Terry's Technique Video

[itsnoteasy]

This is what Chris taught me Terry, if you line up center body , its your heal, thats on the line of aim(im sure we talked about it on the a day with Chris Small thread)he also put my bridge so that weight was even on both pads of my hand and put a nice bend in my bridge arm, this brought me more kind of over the shot, and made me rock solid straight away, as before i was kind of back on the shot and my hips were a bit wobbly, and i felt like i fell away to the right(being a lefty)sometimes.
If you can run the white over the spots at that pace consistently thats great for anyone i doubt many could do better.
sounds like your on the right track.

[vmax4steve]

I have to try and discover why my upper body moves to the right during the delivery and just before the strike. It's only about 3-4mm but that is WAY too much and I believe there is a cause and effect situation here with the upper body moving my brain tries to coordinate that and I end up going through right-to-left with my grip hand flying out to the right.

Terry

It could be that you unconsciously bring the shoulder into the shot as a result of forcing a definate follow through to the chest rather than playing freely from the elbow only and letting the momentum of the arm follow through naturally according to the pace of the stroke played.
Although your elbow is outside the line of aim it really shouldn't matter as long as the stroke is played from the elbow only, without any tightening of the grip hand, which will also cause the upper body movement you speak of, which is also an effect of playing from the shoulder.
All these things could be related to that forced follow through. Don't follow through deliberately to a certain point, don't deliberately stop the cue short at a certain point, just let the momentum of the stroke at whatever pace you play it give you the correct length of follow through.

[DandyA]

It could be that you unconsciously bring the shoulder into the shot as a result of forcing a definate follow through to the chest rather than playing freely from the elbow only and letting the momentum of the arm follow through naturally according to the pace of the stroke played.
Although your elbow is outside the line of aim it really shouldn't matter as long as the stroke is played from the elbow only, without any tightening of the grip hand, which will also cause the upper body movement you speak of, which is also an effect of playing from the shoulder.
All these things could be related to that forced follow through. Don't follow through deliberately to a certain point, don't deliberately stop the cue short at a certain point, just let the momentum of the stroke at whatever pace you play it give you the correct length of follow through.

I'm not sure whether the above applies to Terry (I'm not good enough to say) but nonetheless, I think this is very good advice from vmax ...

I used to worry about my amount of follow through but these days, I just concentrate on getting a really good contact as the cue-tip hits the white ... I call it a good "clunk" ... to get that, the cue must have followed through to some extent although how much, I'm not bothered about ...

if I'm playing badly, it's often because I'm not "clunking" well enough ... if I realise that's the problem, I'll use a swing thought of "good clunk" ...

got to go now ... the men in the white coats have noticed I've escaped from my straight jacket

[itsnoteasy]

It could be that you unconsciously bring the shoulder into the shot as a result of forcing a definate follow through to the chest rather than playing freely from the elbow only and letting the momentum of the arm follow through naturally according to the pace of the stroke played.
Although your elbow is outside the line of aim it really shouldn't matter as long as the stroke is played from the elbow only, without any tightening of the grip hand, which will also cause the upper body movement you speak of, which is also an effect of playing from the shoulder.
All these things could be related to that forced follow through. Don't follow through deliberately to a certain point, don't deliberately stop the cue short at a certain point, just let the momentum of the stroke at whatever pace you play it give you the correct length of follow through.

This is a very good point by VMax, it's a very fine line we tred to cue correctly, you can't be too relaxed that everything's wobbly, but just a tiny bit to much tension and the shoulder can come in, it has to be a positive but relaxed stroke, and it has to be a stroke(even at full pace)and not a hit I think this helps to get you that natural follow through, VMax is on about , instead of drive the hand to the chest , I say let the cue do the work.
Terry have you tried J6s matchbox test, I am so sad I do it all the time at home, I cue through a swan vesta box without hitting the sides, it's not the same as hitting a ball but I think it ingrains the muscle memory into your cue action.
Terry I don't think your stance advice was wrong , it's just like everything else, it won't fit everyone, age, height, build, long legged ,short arms, long backed,all these things and more must change people's stance.

[Terry Davidson]

itsnoteasy:

I agree there is no 'one size fits all' although I have always advocated having the grip hand directly over the straight leg foot somewhere between the toes and the arch or laces. It turns out (I think, I still have to confirm) that for me (6ft and reasonably slim) it probably should be the heel of the right foot so moving the right foot about 5" forward.

So far it appears this is forcing me to push my own butt out more and also more over to the left and that in turn is getting more weight on my left foot and side. I haven't yet confirmed via video analysis whether this has stopped that dreadful slide of the upper body to the right or not but will be doing that this morning.

I don't use a matchbox but I do use a plastic water bottle with an opening of somewhere around 15mm and cue into and out of the bottle. I do hit the side on a fast delivery but it's after the tip enters the bottle which is the same result I'm getting with a cueball and shooting the spots at top power.

As a Master Coach I do feel a little embarrassed about all this as I think I should able to at least deliver the cue straight under all powers and I will be working on just that over the next month or two...just delivering the cue consistently straight. Once I get that I will see how it's working under match conditions and whether there is any improvement as I didn't make it into the top 10 on last year's ranking list.

Terry

[humperdingle]

Just shows there's always room to learn.

[j6uk]

Would you put up a 5min video of you on the lineup?
Helpful for us to see how it works for you in real-time play.

I agree there is no 'one size fits all' although I have always advocated having the grip hand directly over the straight leg foot somewhere between the toes and the arch or laces. It turns out (I think, I still have to confirm) that for me (6ft and reasonably slim) it probably should be the heel of the right foot so moving the right foot about 5" forward.

Terry

[j6uk]

I use to use a small plastic water bottle and I practiced with it all the time. I got to the stage were I could do full power with my eyes closed on the back pause without touching the sides. I thought it was impressive at the time, till i calipered the hole, it was 20mm but it was the smallest bottle I could find.

I don't use a matchbox but I do use a plastic water bottle with an opening of somewhere around 15mm and cue into and out of the bottle. I do hit the side on a fast delivery but it's after the tip enters the bottle which is the same result I'm getting with a cueball and shooting the spots at top power.

Terry

[itsnoteasy]

Swan vesta box, the opening is only 13 mill(just measured it) that's the winner.
Absolutely nothing wrong in asking for help Terry, if Ronnie O Sullivan needs coaching I think it's ok for the rest of us, as for you thinking you should be able to fix it yourself the old saying of, a lawyer that defends himself ,has a fool for a client springs to mind, you need outside eyes to watch you, it's very hard to self correct otherwise we would all be banging in 147s, and have perfect cue actions.
I tried this today , belting the ball with enough power to go up and down five times, to be honest it wasn't too bad, some right over the spot others just to the right ,the odd one over a balls width out,but still to the right(which is strange as before it would always have been to the left) what I discovered was if I didn't really take time to aim properly and really make sure I dropped down straight with nose, and having that cue and bridge hand in the correct place as im getting down,that's when it went wrong, also keep locked on to chalk until I'm down on shot then switch eyes to cue ball.Dont know if any of this will help but it's all worth a try.

[j6uk]

With you there and work at it till you can do full power through to completion, not only without touching the sides but keeping it reasonably central
Something you never stop doing.

Swan vesta box, the opening is only 13 mill(just measured it) that's the winner..

[Terry Davidson]

itsnoteasy:

Despite what was said, I try to keep my eyes on the OB (or peg in this case) and drop the head straight down and not look at the cueball until my bridge hand is on the table and I'm in the address position. Not certain if it's because I've been doing this forever but the tip of the cue and 'V' of the bridge are always at centre-ball.

The only time I look at the cueball when getting down is if there are other balls nearby which I might foul. This is what I teach but a lot of students are tempted to look at the cueball and will lose the line of aim if they do so.

If you can get 4 lengths of the table and the cueball is within one ball's width of the brown spot AND the table is reasonably level then that is an excellent result. I can do that on my table here but not as consistently as I would like. It did help though when I moved my right foot a little more into the shot and had the heel under the grip hand.

J6uk:

Before I post another video I first want to work these coup[le of minor changes in. I note my upper body is still sliding to the right but it's less now, only about 2mm however the cue appears to be staying on the line of aim even though the head has moved right a bit. In addition I still have the grip hand moving out to the right and the tip to the left but it's a lot less now.

From these results I believe I still need to work a little bit more on this and see if I can get rid of all that lateral movement on the delivery. And by the way...I posted my video but I guess I missed your video posting you promised to do if I did one.

Terry

[humperdingle]

A small tube of 1/2" pipe mounted on some Blu-tac or putty might replicate the slight angle of a cue?

[vmax4steve]

it's a very fine line we tred to cue correctly, you can't be too relaxed that everything's wobbly, but just a tiny bit to much tension and the shoulder can come in, it has to be a positive but relaxed stroke, and it has to be a stroke(even at full pace)and not a hit I think this helps to get you that natural follow through, VMax is on about , instead of drive the hand to the chest , I say let the cue do the work.
Terry have you tried J6s matchbox test, I am so sad I do it all the time at home, I cue through a swan vesta box without hitting the sides, it's not the same as hitting a ball but I think it ingrains the muscle memory into your cue action.

For myself I open and close the fingers of the grip hand to coincide with the forwards and backwards movement of the cue. Open the fingers on the backstroke and close them on the forward stroke. It feels like the fingers of the hand are moving the cue, I don't feel my arm moving at all and I believe it's this that stops me bringing my shoulder into the stroke.
The hand closes completely about a balls width after contact with the cue ball and then the momentum of the stroke decides the amount of follow through. Also I have a very loose grip when playing low power shots but the grip firms up when playing with more power although the mechanics of the stroke remain the same. My elbow doesn't drop at all on the follow through, shoulder doesn't come into the stroke, the arm moving only from the elbow joint.
When I do the matchbox test I never touch the sides of the box, even with extreme power, so I know I have a perfectly straight cue action, but I fall down in real play simply by taking my eyes off the object ball which then takes the cue arm and the cue to wherever I happen to be looking.
It is my only real flaw, but a vital one that stops me making regular high breaks, and it's simply down to such a narrow window in my timing, ie: getting the eyes focussed on the contact point of the object ball at the exact moment of the strike while playing at speed.
It's that split second when you are looking up at the object ball, focussing your vision and actually see the contact point and then strike. Too soon and I miss as I'm not actually seeing the contact point, delay and my eyes have moved elsewhere and I miss.

At the moment I'm experimenting with working out a number count in my mind as I focus to try to determine just how long it takes for me to see the contact point and it seems to be a count of "one thousand two" and then strike when in close, and "one thousand two thousand three" and then strike when at distance.
BTW,
if anyone else wants to try this the backswing is on the count of two when in close, for that is the moment I see the contact point, and on three when at distance, and the focussing and counting is being done on the front pause. I also count in my mind "thousand" as I play the stroke and I also have no feathers prior to the stroke.
My league form over the summer has been quite good using this method so for now I'm going to stick with it and see if my form continues or gets better.

[j6uk]

I wouldn't worry to much tel, you can only play this game and really passover info that's within your true understanding of it. Anyone can be a Master Coach and you 'may just be' far too concerned with these titles on a piece of paper that you got from these courses you went on.
I really am fond of most the interactive members on tsf and, IMO you should just take what you have, remember were you came from and develop you game from here..

The Bridge is so important: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VcIaDGBkZHs

As a Master Coach I do feel a little embarrassed about all this as I think I should able to at least deliver the cue straight under all powers and I will be working on just that over the next month or two...just delivering the cue consistently straight. Once I get that I will see how it's working under match conditions and whether there is any improvement as I didn't make it into the top 10 on last year's ranking list.

Terry

[Byrom]

It looks like an alignment issue Terry.
I think your stance isn't wide enough, left foot needs to be wider and further forward to bring the body around to get the elbow more behind the line of aim. This will bring your stance to one where the chest isn't in the way of the follow through at all and the left eye will drop naturally over the line of aim without you having to turn your head.

Also what were you looking at when doing this exercise ?
It looks like you are looking at the cue ball when getting down into your stance but focussing on a target at the moment of the strike.
You yourself state that looking at the object ball (target) when getting down into the stance is the right way to go but you don't seem to be doing it yourself.

This is very good advice me thinks