Help!!!!! Any technical masters out there?

[TheBallBreaker]

This is a problem that haunted me when I used to play snooker regularly years ago.

I was always trying to get my shoulder, elbow, my forearm, and wrist all on the line with the shot. I would say Ali Carter is a good example. If he was potting the cue ball between your eyes you would see his head, his cue tip below his chin and his upper arm vertically aligned to the shot.

I can get everything on line apart from my right shoulder. When I look in the mirror i can see everything on line except my shoulder.

It meant that I used to try many things to correct it, wider stance, longer bridge, standing closer to the cue ball, all to no avail.

I see this in a lot of players (club, amateur and pro's) and I know some people will not think it's a big deal.

Any things I could try? Someone said that I need to pivot into the shot. What does that mean?

[CoachGavin]

Your chest needs to point/face less towards the floor and more towards the wall. Facing like this brings your shoulder behind your head and elbow in line. The theory is that to get one shoulder behind the head the other shoulder needs to come round so the cheek touches the bridge arm. Hope that helps.

[TheBallBreaker]

I'll try that Gavin. cheers.

[nrage]

Something that helps me, is to un-square my stance slightly. So, instead of having the back foot toes pointing along the line of the shot I point them outside the line (while keeping the ball/middle of the foot on the line of the shot), and I move my front foot forward slightly. This helps me turn my body more (as Gavin is saying) without discomfort.

[TheBallBreaker]

My shoulder looks like the way ronnie's does left handed.

http://www.independent.co.uk/migrati...Sullivan+.jpeg

[TheBallBreaker]

Your chest needs to point/face less towards the floor and more towards the wall. Facing like this brings your shoulder behind your head and elbow in line. The theory is that to get one shoulder behind the head the other shoulder needs to come round so the cheek touches the bridge arm. Hope that helps.

Gavin I just had a look at Stephen Hendry and his body seems to be parallel to the floor and his shoulder seems to be perfectly in line in this shot anyway.

http://www.thesnookerblog.com/wp-con...0/IMG_6497.jpg

[nrage]

The biggest difference between those 2 stills (aside from the angle they're shot at) is that hendry is much lower in general, look at how close the cue is to the rail and his chin, compare that to Ronnie where there is 1-2 inches from rail to cue (he's jacked up a little on that shot). Another thing to note, hendry's hips are higher than ronnies so he can get much flatter (bending from the him) than Ronnie, who needs a little bit of an arch to get over the rail.. perhaps.

[checkSide]

You don't need to have it all in line to hit the ball straight.... so don't worry about it.

If you look at Ronnie and Higgins, their elbows are slightly inside the line. Obviously you have Reardon, Cope, J.Jones, and probably some others that I can't remember, that have their elbows outside of the line. If you look at pottr here on the forum, he has thread with a video. His elbow is also outside the line and he makes loads of tons.

Think of a cricketer throwing a ball at the stumps. He doesn't need everything in line to make the direct hit. He can throw under-arm, side sling or over-arm at almost any angle and distance, and still be accurate.

The human brain is more than capable of moving the cue in a straight line from any position.
It's simply a matter of hand-eye co-ordination. (Easier said than done.)

[TheBallBreaker]

You don't need to have it all in line to hit the ball straight.... so don't worry about it.

If you look at Ronnie and Higgins, their elbows are slightly inside the line. Obviously you have Reardon, Cope, J.Jones, and probably some others that I can't remember, that have their elbows outside of the line. If you look at pottr here on the forum, he has thread with a video. His elbow is also outside the line and he makes loads of tons.

Think of a cricketer throwing a ball at the stumps. He doesn't need everything in line to make the direct hit. He can throw under-arm, side sling or over-arm at almost any angle and distance, and still be accurate.

The human brain is more than capable of moving the cue in a straight line from any position.
It's simply a matter of hand-eye co-ordination. (Easier said than done.)

I know it's not a big deal and I have hit a couple of tons before too. It's just a psychological thing that I won't be happy until I can get it in line. As I haven't played for a few years I think I should make the changes now so as i am still adapting to playing again.

Any more suggestions?

[Gerry Armstrong]

I know it's not a big deal and I have hit a couple of tons before too. It's just a psychological thing that I won't be happy until I can get it in line. As I haven't played for a few years I think I should make the changes now so as i am still adapting to playing again.

Any more suggestions?

Go and see Jimmy Donnelly and ask him if he can straighten you up.

Saves loads of painful trial and error experiments which may or may not makes things worse.

[checkSide]

I know it's not a big deal and I have hit a couple of tons before too. It's just a psychological thing that I won't be happy until I can get it in line. As I haven't played for a few years I think I should make the changes now so as i am still adapting to playing again.

Any more suggestions?

If you want to "correct" your technique, you need to twist your body whilst down on the shot, so your cueing shoulder is pushed behind your body and your bridging shoulder moves in towards you head.

[Acrowot]

It never did Ray Reardon any harm!

[TheBallBreaker]

It never did Ray Reardon any harm!

I'll repeat that it's psychological for me and I know there are many amazing players who have less than perfect techniques.

[cazmac1]

I'll repeat that it's psychological for me and I know there are many amazing players who have less than perfect techniques.

I agree with the others, I know you say it's psychological and there lies the problem. I assume that you are convinced that if everything was in a straight lines you would play better but this is not the case. This is very much an old school idea that went out when steve davis's game went down. I do believe that you need to be some where near it but it does not have to be perfect. Every ones body is different and you just might not be able to get what your after and it just seems like an awful waste of your time and energy. What you should be concentration on is getting the cue on the correct line of aim and then delivering the cue smoothly. This would be far more productive in the long run.
Good luck what ever you decide to do

[TheBallBreaker]

I think that I stand too far from the cue ball, which makes me stretch too much with my bridge arm, which in turn makes me have to twist too far into the shot, thus making my shoulder impossible to align. I often find that my body weight is too far onto my right leg about 60%/40%, where it should be the reverse.

This shall be fixed or at least made a bit better.