Grip

[Particle Physics]

I remember someone saying that Davis plays with one static finger on the cue, his index finger whilst Parrot plays with the index finger and middle finger as static. Is this true? Which is preferable from a technical point of view and for what reasons?

With a one finger static grip, is the active finger doing the driving the middle finger? And is the little finger simply there to provide balance, as a rudder?

[nrage]

I remember someone saying that Davis plays with one static finger on the cue, his index finger whilst Parrot plays with the index finger and middle finger as static. Is this true? Which is preferable from a technical point of view and for what reasons?

With a one finger static grip, is the active finger doing the driving the middle finger? And is the little finger simply there to provide balance, as a rudder?

When Davis's blog was available on myspace he had an interesting post about the grip. In it he talked about reverting to a grip where the back three fingers were all in contact with the cue. He mentioned how it limited back swing, but made an immediate improvement to his potting accuracy when he was struggling.

There is an offline copy linked here by exolon:
http://www.thesnookerforum.com/board...articles/page3

This page is useful/interesting:
http://www.fcsnooker.co.uk/basics/the_grip/the_grip.htm

Found this just now:
http://www.snookerscene.co.uk/page.php?id=37

[Particle Physics]

Should the V be in contact with the cue when one cues up the shot? I seem to remember Mark Williams using the inside of the first part of forefinger to grip the cue but the rest of the forefinger was off the cue. Is that right, or did I imagine it?

[nrage]

Should the V be in contact with the cue when one cues up the shot? I seem to remember Mark Williams using the inside of the first part of forefinger to grip the cue but the rest of the forefinger was off the cue. Is that right, or did I imagine it?

I believe it's best to keep the V in contact the whole time. Basically, if there is a gap and you close that gap on the shot then you're moving the butt of the cue up, or the hand down, or even both and maybe even some sideways wiggle too.. all of that adds up to extra dynamic movement on the shot which just makes it harder to strike where you intend.

[Particle Physics]

I believe it's best to keep the V in contact the whole time. Basically, if there is a gap and you close that gap on the shot then you're moving the butt of the cue up, or the hand down, or even both and maybe even some sideways wiggle too.. all of that adds up to extra dynamic movement on the shot which just makes it harder to strike where you intend.

Cheers Nrage. The shot certainly feels firmer and punchier with the V in contact and there's more action on the white. I was just a bit concerned (about V in contact) that for deep spin, I'd take the cue back, not open the hand enough, and end up pulling ito to the right on the backswing, then turn it in on the forward swing due to lack of cueing space in the hand.

Do you agree with the pendulum theory/method of forefinger and thumb?

And did Williams use forefinger partly off the cue? I've googled but as usual the results are nothing to do with the search words. grrrrrrr

Thanks mate.

[nrage]

Cheers Nrage. The shot certainly feels firmer and punchier with the V in contact and there's more action on the white. I was just a bit concerned (about V in contact) that for deep spin, I'd take the cue back, not open the hand enough, and end up pulling ito to the right on the backswing, then turn it in on the forward swing due to lack of cueing space in the hand.

If you allow the cue to push all the fingers except the forefinger out of the way, I believe you should have enough space in the hand to go almost as far back as required, the remaining few inches require an elbow drop (more on that later). The key for the first part is the pressure applied. With too much pressure you allow no pivot in the grip. By pivot I mean that the grip should behave like you have a metal pin through the cue at the first finger. The cue should travel backwards and balance/pivot on the forefinger.

Take a look at:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CCRcNZWQ53s
from about 2:39 onwards.

Notice how the first finger is at 90 degrees to the cue at address, but during the backswing they stay in line with the forearm, meaning that to the cue they're now on an angle forward of the initial 90 degrees. The grip pivots about the imaginary pin through the grip/cue.

Do you agree with the pendulum theory/method of forefinger and thumb?

Depends what you mean by pendulum. The typical pendulum stroke in pool has the hand following an arc, which raises and lowers the butt of the cue on the stroke. I don't ascribe to that method. Instead I try to keep the cue on a fixed plane throughout the delivery. To do this requires the grip be loose and for the cue/grip to pivot about the forefinger.

For a very long backswing it also requires that the elbow drop slightly at full backswing for most people. This elbow drop is the hard part, it must return to the exact/correct position at the start of the delivery. Most people rush this part of the stroke and make this harder on themselves. This is what results on the tip striking too high or low on the white on power screw shots. Once you master the elbow drop and return and keeping the cue on a fixed plane you should achieve much better power screw.

And did Williams use forefinger partly off the cue? I've googled but as usual the results are nothing to do with the search words. grrrrrrr

I don't recall this myself.

[Particle Physics]

Nrage, thankyou for your advice.

I've just tried a few things on my pool table (snooker table practice tomorrow at Rileys). The elbow drop feels amazing, so much smoother than the juddering pendulum that wrecks the chin then tries to power through the ball but ends up stunning the ball sometimes. I've just achieved a bit of screw with elbow drop. Does the rest come from a deliberate pause, and then acceleration through the ball? I've been using a bit of elbow drop on the forward stroke of my cue action for a long time I guess, but not a lot on the backstroke. On the backstroke, do you find you have to take the cue back quite slowly/carefully to accomodate elbow drop whilst also staying on line and on plane?

Grip - I've also tried to hold the cue with the thumb and forefinger ring, with the V closed, with an amount of force, just enough to lift the cue up off the table without using the other three fingers. Is this roughly the force that you would use Nrage. Picking up the cue with the ring seems to put an immediate emphasis on the pivot.

I get the feeling that with the pivot, elbow drop and minimal pressure, I'm turning my arm into a reverse/fwd mechanical crankshaft of a sort?

[nrage]

Nrage, thankyou for your advice.

I've just tried a few things on my pool table (snooker table practice tomorrow at Rileys). The elbow drop feels amazing, so much smoother than the juddering pendulum that wrecks the chin then tries to power through the ball but ends up stunning the ball sometimes. I've just achieved a bit of screw with elbow drop.

Excellent

When working on screw I would recommend starting with a short range soft screw shot.

Set yourself up just off straight so that the white will screw back past the cue. Set up like this you can play the shot and stay down on the shot until the white stops. You can also push right through the white - which is very important - without having to worry about getting it out of the way again - this worry causes a lot of people to stab at it and not drive through correctly.

The advantage also to starting with the soft screw is that you do not need to use a lot of power, so can avoid having to control a long backswing with elbow drop. Once you master the soft screw, gradually start increasing the power until (hopefully/eventually) you're screwing a long blue back to baulk or further. It takes weeks/months of serious practice to get there, and the hardest part is striking the white low and accurately with power.

Does the rest come from a deliberate pause, and then acceleration through the ball? I've been using a bit of elbow drop on the forward stroke of my cue action for a long time I guess, but not a lot on the backstroke. On the backstroke, do you find you have to take the cue back quite slowly/carefully to accomodate elbow drop whilst also staying on line and on plane?

Yes, as Sidd mentioned recently in another thread, and as Terry and Nic Barrow are always recommending the cue action should always accelerate smoothly/gradually from rest. And the elbow drop just makes it harder, so more care/practice is needed. Ideally you shouldn't need the last 1-2 inches of power on 90% of your shots so you can avoid the elbow drop. That said, some pros use the same length backswing for all shots and vary the acceleration - so that's an option too.

Nic's video I linked (or another in the same series) shows his cue action and the interesting thing in particular is when he starts placing lines across the cue every frame or so showing how far it has traveled, and thus giving you an idea of how gradually he accelerates the cue. This gradual acceleration allows him to remain so still on the shot and introduces little to no unwanted movement.

A cue action like Nic's takes years to get, and it's one of those things you can start to over-think. So, instead of consciously trying to control the exact acceleration of the cue try to "feel" it. When you get it right it "feels" like a pushing or squeezing motion or even a falling motion - because the force of gravity applies a more or less perfectly consistent acceleration to falling bodies.

Grip - I've also tried to hold the cue with the thumb and forefinger ring, with the V closed, with an amount of force, just enough to lift the cue up off the table without using the other three fingers. Is this roughly the force that you would use Nrage. Picking up the cue with the ring seems to put an immediate emphasis on the pivot.

Yes, that's it. I recently saw a video of Ray Reardon saying basically the same thing. He picks the cue up, and with it almost vertical, says that the grip should only be strong enough to stop it sliding out of your hand and hitting the floor.

Of course, a cheap varnished cue especially on a hot day won't slide like you want it to, so bear that in mind.

I get the feeling that with the pivot, elbow drop and minimal pressure, I'm turning my arm into a reverse/fwd mechanical crankshaft of a sort?

That's the idea. Humans aren't machines but we do our best to emulate them in this case. Precision is important in snooker

[Particle Physics]

The more I think about it, the greater the advice of yourself and Terry etc really is. There's a chap down the local club who plays for England at amateur level, with a 143 high break. When I've watched him, he seems to play with all of the constituents of technique that folk have discussed with me over the last few weeks on TSF. The big thing about changing is fear, that one will look a bit of a prat down the club etc. Because as you put changes into affect, one tends to take more time setting up at the table and it can look quite deliberate at first and there will be bloopers along the way. I've seen a few raised eyebrows and a couple of folk have told me not to bother with such things and just 'pot more balls' or play safe if the pot's too hard. But in my heart, I know technique can radically change the proficiency of play, and push out the possibility frontier of shot making. There's a very close correlation between good technique and quality play, it's no coincidence, and I don't see many pros with poor technique, well, none.

The idea of some pros using a constant backswing length and varying acceleration as the variable factor is quite interesting. John Higgins even decelerates the cue for delicate shots I think. I guess by adopting a constant length backswing, they've simplified and removed a variable, which means one less thing to go wrong. However, the likes of Judd, ROS, Jimmy White certainly do vary swing length, and maybe that's because the natural player can feel more about the length of the swing and the associative impact on the ball do you think?

I'm going to save some of the pages of advice for future reference. I'd better book a practice table me thinks.

[nrage]

The more I think about it, the greater the advice of yourself and Terry etc really is. There's a chap down the local club who plays for England at amateur level, with a 143 high break. When I've watched him, he seems to play with all of the constituents of technique that folk have discussed with me over the last few weeks on TSF. The big thing about changing is fear, that one will look a bit of a prat down the club etc. Because as you put changes into affect, one tends to take more time setting up at the table and it can look quite deliberate at first and there will be bloopers along the way. I've seen a few raised eyebrows and a couple of folk have told me not to bother with such things and just 'pot more balls' or play safe if the pot's too hard. But in my heart, I know technique can radically change the proficiency of play, and push out the possibility frontier of shot making. There's a very close correlation between good technique and quality play, it's no coincidence, and I don't see many pros with poor technique, well, none.

I'm a firm believer that solid consistent technique is essential, but you still have to be able to see the potting angle and pot balls. So, practicing technique is a good thing, but you don't want to do that to the exclusion of all else (believe me, I have fallen into this trap in the past). I think the best mix is to practice some technique, concentrating on one piece at a time with as simple a pot as possible. Then to mix that up with simply potting balls and practicing making position.

It's possible to naturally develop good technique without practicing it, or thinking about it at all. But, not everyone naturally hits on all the key points and almost everyone has some minor thing they could change which would make some difference overall.

The Q you have to ask yourself is; am I still improving? If not, why not? Do I need to change some aspect of technique or am I simply not putting in the hours of practice. If you decide to change something, it might be best to get a coach to help. If you'd rather do it alone (or can't afford or find a coach) then change one thing at a time and be disciplined about it, try to find some way to measure the effect the change has had i.e. get some good "baseline" measurements of your current ability, then compare.

Nic's self-coaching system, from what I've seen, is all about making small changes or working on small areas and measuring progress. Snooker is a game where improvement is often gradual and hard to quantify, with peaks one day and troughs the next.

The idea of some pros using a constant backswing length and varying acceleration as the variable factor is quite interesting. John Higgins even decelerates the cue for delicate shots I think. I guess by adopting a constant length backswing, they've simplified and removed a variable, which means one less thing to go wrong. However, the likes of Judd, ROS, Jimmy White certainly do vary swing length, and maybe that's because the natural player can feel more about the length of the swing and the associative impact on the ball do you think?

The players using a variable length backswing uses a constant acceleration, so they're also removing a variable - the acceleration. They also remove the elbow drop for something like 80% of shots, because a shorter backswing means no elbow drop at the back. But, it means when doing one of those 20% shots you're doing something you don't normally do - so it's a trade off decision/situation.

I'm going to save some of the pages of advice for future reference. I'd better book a practice table me thinks.

Practice is the only way to improve, there is no silver bullet

[Particle Physics]

Cheers again Nrage, your time and advice is valuable and very appreciated. I spent two hours in Rileys today (have they ever cleaned any of their tables?!) working on a few things. One was shortening the cue to ball. I've been used to about 14 inches and whilst this is fine for simple potting, it does mean there's no cue left to go through the ball, as my grip hand is fairly forward. I've marked the shaft at 12" and I look at it when I'm down to make sure if doesn't sit forward of the bridge. It certainly feels more stable and more cue is getting through the white ball.

The other things I worked on were stance, grip and sighting. Stance was both a joy and a nightmare. I get into the square stance, and naturally go half a foot fwd on the left foot, and I turn my right foot out a bit too. I pot a few long blue balls in a row (cue ball in baulk, near the yellow/green) and I'm thinking, this is great, the object ball seems full in vision, the pocket is in vision and semi-focus and I appear to be hitting the centre of the white ball, and able to stop it. I look down and realise that while my R ankle is under the cue just to the right a bit, it's also about 7mins past the hour of cue and my left foot if forward and parallel to the cue. I've been trying to make square stance work, and inadvertently I've found the boxer stance to be most accurate, comfortable and better for powerful cueing. I know Joe Davis used it successfully, but I was under the impression that square was the way to go; it's the modern way, and theoretically the most consistent and accurate approach. All the pros can't be wrong. So disappointed.

Grip. A mixed bag. I tried the full contact ring, cue upright and just enough firmness to stop it falling; the Reardon tip. Then got down and played the shot. If I slackened off just a bit, so there was gap under the V that one could squeeze a 5p through, the pivot pivoted much smoother and easier, the cue flowed better. Obviously, there is a trade off here and it's a question of balancing different aspects.

I seem to favour the straight bridge arm with the forearm flat down. Not just for reach but also for the way it affects cue line and sighting. I strike across the ball less (than with the bent arm approach where I was often guilty of imparting left hand side by mistake all the time), so that my cue is following the line of the angle in my eyes and brain, the two match up. If I close my R eye, the cue appears to be at an angle to the L eye eyeline. If I close my L eye, again, the angle is there. Importantly, these two angles appear to equal, indicating symmetry down the cue line with both eyes open; the cue is sitting in the centre of my stereo vision. I've read that this is really important. ;-)

On the plus side, I tried some elbow drops (you're right, the little two or three inch backswings don't need it) and some came off, sometimes the cue went left or right out of line, and I know that this was because my pivot didn't stay horizontal but cranked over as I turned my wrist out going back. I've also noticed that it's quite easy to have the elbow drop inwards on the rear and forward phases when doing elbow drop because we're now moving the elbow when previously it was static, which is bound to introduce some instability. This is all about practice and doing it thousands of times to groove it to being very good with no faults. Sunny has posted a youtube video of himself doing the banana shot, and it shows wonderful elbow drop and follow through on the screw shot. Great example of elbow drop.

Overall, my stance, straight arm quite in line with the shot line and V grip with a wee gap but having a pivot appears to indicate an overall technique from the past. It works well, and I potted some beauties (by my general standard) and I got more stun on the ball, stun-run through, top spin and saw the balls fuller and the angles better. But somehow I'm disappointed because I really wanted the modern approach to work. Not sure what to do now.

[nrage]

That all sounds very positive to me. There is nothing wrong with the boxer stance, in fact for many people it is the "correct" stance because it's more comfortable and more stable for them. One effect it can have is to bring the left eye closer to the white and more central to the line of aim.

I personally find the boxer, or a stance which is more like a boxer than square, to be preferable as it seems - from experimentation that having my cue slightly to the left of center is my natural aiming position.

Some more information can be found in PJ Nolan's PDF here:
http://members.multimania.co.uk/seanbyrne35/pjnolan.pdf

Go to page 20 which describes the stance. The images and descriptions are useful. He states:

"The Boxer stance and Square stance are only a guide, because the most important aspect of your stance is to be comfortable on the shot."

Also..

"I cannot over emphasize the importance of learning to make the same stance and to put your feet in the same position every
time you play a shot. Do not change your stance for different kind of shots."

In short, it's perfectly ok/natural to have a stance which is neither boxer nor square, but is unique to you as long as it's comfortable and stable and consistent

[nrage]

This old thread might be interesting to you:
http://www.thesnookerforum.com/board...e+dominant+eye

[Particle Physics]

Thanks dude. I tried the cue over the toe stance on the pool table today, which I graduate towards naturally, because it's right foot at 7mins past the cue. This is a variant of the old Hendry stance, with the resultant cue position being a goo 6-8 inches off the hip but in my case the L foot goes half a step forward of the R foot. Not sure if Hendry kept them both perpendicular to the shot back in his teens. I'll be on a snooker table tonight hopefully to test in on the straight blue from baulk, the ultimate test IMO, apart from the ridiculous cueing over the baulk pocket and potting the blue that is! lol. On the pool table it works as well as the boxer stance.

Back to grip. Also tried closing the ring again, no gap, just enough force to do the Reardon test. The back fingers are in more contact with the cue naturally and the grip is a bit tighter, not really tight, but not as loose as a slightly open V, where the little finger tip just touches the cue, now the cue is in contact with the 2nd part of the inside of the little finger. On the snooker table yesterday, it felt like I was pulling the cue this way and that, and the cue was rising up. But on the pool table today, I managed to play some firm shots using this grip, and got more power by using elbow drop a little for most shots. It's another one of those trade offs you mentioned before.

I'm right eye dominant.

[Particle Physics]

A question. Davis et al. recommend that one grips the cue with enough force to just pick it up from the table, like you're going to hit something with it. This compares favourably with Nrage's reference to the 'ring' force to stop the cue falling through the hand whilst being held upright. In this position the hand is closed with the fingers wrapped fully around the cue.

I tried this grip on the pool table tonight and it is very tight. To open it on the carry, there's a fair bit of feathering and elbow drop/rise, then when going through the ball I find the fingers are again closed around the cue with very little gaps. It's firm way of striking the ball for sure. I can imagine this to be really good for stunning the ball.

Is this a good grip, and have others used it? Is it to be recommended from a coaching point of view?