Ive lost my way feel like giving up

[Ossie]

LOL...

Love that idea of speeding up...........

We should all become Tony Drago's for a few minutes...

Great tip ace man....

[alabadi]

but just grippi9ng the cue in a different place so it always to chest?

i have never heard anyone changing where they hold the cue, most will hold it at the same place so that when in the address position your forearm is 90 degrees to the floor and your grip hand is directly above your straight stance foot. your hand should still hit the chest in the same place.

the only time i would change the grip position is when tight on a cushion or awkward bridging over balls.

if you want to vary the power some say use different backswing lengths and others would say keep the backswing constant and vary the acceleration like Ronnie O'Sullivan does. the choice is yours, but changing the grip might be too many variations which could lead to inconsistencies.

i'll leave this to Terry and other coaches to explain in more detail

Alabbadi

[Terry Davidson]

greatwhite:

Alabadi has it correct. You should NEVER grip the cue in a different spot except for near the cushion or cueing over balls. You should also not vary the length of cue past the 'V' of the bridge except when the balls are close together (inside of 8" or so) and also cushion and over balls.

The amount of power you can develop will come from the length of the backswing or if you use a long backswing all the time then the rate of acceleration. The forearm should always be vertical and directly over the foot, which should be turned out a bit to relieve strain on the ankle and knee.

Terry

[j6uk]

In and around the black end of the table I stay quite compact but, when it comes to mid to long range I would open up and that would mean shuffle my hand back by half to a finger full

[greatwhite]

thanks again terry for all your help and advice,
I know im pushing it but if you could
what would be the best solo practice I could do for 3hrs,
I normally do
nics stretching doug mountjoys exercise,for 5 mins,
then I will do the line up as a warm up for 15mins,
then straight long blues from baulk all four pockets out of 10,(technique)
the I line up 15 reds across the middle them pot the from baulk straight,
1st is follow through with the white going in aswell,
next is stun, the deep screw to the baulk cushion, until all 15 reds have been potted normal 30-40mins some time im there for 10 shots on deep screw,
then I will do the T shape pink and reds practice,
then the colors on there spots, black to yellow and repeat,
then I will work on 6 reds and blacks around the blacks spot each red freeing the next,
then some long potting from baulk to hold or run through for black or pink,
then I have 30 mins working on different positional shots, eg blue in and out of baulk with checkside running side etc,
all this takes 2-3 hrs,
then 4 nights a week a play different players,
do you think it would be wise just to concentrate on simple postion and the line up to really drill in technique,
and go back to basics?
like black off spot and so on?
by the way I think I have found a way to increase my concentration and steady my nerves,
heres the link
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wAy_3Ssyqqg
bought the book and been practising for a few weeks sounds mad I know,
but I do feel what happens off the table does effect me on the table,
hope to hear from you soon and many thanks terry,

[j6uk]

Welcome to tsf. I remember when I was were your at now, many years ago..
You got an lot going on in your practice sessions
Have you ever had coaching from a reputable coach?

thanks again

[Byrom]

My concentration must be worse than yours because I could only bare to listen to 2 and a half minutes of that waffle on your you tube clip.

THAT'S 2 AND A HALF MINUTES OF MY LIFE I WILL NEVER GET BACK AGAIN!!

[alabadi]

thanks again terry for all your help and advice,
I know im pushing it but if you could
what would be the best solo practice I could do for 3hrs,
I normally do
nics stretching doug mountjoys exercise,for 5 mins,
then I will do the line up as a warm up for 15mins,
then straight long blues from baulk all four pockets out of 10,(technique)
the I line up 15 reds across the middle them pot the from baulk straight,
1st is follow through with the white going in aswell,
next is stun, the deep screw to the baulk cushion, until all 15 reds have been potted normal 30-40mins some time im there for 10 shots on deep screw,
then I will do the T shape pink and reds practice,
then the colors on there spots, black to yellow and repeat,
then I will work on 6 reds and blacks around the blacks spot each red freeing the next,
then some long potting from baulk to hold or run through for black or pink,
then I have 30 mins working on different positional shots, eg blue in and out of baulk with checkside running side etc,
all this takes 2-3 hrs,
then 4 nights a week a play different players,
do you think it would be wise just to concentrate on simple postion and the line up to really drill in technique,
and go back to basics?
like black off spot and so on?
by the way I think I have found a way to increase my concentration and steady my nerves,
heres the link
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wAy_3Ssyqqg
bought the book and been practising for a few weeks sounds mad I know,
but I do feel what happens off the table does effect me on the table,
hope to hear from you soon and many thanks terry,

In my opinion you have way too many different routines for a 2-3 hours practice session, you should pick 2 or three of them at most. i myself can spend 2 hours just on one either long blues or line ups.

its not about how many routines you do its the quality of the practice. you need to have a goal before you start any practice routine. whats your aim, jumping from one to another just to pass time will get you no where. you need to set targets, so for instance if your best long blues from the baulk line is 5 you try and beat it to get 6 or 7, so you keep practicing that until you can acheive it ( not once but regular). if you can't you will have to look at the reasons why, maybe its too difficult, maybe your straight cueing is off, whatever is stopping you from progressing.

so maybe move the cueball closer, if you can achieve 7-8 out of 10 regular, then move the cueball a few inches back and try again.

you can see that this routine alone can take hours, what you have listed above would take me a month to go through, 15-20 mins each routine is just not going to get you anywhere unless you are getting 10/10 on everything then i would say they are too easy and you need to do something different.

a good idea would be to have a log book and every time you go to solo practice you pick a routine to do say 40 mins and you record you results, i would do in a 3 hour session no more than 3 routines (remember you need to have at least 10-15 mins break between routines) so three 40 mins = 120 minutes plus 30 mins rest between routines almost 3 hours. and i would devide your routines into skills and then pick one routine per skilll.

so i would have one for concentration, another for technique and a third for cue ball control. i would then every time i go to practice do three routines one for each skill until i am competent at it, then i would just do three more routines and so on.

you can see it takes a long time to get good at this game rushing will do no good, your routines need to have targets and they need to be for a purpose otherwise you will not improve at the rate you should. i hope some of this information will help as it did me.

alabbadi

[Terry Davidson]

greatwhite:

You do have an awful lot of practice routines there and all of them are good but I would say vary it somewhat and divide them up a bit so you're only doing 2 or 3 of them each day.

The line-up is good although 15mins doesn't give you a lot of time. I will normally do the line-up with a target of making 2x 100 breaks and sometimes this takes me 20 minutes or more and sometimes up to an hour if I'm playing badly. Continuous blacks off the spot with a definite target is good too. Try it and see how many you do and that becomes the target you have to beat, so if you do 5 the first time and it was only 5mins then repeat it and set a target of 7 or so and build from there.

Running the colours is all well and good but unless you have 2 good players the colours are rarely on their spots at the end of a frame but it does teach you some positional play but there is a lot of repeat positions and I assume you place the cueball by hand at the start. Better to put one of the colours in a difficult position or else mix it up a bit and put the blue on the black spot and vice-versa.

For players who are not running steady 50 breaks in a normal frame I strongly recommend working on the basics each day. Start by just cueing slowly along the baulkline without any balls and watching the ferrule for straightness, then shooting the spots 5 times using different power. Then pink off spot and try rolling the cueball to the edge of the pocket then screw back to middle. Do not do each of these exercvises for a long time but set a definite target for yourself and that should be number of times but can also be time limited.

Next, do the line-up for a set period of time or beating your target, whichever comes first. Then do some regular frames, practicing your break-off shot and getting the cueball on the baulk cushion behind the green (or yellow if a lefty). Play the frames as if you were in a match, using safety where required. This way the colours will get a little messed up and it will mirror a real frame.

Terry

[j6uk]

Roll the balls out willy nilly all over the table, pot them indiscriminately and see if you can clear all 21. I'd start with a long pot, If I missed one I'd put two back on the table. An old simple classic taught to me by first coach Henry West.
He also showed me the sweet spots on the cue ball and table. Tony Hitchins walked me through the table patterns..
The good ol days