Something to learn from this

[Sidd]

I just came back out of a full week of a bad patch. This thing kills but is always there. i fear it always but cant get rid of it. i have been playing for a lot of years and I know I should not be doing the things I do when playing bad but well this negative thinking and negative frame of mind captures me for good when playing bad. What to do...

I was playing bad and struggling to get a single ball to the pocket... I even missed a three quarters black when it was 8 inches from the pocket and the cue ball was another 6 inches from the black .. can you imagine missing that after playing for 12 years... I did miss it.

Went and did some solo and found out crazily enough that during teh match I wasnt doign two things and I did in solo:

1. backswing was faster
2. no good back pause

these two things were making me rush the shot and hence missing and totally destroyed timing.

Kept that in mind but my brain kept saying bad grip (AGAIN) so I kept concentrating on the grip and played bad bad bad then I trained my brain to acknowledge that the grip needs to be loose and thats it so when I forgot I got a chance to concentrate on front pause, slower backswing and good final back pause and also switching of the eyes and locking them on OB... this helped improve a lot of things... In the end timing improved and I came out only yesterday with mini breaks of 30s and 20s (yes i was that bad that a break of 30 seems like something huge)... !!!

another factor- changed my tip last night and played with a newly tipped and shaped tip. That could have been the reason as well but mostly I was missing and getting negative thoughts and that ruined...

Lesson: only one way to get out of a bad patch i.e. keep trying keep trying and keep trying. While playing bad and missing you tend ot become negative and that is when bad things creep up and you do not play with you normal and full cue action but rush things...!!!

[Terry Davidson]

Sidd:

It's good you worked your way out, however you said one thing I would rather see you forget about when playing and that is BAD GRIP.

Except for having the grip too tight THERE ARE NO BAD GRIPS REALLY. Any grip configuration which allows a player to accelerate through the cueball in a straight line is the perfect grip for that player.

When playing bad the main points to look for are:
1. Upper body movement on the shot.
2. Tightening the grip prematurely thus DECELERATING through the cueball.
3. Not having the eyes locked on the object ball at time of strike.
4. Getting the shoulder into the shot (dropping the elbow) too early and before the strike.
5. Not keeping the head/upper body still AFTER THE CUEBALL HAS BEEN STRUCK all the way to the end of the stroke.

Terry

[Sidd]

Sidd:

It's good you worked your way out, however you said one thing I would rather see you forget about when playing and that is BAD GRIP.

Except for having the grip too tight THERE ARE NO BAD GRIPS REALLY. Any grip configuration which allows a player to accelerate through the cueball in a straight line is the perfect grip for that player.

When playing bad the main points to look for are:
1. Upper body movement on the shot.
2. Tightening the grip prematurely thus DECELERATING through the cueball.
3. Not having the eyes locked on the object ball at time of strike.
4. Getting the shoulder into the shot (dropping the elbow) too early and before the strike.
5. Not keeping the head/upper body still AFTER THE CUEBALL HAS BEEN STRUCK all the way to the end of the stroke.

Terry

Thanks for the advice Terry. I will keep these in mind. And yes after experimenting a lot I have found out that i can play good and bad with different forms of grip so I am sure now that it is just the pressure on the grip that is important to be left loose until after striking the CB.

Thanks again !