Best coaching tip for me in 10 years

[chas6868]

Just wanted to let anyone know about this one,most out there will already know it but it helped me out loads.

Been playing for 11 year now and played 6 years before with a 10 years break away from the game,got my own table and always trying to get a bit better and working on my game .

When in stance do your normal thing,looking at line ect,as you go down on the shot do not waggle your cue,keep it still on the line of aim and address the tip to the c/ball still no movement, Then start your normal cueing- see if this helps you?? normally I would do a set pause on the cue ball - then pull back to a back pause, looking at the objectball then hit,you may do somethin else,all I know is that the no waggles of the cue as you bend in to play has improved my long potting ,been doing this for 5 weeks now, is it a purple patch time will tell.

I would say higgins does this most,tried it before but was hard to get use to and put a bit or rythem in also,but have stuck with it and seem to be all good for me anyway.

Give it a go,might be what you need,might not??

Cheers Charles

[damienlch]

Thanks for the sharing Charles.

Many players have this front pause either when they get down on their stance to address the cue ball or just before their final pull back before delivering the cue through. As you have pointed out, Higgins is more deliberate with this front pause.

It does help me to focus my concentration on the shot. I have to be more conscious about this as I sometimes lose this front pause somehow when I get too preoccupied with the other aspects of the game.

Good tip...

[poona]

Yes Andrew Highfield got this introduced into my game; it's amazing how much it helps! Found my game enhanced right away using this!

[sberry]

Provided you can deliver the cue straightly and know your angles and how to pot a ball and can play difficult positional shots, everything else is purely psychological in my opinion. The less mentally strong players self doubt more often and need more encouragement and are more suscptible to suggestions that really are just a different colour shirt but will work precisely because you feel better with it.

That said, it's as valid a way of getting someone's cue delivery right, if it does the job.

Just my thoughts, over to the coaches...

[thelongbomber]

It's a good tip and worth sharing. But, do you actually know EXACTLY why it works? May I suggest a possible answer?

Everyone is trying to achieve this in the game of snooker: make all balls. Well how do we make all balls? Of course, nobody makes all balls but some of the top pros get close. Anyways, the hope is that we are in the right position mechanically every single time for every single shot and that we cue absolutely straight and with perfect pace. That's the ideal. The right position, specifically referring to having our cue and back hand directly ON the shot line. The shot line being the horizontal lazer beam line that the cue is meant to travel along in order to strike the cue ball in such a way as to achieve desired results. Of course, when playing without left/right spin, this is also the same line where the cue ball will go but it's important to understand that the shot line we stand behind when looking down a shot becomes the CUE line, not the CUE BALL line. It's a crucial distinction.

We play this game with our eyes. When we stand behind a shot, analyze, measure, and calculate, we are hoping that we can execute when we are down on the table. Approaching the table, we do our best to put our cue on the shot line. Most amateurs do this walk-in unconsciously but eventually have to break it down later on in their game because the aren't achieving the desired results or plateau somewhere. I perform my walk in much more consciously now than I did before because I understand the nuances involved.

Assuming we intend to play the shot without left/right spin, if we don't put our cue directly on the centre ball shot line, then a familiar result occurs - the infamous dip. It's that bad dip when we know we did something wrong with our cue action to miss the ball and we know our cue went offline somewhere in the delivery. All snooker players understand the dip phenomena. When we dip, what happens is that our eyes reprogram the back hand during final cue delivery, and the cue dips in one or more directions - north, south, east, west - to compensate in such a way that we can still make the cue ball travel the line we intended for it.

Now let's talk about waggles and feathering, given the info above. To understand the purpose of feathering is to ask yourself: If your cue and eyes are perfectly placed on the shot line, do we need to feather at all? What is feathering really for then? I'm going to go out on a limb in the rest of this paragraph. A clue to the answer is Ronnie OSullivan. When he is playing "out of skin", he looks at the cue ball when feathering and in many cases, DOES NOT look at the object ball during the feathering/waggles at all. Aiming pretty much requires that you look at the cue ball and the object ball together flicking your eyes up/down several times. So if you are not looking at the object ball, then you aren't aiming, you are doing something else. The big aha comes when you ask, What is he doing? Why would Ronnie OSullivan put so much mental/visual focus into the cue ball during waggles? That question again can be understood by looking at how Ronnie maneuvers the cue ball around - one if his signature abilities. All the focus/energy for the cue ball when he is down is designed to make sure he strikes the cue ball exactly as intended so that he gets the reaction he wants AFTER MAKING the the object ball. You see, Ronnie already knows he is perfectly in line and will make the object ball. That isn't questioned. How is this possible? Because Ronnie has worked hard on his mechanical approach to the table making sure he is inline and centered each time. It's not a fluke that Ronnie can play the game left/right handed. He worked at it likely to understand aiming and pace control all along.

Don't take my word for what I have gleaned and understood about waggles. What I see of Ronnie is only from trying to understand the nuances and nature of cue action. Now, I believe I can make a suggestion about why things are working for you Charles. Back to your situation: It's a possibility that by NOT waggling any more on the way down INTO your shot, you have started to aim your cue and body just that little bit more precisely. Thus your eyes and mind are no longer thinking about waggles/aiming/cue ball on the way down. This has increased your pot success which of course goes back to the first sentence I stated above: everyone is trying to achieve the same thing in snooker. Make all balls.

Hope that adds something!

[chas6868]

Thanks for your reply,

Yes Its just a thing anyone can try and see how they get on with it,if it works good,if not bin it
Ive read 20 or so books and seen just about every dvd you can get,on snooker and pool over the years.what I would say to anyone trying to improve is,there are lots of ways to play the game dont take any advice from one person as the only way to play ie a steve davis book and copy everything he says.
Take bits from here and there and get what works for you.