cue pushing through to the right

[spike007]

Hi,

I video'd myself last night and although their not great I can see that sometimes on my follow through the cue swings to the right (I'm left handed). This happens alot on long shots and I can see that it has transferred to the cueball.

Help.

[nrage]

I suspect you will find it is early tightening of the grip which is causing the movement. On long shots which you hit harder, you will tend to tighten earlier. In practice try concentrating on keeping the grip nice and loose on all shots of various power and see if that makes any difference on the long ones.

[Terry Davidson]

I think nrage is correct here but to add a little clearer explanation...very many players (including myself until recently) will bring the back 2 fingers of the hand onto the cue just a little early in the delivery. This causes the wrist joint to turn slightly in order to enable those back 2 fingers to get a better grip on the butt of the cue and also decelerates the cue through the cueball, which is one of the WORST things you can do. When the wrist turns slightly this will take the cue off-line with left handed players going through left to right and right to left for right-handed players.

This is totally unconcious and is VERY difficult to correct because it becomes ingrained over a short period of time.

How I corrected it was to ensure I was gripping with JUST the thumb and forefinger and in the address position keeping the back THREE fingers just barely touching the butt and then I kept this same pressure on the back 3 fingers ALL THE WAY THROUGH THE DELIVERY and actually used just the thumb and forefinger to stop the cue when my hand hits my chest.

It's a little tricky to catch on to and I've been working on it for about 3 weeks now and still haven't completely mastered it but one thing I noticed right away is the chevrons on my cue do not turn AT ALL, meaning I'm not turning the wrist joint at all whereas in the beginning of this I used to get between 1/8 and 1/4 turn on the chevrons depending on the power of the shot.

It was just KILLING my long potting ability but now my potting is much more accurate, especially with power and for some reason I haven't figured out yet, I seem to be driving through (or accelerating through) the cueball much better, which is great.

Terry

[rovnos]

hi spike 007,
Terry gave me this same advice earlier in the week and i am hopefully going to hit a few balls tonight and try it. I have played around with my cue at home though and have found that curling up your small end finger up above the butt seems to stop the other two from gripping giving the same effect, with the bonus of not feeling too uncomfortable. Might be worth trying.Don't know if Terry has tried this in his efforts to cure this problem ?

[rovnos]

hi spike 007,
Terry gave me this same advice earlier in the week and i am hopefully going to hit a few balls tonight and try it. I have played around with my cue at home though and have found that curling up your small end finger up above the butt seems to stop the other two from gripping giving the same effect, with the bonus of not feeling too uncomfortable. Might be worth trying.Don't know if Terry has tried this in his efforts to cure this problem ?

[buddfridgeman]

Hi,

Yeah its a killer I have also been trying the thumb and finger grip for a couple of weeks , it did stop the rotation but feels very strange , just cant take to it..Now I am on a line the shot up with no feathering or very little [1" max] then a slow pull back and a pusy through , I am getting good acceleration and much less rotation , some shots none.. had two sessions each 2-3hours and in each managed a couple of tones and some good back up breaks .. it feels like I have good control of the white..just got a natural grip and still really trying to push through with no rotation . Its a little bit harder on the long shots but even if I do get a little rotation the pots not to far away..

hope this helps

[Terry Davidson]

rovnos:

I tried your technique in this morning's practice for a frame. I found what happened with me is in order to avoid crushing the baby finger I was cocking my wrist a little more, however the cue was still going through straight.

The other weird thing (and I'll have to research this one) is I seemed to be getting much more power into the cueball. For example, when shooting the spots on the table with my normal grip at maximum power I can get about 4-1/2 table lengths and the cueball usually ends up a bit more than one ball's width from the centre spots. With your grip and cocking the wrist a bit more to avoid the finger being crushed I found I was getting a full 5 lengths and maybe a bit more and my table isn't all that fast, not like the TV tables.

So I'm carrying on experimenting with this and seeing if it continues to work although it's a little weird for me getting used to it.

We are not alone though, as Mark Allen plays with his baby finger curled up and Ryan Day has his back 3 fingers off the cue all through his backswing and delivery and neither grip seems to be hurting them too much!

Terry

[spike007]

cue pushing through to the right

Thanks for your replies, it's good to see that it is a well known problem with a used fix available, will let you know how I get on.

Spike

[rovnos]

glad you deem the idea worth trialing. I will be giving it some time when i get some proper practice time. Having played my son this evening i've come to the conclusion that someone came in and broke both my arms in the night ! I would have been better with a putter ! Think i will try and find some vid of Mark Allen. Look forward to hearing how you get on Terry.

[spike007]

cue pushing through to the right

My son can't play properly yet so I've got a while to get my **** together before he beats me at this too

[buddfridgeman]

HI Terry,
You seem very knowledgeable so might be able to answer this, Like you I am experimenting with the grip trying very hard not to twist the cue at all, what seems very strange to me is if I play with my natural technique will finish off with about a qtr. rotation on medium to strong strokes...now the weird thing is if I play the same stroke same technique but remove the white ball before hitting it the cue goes through with no twist at all , I can eliminate the twist even pushing through above my normal max. Strength...this is bugging me because it tells me that my comfortable trusted technique can do what I want it to do but goes awol as soon as I hit a ball..I am no novice now I have played for about 28 years and will have had over 1000 tons , so to a certain extent I know what I am doing , but that said I can find no reason for this to happen. Like everyone else I want to play my best snooker to the best of my ability , and I am sure if the rotation was eliminated this would become more consistent.

Another thing that’s struck me is I have had many cues and try to work out what works best with each cue I try. example..I have got a new parris had it about 5/6 weeks now and to get the best out of it I am playing with very little feathering of the cue , it really works on this and some other I have had but if I play my normal action with feathering of about 4/5” it just does not perform, I tried for the first 3 weeks with my normal action but the breaks were all over the place so the last hour of a recent session went back to the action of no feathering and finished off with a couple of tons. Any ideas on why this should be the case?..and indecently the next session did the same again 84 then two tone in a row sticking to just pushing through..I think it would really help my state of mind to have the answers to these questions.
I would appreciate your thought I like to read your posts and enjoy what you have to say..

[Terry Davidson]

budd:

Your answer to the first question is in my post above and also in another string on here. Do a search of my recent posts (to save me repeating myself)

Terry