Eye Dominance, Sighting and the Cue

[sydneygeorge]

This all sounds ridiculous to me.


If you genuinely think that complex equations of thought and the flickering of one eye to the other is helping you push the cue through the white ball straight, then you really are half way down the rabbit hole my friend.

You are telling yourself what you want to believe based on your efforts. Very specious reasoning.

Look at the table,
pick your shot,
walk into the shot,
keep still,
push the cue through straight,

rinse and repeat...

I am yet to see my eyeball leap from my orbit and grip the cue for me and play a shot.

Terry's in the twilight of his snooker days and can still make centuries with one pissing eye!

Stop worrying about how much change you have in one pocket or if your shoes are tied properly and you have ten lashes few for one eye than the other. The reason you're improving is because you're playing more.

Pottr,

You have just applied the KISS formula...." Keep It Simple Stupid "
And I thank you for it.

[pottr]

Nice little acronym. I hadn't heard that before so I thank you.

[Particle Physics]

Hey, I'll be the first to pat you on the back if you come up with something that's tangible in terms of an improvement.

It's just that you go on about these insignificant little nuances in your cue action and then back up each statement with so much exposition, I could forgive myself for thinking you'd invented the wheel.

When I hear that your eye swapping technique has led to you knocking in back to back maximums everytime you pick up your cue then I'll certainly adopt the technique.

Until that point however I think most people will think that your improvement is down to a higher frequency of practice. There may be some psychological effect that you're not concentrating on negative aspects of the shot I suppose... I can't see how but it's plausable.

Glad you're improving but all the same, I think it will be a while before I notice any top players switching their eyes and blinking like they've just been plugged into the matrix.

All the best.

It's like this mate. If your eye line and cue line don't match up; you're going to miss long and tricky pots. PJ Nolan, Terry Griffiths think it important enough, as to advise their players of all abilities to do something about it. They're not getting players to make such a change without reason, for the sake of it. They're doing it because they have proven experience that it works. My method is an alternative. I think that if folk consistently miss shots they know they should have got from banked angle memory, then there is something wrong. Most people have dominant eyes, 70%. The overwhelming majority need to address the issue if they're going to do something like snooker, that requires a lot of accuracy.

[Particle Physics]

Pottr,

You have just applied the KISS formula...." Keep It Simple Stupid "
And I thank you for it.

Folk used to believe the earth was flat. The idea of a globe was quite complicated for them....................

[pottr]

I think that if folk consistently miss shots they know they should have got from banked angle memory

Now that is a suggestion I can get behind... I feel the only time I miss balls is when I haven't lined them up properly.

[Particle Physics]

When im talking about the dominant eye this does not have be took to the extreme, i mean the likes of ros and higgins still cue fairly centrally, but they still are favouring one eye(both left in these cases), so therefore why would ur system make any sense to try and achieve(not being rude by the way), ur just slowing your thought process down for no advantage.

The idea of switching on the undominant eye will work irrespective of the degree of dominance in one eye apparently, because it corrects 100% dominance, 50% dominance, or even 10% back to balanced vision, according to the optician. The other solution as you say, is to play around with the cue, moving it left a bit, right a bit, under the chin until you find what is accurate for you. This is what the pro coaches appear to be doing with their players.

As for what my experience. Not sure, everyone can go there own way. If they're not happy, they can try something different. It only takes a few minutes to see if it works. It's up to everyone to do what they wish. I'm just putting this out there, just in case it can help someone else.

[Particle Physics]

Now that is a suggestion I can get behind... I feel the only time I miss balls is when I haven't lined them up properly.

You obviously don't have a dominant eye then. Not trying to be patronising here, but you have to have a dominant eye to understand how much it can mess up a shot. Can you imagine getting down for a shot, looking at the angle (whether it turns out to be wrong or right after the pot) and not being sure if your eyes are telling you the truth. That was me last week, that was! Everyone knows it's difficult to pot the black off it's spot from the green spot. I did it first time with the cue under my right chin, after realising I had a sighting problem. I potted loads of long balls, acute balls, and followed it up with my first good size break this week. One weeks practice couldn't have made a difference to my game, it has to be down to something else. Not saying it will work for everyone with a dominant eye, but hell, why not try a solution of some sort if you have one?

I've spoken to an optician about this, who confirms it as a trick that works and I'll email PJ Nolan or one of the other pro coaches to confirm; because I'm sure they've come across it too.

[pottr]

Nah, it's to do with my lazy nature. Sometimes I walk into the shot and drop my head down straight onto the cue and other times I just walk around and hurridly blob myself down into my address position, without walking into the line of the shot.

Have you ever tried to cut the black in the opposite pocket off the green/yellow spot? Not as tricky as it looks. Smash it with bags of check.

[sydneygeorge]

Folk used to believe the earth was flat. The idea of a globe was quite complicated for them....................

Particle,
I admire and commend you for the time and energy you have put into this thread but, I can't help feeling that you have grossly underestimated the power of the human brain.
For example I do not see cricketers running flat looking over their shoulder to catch a ball descending from the the sky at massive speed thinking F..k which side of my face should be be facing this ball. ditto tennis, baseball, F1 drivers,martial arts etc.

My suggestion is: Your delivery mechanism will let you down every time and not your eye sight.

Trust your Brain to controll your eye sight.

Distrust your delivery

[Terry Davidson]

Manu147, PP and anyone else interested:

How did this discussion ever get so f*cked up for chr*st's sake? Particle...you have a lot of erroneous information and I'm praying that no one will follow your advice. It might be working for you but I believe you have very much over complicated the process of developing a good and stable snooker technique and I will further state I think you are improving through good practice rather than constant technique changes.

And for manu...I have never said I didn't believe in the 'preferred' or 'dominant' eye theory since I stated I myself use my left eye as I have to since my right eye is so messed up after retinal and cataract surgery they can't even fit a contact or glasses that work for me and I can't get LASIK (I have moisture behind the cornea and the vision changes not only day-by-day but also through one day it will change). The p*ss off is I learned to play snooker when my right eye was my stronger and dominant eye and I have had to switch to the left eye over the past 7 years, NOT an easy thing to do).

So here is my theory...take it or leave it everyone. It has been proven, even in people with no discernible 'dominant' eye, that every person's brain WILL SELECT THE PICTURE FROM ONE EYE OVER THE OTHER FOR PROCESSING, but that the other eye will contribute to giving the predator (us) binocular and spatial recognition vision and the brain will process the two images to develop a true picture of what we're hunting (in this case snooker potting angles).

Unless a person is virtually blind in one eye (like Joe Davis) the brain will select one eye over the other for it's primary aiming but still use both eyes to get the binocular view. My coaching theory is IT IS NOT NECESSARY TO HAVE THE CUE RUNNING UNDER THAT PREFERRED EYE OR EVEN MORE UNDER IT THAN THE OTHER EYE.

What is much more vital to every player out there is that they develop their own set-up and technique that allows them to deliver the cue straight and accelerate through the cueball. This 'ideal' set-up for every player will be unique to that player and it might entail having the cue on the centre of the chin or indeed it might have the cue to one side of the chin or the other AND NOT NECESSARILY UNDER THE PREFERRED EYE. All that is necessary is that the player gets the binocular vision so he can get the spatial recognition he requires (aiming) in order to make the pot.

I've also stated many times over on here...pots are missed in 99% of cases because the potter DID NOT DELIVER THE CUE STRAIGHT DOWN HIS INTENDED LINE OF AIM and has nothing to do with either selecting or confirming the line of aim.

To step out on the limb even further... I also believe IT JUST DOESN'T MATTER WHERE THE CUE IS IN RELATION TO EITHER EYE as long as the player uses the same set-up consistently so his brain can learn and experience the correct aiming point through EXPERIENCE. The MOST important thing is to get the cue aligned in a position where that individual player can drive the cue through straight contracting his inside upper arm muscle, his grip hand and latterly the shoulder socket muscle (not sure what these muscles are called).

For instance, if you're a 90-pound weakling and learn snooker and become a really good player and then decide to go lift weights and become a body builder as a hobby and become a buff 200 pounder you will likely require an alignment change to match your new physique. In the same way, if you decide (like particle physics) that your cue needs to be realigned on your chin then doesn't it follow that he might also need a small realignment in his set-up. (Or even better, perhaps moving the cue over underneath one eye or the other has corrected a slight mis-alignment that was there previously and now the cue is being delivered straighter?)

I'm afraid pottr has it EXACTLY CORRECT. I too advocate the 'KISS' principle with snooker technique and KISS means one of two things...KEEP IT STUPID SIMPLE or else KEEP IT SIMPLE...STUPID!!! The less moving parts you have to coordinate and ALSO the less technique things you have to think about is all about keeping it simple.

Terry

[narl]

If it was easy to deliver the cue in a stright line consistantly and stay perfectly still on the shot thats half the battle won right away.

Easy on paper though

[Manu147]

Particle,
I admire and commend you for the time and energy you have put into this thread but, I can't help feeling that you have grossly underestimated the power of the human brain.
For example I do not see cricketers running flat looking over their shoulder to catch a ball descending from the the sky at massive speed thinking F..k which side of my face should be be facing this ball. ditto tennis, baseball, F1 drivers,martial arts etc.

My suggestion is: Your delivery mechanism will let you down every time and not your eye sight.

Trust your Brain to controll your eye sight.

Distrust your delivery

Thats the whole point, most players instinctively are seeing a straight line because of placing that sighting line over the shot directly. Think this thread is becoming tedious now.

[Izzyfcuk]

Particle

You should PM Sidd, im sure you two would become great mates!

[pottr]

How did this discussion ever get so f*cked up for chr*st's sake?

I was bored at work, fancied a pop.

Spot on as ever Terry (annoyingly)! I do know all of the words you use in your posts but for some reason I never seem to put them down in the same order as you do... Experience is the key it seems.

What did happen to Sidd?

[Manu147]

Manu147, PP and anyone else interested:

How did this discussion ever get so f*cked up for chr*st's sake? Particle...you have a lot of erroneous information and I'm praying that no one will follow your advice. It might be working for you but I believe you have very much over complicated the process of developing a good and stable snooker technique and I will further state I think you are improving through good practice rather than constant technique changes.

And for manu...I have never said I didn't believe in the 'preferred' or 'dominant' eye theory since I stated I myself use my left eye as I have to since my right eye is so messed up after retinal and cataract surgery they can't even fit a contact or glasses that work for me and I can't get LASIK (I have moisture behind the cornea and the vision changes not only day-by-day but also through one day it will change). The p*ss off is I learned to play snooker when my right eye was my stronger and dominant eye and I have had to switch to the left eye over the past 7 years, NOT an easy thing to do).

So here is my theory...take it or leave it everyone. It has been proven, even in people with no discernible 'dominant' eye, that every person's brain WILL SELECT THE PICTURE FROM ONE EYE OVER THE OTHER FOR PROCESSING, but that the other eye will contribute to giving the predator (us) binocular and spatial recognition vision and the brain will process the two images to develop a true picture of what we're hunting (in this case snooker potting angles).

Unless a person is virtually blind in one eye (like Joe Davis) the brain will select one eye over the other for it's primary aiming but still use both eyes to get the binocular view. My coaching theory is IT IS NOT NECESSARY TO HAVE THE CUE RUNNING UNDER THAT PREFERRED EYE OR EVEN MORE UNDER IT THAN THE OTHER EYE.

What is much more vital to every player out there is that they develop their own set-up and technique that allows them to deliver the cue straight and accelerate through the cueball. This 'ideal' set-up for every player will be unique to that player and it might entail having the cue on the centre of the chin or indeed it might have the cue to one side of the chin or the other AND NOT NECESSARILY UNDER THE PREFERRED EYE. All that is necessary is that the player gets the binocular vision so he can get the spatial recognition he requires (aiming) in order to make the pot.

I've also stated many times over on here...pots are missed in 99% of cases because the potter DID NOT DELIVER THE CUE STRAIGHT DOWN HIS INTENDED LINE OF AIM and has nothing to do with either selecting or confirming the line of aim.

To step out on the limb even further... I also believe IT JUST DOESN'T MATTER WHERE THE CUE IS IN RELATION TO EITHER EYE as long as the player uses the same set-up consistently so his brain can learn and experience the correct aiming point through EXPERIENCE. The MOST important thing is to get the cue aligned in a position where that individual player can drive the cue through straight contracting his inside upper arm muscle, his grip hand and latterly the shoulder socket muscle (not sure what these muscles are called).

For instance, if you're a 90-pound weakling and learn snooker and become a really good player and then decide to go lift weights and become a body builder as a hobby and become a buff 200 pounder you will likely require an alignment change to match your new physique. In the same way, if you decide (like particle physics) that your cue needs to be realigned on your chin then doesn't it follow that he might also need a small realignment in his set-up. (Or even better, perhaps moving the cue over underneath one eye or the other has corrected a slight mis-alignment that was there previously and now the cue is being delivered straighter?)

I'm afraid pottr has it EXACTLY CORRECT. I too advocate the 'KISS' principle with snooker technique and KISS means one of two things...KEEP IT STUPID SIMPLE or else KEEP IT SIMPLE...STUPID!!! The less moving parts you have to coordinate and ALSO the less technique things you have to think about is all about keeping it simple.

Terry

Terry your post on this thread on the 24th of july(2ND PAGE ON HERE), states "the idea of a preferred or dominant eye is complete and utter nonsense" totally contradicts what you are telling me in the above quotes, it doesnt make any sense to me.