra bit of follow through and nothing else really. If you drop the elbow on delivery then it gives you another couple of inches worth of follow through that you can attain. But I think an extra folow through can be only useful for power shots and nothing else; even in power shots a good follow through with rythem is more important than dropping elbow and having no rythem at all...!

[Belloz22]

personally not dropping the elbow is what im currently working on in my game. ive noticed lately inmy post shot routine that my tip raises up and slightly to the right after ive played my shot. ive figured this is due to my elbow dropping thus my grip dropping and causing the tip to lever up due to grip hand being lower than my bridge hand.

as what as been already said..... when people do drop there elbow it is normally to get more follow through. however is your lacking enough follow through, i would say move your bridge hand and stance closer to the white.... this way you will get more follow through with less power meaning your elbow doesnt have to drop

[Terry Davidson]

Dropping the elbow is not really just to achieve the extra follow-through but its more important function is to ensure the player drives through the cueball and accelerates through it. If you do not drop the elbow then you are starting to slow down the cue prematurely on the pot and will decelerate through the cueball and that will cause a lot of problems. The term for not accelerating through the cueball is called 'clutching the cue' and the term fits perfectly.

However, as the grip normally drives elbow alignment it's very important to be able to drop the elbow STRAIGHT DOWN and for this you cannot tighten the grip until after the cueball has been struck. Too many players will get this wrong and will shorten the follow-through in an effort to not drop the elbow and keep the cue straight when actually the guilty party is the grip.

Get the grip correct on the drive and drop the elbow straight and that will lead to improvement

Terry

[merlin1234]

I've been wondering about an elbow issue on the backswing, actually - which is that the distance between hand and elbow clearly changes according to the angle of the forarm, so why isn't it good technique to allow the elbow to move vertically in order to keep the cue on a dead straight plane?

I suppose you can relax your hand as you swing back and effectively add distance to the length from elbow to cue to compensate as the angle changes but that seems like quite a complex thing to coordinate.

When I've watched the pros it seems to me that a lot of them end up raising the butt of the cue slightly at the end of the backswing, though maybe this is an artifact of the camera angle and I'm not seeing it right. Physicas wise it seems a no brainer, if your backswing is long and you keep the elbow exactly still then raising the butt seems a likely result.

If this is OT I don't mind starting another thread.

[Noelcwb]

The elbow drop makes wonders in my game. But I am having some problems trying maintain the cue on a straight level. Probaly a grip issue.

[Blanchon147]

I have always naturally dropped the elbow. I have tried to keep the elbow up but i just cant, it didn't feel right so i just embrace the elbow dropping.

[Terry Davidson]

merlin (and anyone who doesn't want to drop the elbow):

If you get down into the address position, say to just shoot the spot, the butt of the cue should be around 1" or 1 chalk height above the cushion. Now do a backswing of 5" (or more ideally) and at the end of the backswing look and see how far above the cushion the butt of the cue is now.

If a player even has a nice loose grip and at the end of his backswing allows the grip to remain just on the top of the forefinger and thumb and he doesn't drop the elbow perhaps 1"-2" you should see you will have probably 2" or sometimes more between the cushion and the cue. It is IMPOSSIBLE to keep the cue on as level a plane as you can without dropping the elbow slightly on any backswing above 5" or so. It's just a matter of the 'pendulum' swing which is advocated for pool players by most of the top pool coaches and they advocate the butt of the cue rising around 10degrees for their 'perfect' backswing.

In snooker, with the less margin for error, a player should try and keep the cue on as level a plane as possible, maintaining that 1" clearance with the cushion on the backswing. On the delivery most players who drop their elbow will notice the cue ends up much closer to the cushion and sometime striking the rail on a power shot with a longer backswing, but this happens well after the cueball has been struck.

Now some players will come naturally by the elbow drop on the backswing whilst other players with a shorter backswing will not drop the elbow at all on the backswing but most players will drop the elbow at the end of the delivery, especially on shots above medium pace. The elbow drop on the delivery is necessary in order for the player to accelerate through the cueball and BEYOND.

Watch Higgins, O'Sullivan and Murphy to see how their cue moves in relation to the cushion. Especially with Higgins, with his shorter cue he drops his elbow on the backswing until his arm is almost straight and this keeps the cue level on his backswing even at 9" or so and on his delivery his cue hardly drops at all at the end of it although he does drop the elbow at the end of it. O'Sullivan is also a very good example for those players who don't want to go the Higgins route which is very hard to coordinate unless a player learns to backswing that way right from the start.

It is difficult to coordinate a longer backswing and the elbow MUST drop straight down on both the backswing and delivery, however this is well worth mastering. It's no fluke that the strongest players in the world share this one technique.

(I have small dings in the butt of my cue where I sometimes drop the elbow too severely on a power shot and my butt bangs into the rail. However, I'm very reluctant to limit my elbow drop as the most important issue here is maintaining the rate of acceleration of the cue to the end of the delivery)

Terry

[merlin1234]

Ok so my impression that a stationary elbow on the backswing is widely thought of as correct technique was wrong, I think.

[tommy_boi]

Terry

What do you mean by this (MUST drop straight down on both the backswing and delivery)

I thought you should only drop your elbow on the way through/delivery, i find it hard to understand how you would drop the elbow on the backswing, do you have any videos of this so i can see?.

[merlin1234]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZP-2Zhu084o

about 0.50, slightly clearer example at 1.28 or so.

[Terry Davidson]

tommy:

Please watch any video of Higgins or O'Sullivan or even Murphy, Lee, Selby, Hendry and most of the other pros and see if you can find a shot where their elbow is in the shot. If they have a longer backswing then either their elbow is dropping an inch or two or else the butt of the cue rises. Best example is to watch Higgins and watch his right arm end up almost straight on a long backswing.

In order to keep the cue on the same plane during the backswing just having a loose grip is not enough and on any backswing more than around 4" or so the elbow MUST DROP as there is no other way to keep the cue as level as possible short of allowing the cue to drop down to the fingertips on the backswing, but that would be impossible to control.

Can you explain to me how you would keep the butt of the cue from rising at the end of the backswing (over 4") WITHOUT dropping the elbow, as I would be very interested in hearing about that since I think it would be impossible.

Terry

[tommy_boi]

I am just saying i don't know how you would drop the elbow on the backswing, maybe i am already doing it but just don't realise it, i am not saying it cant be done, i will look at the video posted in the above thread and see what you mean by dropping the elbow in the backswing. Another question i would like to ask, i was playing pool tonight, and noticed that i dropped the elbow when i broke, which was a power shot, but didn't seem to drop the elbow on slow shorter shots, do you need to be dropping the elbow on every shot, obviously you cant drop the elbow if the cue ball and object ball are close together, but i mean on every other shot?.

Thanks.

[tommy_boi]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZP-2Zhu084o

about 0.50, slightly clearer example at 1.28 or so.

In that video it didn't seem like he dropped his elbow on the delivery, i think i noticed him drop his elbow slightly on the backswing though.

[Sidd]

Hi guys: this topic is becoming more and more interesting for me. But I do not exactly know what is meant by dropping the elbow and how it is achieved. I might be doing it unintensionally or maybe not. Don't know for sure but I am begining to think its very i portant for me to find out because I use the long backswing consistently on every shot where the tip almost touches the V of the bridge... Any insight would be welcome!