Snooker Forum Advice Killed my game!! but Im back :)

[Leapfrog11]

Hi all

Before I got serious about snooker I was a decent enough player won 3 h"cap tournaments
and was considered a tough opponent.

Last March I decided I would dedicate myself to the game so I looked on the net for advice
on how to bring my game to another level and I came across the Snooker Forum.

I took on board all the advice on the Bridge, Stance, Front Pause, Back Pause, Keep Still,
Follow through etc, etc.

My game suffered dramatically, I found it hard to pot routine balls while thinking about all the various
things I was supposed to do.

My natural flow had gone and I was almost robot like taking a shot and taking too much time on the shot.
I was beginning to fall out of love with the game.

1 month ago I decided to try and get back to basics and to try and forget everything I had read on the
forum. It was a battle!

This week it has finally clicked, my natural flow is back, my positional play has improved dramatically and I
am hitting 50+ breaks in practice regularly.

I am excited about playing the game again

Has anyone else suffered from over thinking and over analysing their game?

[CfcMicky]

Buddy I wouldn't say it was down to the forum at all.

I used to teach Martial Arts and would encourage folk to read up on stuff to supplement what they were practicing and being taught. Then I would make them practice over and over what I had taught whilst I scrutinised them for faults, for their own good. Some maybe lucky and learn from a book but most teachers would doubt that when it comes to them arts.

I would not expert someone to turn into a black belt at Karate by reading a book or the internet.

A reputable coach to point out stuff and a bit more studying and investigation maybe to memorise the techniques of ABC-123 sort of thing too and repeating where you have gone wrong until you have it right might be a better approach.

That's what I had to do when it came to Snooker in the end- read this, read that, watched this, watched that- but got no-where. But what I do know is only a coach and not a boozed up buddy with a '1' break- or any amount of reading I do is gonna be any substitute for a good coach who can even spot your eyeballs flick the wrong way; elbow- wrist, backside, whatever, before, during or even after a shot, even for a split second! Then the forum becomes an absolute goldmine of information :snooker:

[jb134]

Yes. If you look a few threads down, you'll see that.

[CfcMicky]

Hey Leapfrog, do you know a little pub on the ballyheigue beach front called Kirbys? Does a lovely pint of Harp!

[CfcMicky]

Yes. If you look a few threads down, you'll see that.

I must say the amount I have learned so far on this forum in every respect is priceless! Long may it continue, it's restored my faith in the game as well

[Leapfrog11]

Buddy I wouldn't say it was down to the forum at all.

I used to teach Martial Arts and would encourage folk to read up on stuff to supplement what they were practicing and being taught. Then I would make them practice over and over what I had taught whilst I scrutinised them for faults, for their own good. Some maybe lucky and learn from a book but most teachers would doubt that when it comes to them arts.

I would not expert someone to turn into a black belt at Karate by reading a book or the internet.

A reputable coach to point out stuff and a bit more studying and investigation maybe to memorise the techniques of ABC-123 sort of thing too and repeating where you have gone wrong until you have it right might be a better approach.

That's what I had to do when it came to Snooker in the end- read this, read that, watched this, watched that- but got no-where. But what I do know is only a coach and not a boozed up buddy with a '1' break- or any amount of reading I do is gonna be any substitute for a good coach who can even spot your eyeballs flick the wrong way; elbow- wrist, backside, whatever, before, during or even after a shot, even for a split second! Then the forum becomes an absolute goldmine of information :snooker:

I went to a coach and he told me to change nothing at all because I was potting the balls.
Too much info is a bad thing Karate Kid

[CfcMicky]

I went to a coach and he told me to change nothing at all because I was potting the balls.
Too much info is a bad thing Karate Kid

lol

I'm no kid anymore but taught MMA/ cage. Was just using Karate as an example! A coach says change nothing at all and you get a 50 break. Well you don't really need this site then anymore do you. You wouldn't want it to ruin your game again now would you?

[Samcheung001]

You can't request Alex Higgins to play in the form as Steve Davis and achieve the same result. Therefore, all you need should be fine tunning, if required, instead of totally changing your form.

[CfcMicky]

Agreed- I would take any advice to improve even if meant twisting my nuts back to front! Fine tuning is the key- not don't change! Even pros have been known top pop back to the coach to correct a new peculiar bad habit from time to time. I'm Sure Terry Griff would back me up there. You can never have enough info! Knowledge is power don't forget!

[ferret]

Members in the coaching section of the site offer some great advice but all of the advice in the world can not supplement coaching from a real person, you are analysing what is wrong with your game from the first person perspective and this means that you can not see 90% of what you may be doing wrong and the 10% you bring to the forum and ask for help with you may actually be doing correctly but it is one of the things you are doing wrong and can not see that is effecting the thing you are doing correctly and asking advice for to change.

If you followed that last bit then I salute you

Let me give you a real world example, a guy down my local club said he had problems with his cue action and that he was striking across the cue ball so I had a look at how he was playing and he was correct he had a left to right swing in his action but what he did not see was that his stance was actually incorrect, I got him to change the way he was standing and it was as subtle as moving his left foot 2 inches back and 15 Degrees counter clock wise to line up with his shot, this gave him a more sturdy stance and moved his right shoulder forward and the natural moving line around to the left, this got rid of the left to right swing he had and was causing cueing problems.

If he had come onto the forum and asked questions about his cueing going wrong there would of only been two people I can think of on here that could diagnose this from a written description of him cueing across the ball so he would probably not of got the answer he was looking for and he may have had bad advice, which is no fault of the people who give advice on the forum as 99.9% the advice is very good and I hope that the coaching section on the site has helped hundreds of people over the 10+ years we have been running.

My best advice, if you can not find a good local coach and you have to ask questions on TSF then get a friend to film you playing and post the video up on here and ask for advice, it does not matter if you do not have the best quality video on your phone, you will be surprised at how much more information you can get as a coach from just a few seconds of video.

I just want to add something else which comes from this quote

I found it hard to pot routine balls while thinking about all the various
things I was supposed to do.

If you are thinking about everything then you have not learnt anything!

Do not try to learn everything at once because you will fail, take things step by step.

I never really played Snooker too seriously like some of my friends did when growing up but when it came to the time that I wanted to learn a little more the first piece of advice I ever took was from Chris Henry, he told me that he could see more than a dozen things that I needed to learn just to cover the basics (Yeah I was that bad) so he gave me one thing to practice and it was gripping the cue properly and he shown me a neat little trick for learning this too.

So after 5 minutes I asked him what next, he said ok now lets adjust your stance, get your head down more on the shot, make sure you have the contact points done correctly, lets get your bridge done properly and we need to make sure you are sighting down the cue correctly, so we done all that then he told me to approach the table and play a shot. How much do you think I forgot? yep all of it, this is when he told me to keep practicing my grip until I done it correctly without thinking about it then we would move on to the next stage, he also said it does not matter that you are doing everything else incorrectly as everything will come in to place in time if I just take things one step at a time.

[j6uk]

i think if you were more active on tsf back in march leapfrog i'm sure you would of got more out of it.. there's a lot of ego waffle here, so the key is to wash off the poo, cut off the fat, and get the quality meat.
i'v had four coaches in my time and i know its one step back and two step forwards when changing things and trying to improve, so really you would need a coach at the table if your serious about becoming a good player.

[Sidd]

Ferret: well written and explained. Couldn't have been better.

Leapfrog: You are not alone in this my dear. In fact I am bigger victim than you. But not because of the forum as this forum is a precious thing for snooker lovers like us. You must understand that apart from coaches and senior players, people like me are also around who post their experiences, try to learn and try to help others in the process. I used to knock in many balls before coming on to this forum and after being here i suffered the same.

However, the reason for suffering is not the forum, it is yourself trust me. When I used to play on my own I played well for a few days and then I was down to zero in the next few and that kept repeating over and over again. So my reason for coming here was to seek advice on being consistent. However, when I came here I learnt about the pre-shot routine, stance, grip, bridge, elbow drop, eyes on BOB... now many of these things I was doing beforehand however I was doing them unconsciously and in snooker when you play through the subconscious you play like a devil and whenever during a shot you are being reminded by your brain about technique your game suffers. As simple as that.

People have been advising me two most important elements in this regard;

1. Technique thinking in practice and not in matches (I have failed this and think about technique during matches too and hence cant play well)
2. Learning one thing at a time only (failed this too.. I was too eager to learn quickly)

Everything takes time mate so no worries. Once you learn the grip for instance or shall I say find out a grip that suits you then you need ot give it hours and hours of practice time to cement in in to your gameplay and only then shall it start happening for you subconsciously during a match. For instance, I posted my video, which you should too as Ferret rightly pointed out, and so Terry saw and examined it and told my I was twisting my wrist on delivery and so he suggested a wrist cock and I experimented with it. It did not feel natural at first but then I got used to it and now I have learnt another thing that rather than cocking my wrist out a lot I can keep the back of my palm on the cue butt at address and try to bring it back in that position during delivery and after the backswing ... that helps. So you see after learning this I tried it for a couple of days and thought it is not working .. that is a wrong approach and it will start working after many many hours... that is the secret here.

Also another thing is that not every advice is for everyone... post your video and then look out for the sincere analysis put in here by coaches and senior players and then make a list of most important things. When I did it there were many things pointed out but I only picked up THREE most important elements and sorted out those for me. Another thing is that you cant stop your own thought process and working of the brain. People will say many things but it is up to you to find out what works best for you and also what advice is important to be taken and which is can be put aside if not ignored.

As Nic Barrow always says:

1. AWARENESS is important. Before putting a change ask yourself what benefit would it have and how would it change the problem I am trying to remove.

2. WHY am I playing bad is negative... forget it... HOW can I play good- concentrate on this and find out why you are not cueing straight.

That said buddy I am not a good player... more of a whisky priest yeah... I cant adopt what I say here cuz my mind too is full of thoughts all the time on the table. However, I am trying... I could have decided to remain off the forum and play casual game throughout the rest of my life and remain a mid-sandard player forever, which I still am. However, in his coaching video Terry Griffiths says that for players of a 60 break standard 80% of their problems are in the grip and so this line stuck to me and this is the very reason why I have become a grip freak because dude I want to make a century break in this life and then carry on making them more and more in matches...

While changing your set up or learning something new and incorporating it in your game you will have to give it time and hours of practice... ! that is the key.

Just my 2 pence... hope that helps !

[Thinslice]

hi, when you change anything be it your stance or cueing it will feel strange till you get used to it ,then after a while you will do it without thinking about it .At first your game will suffer but then if the changes are what you needed you will improve.like a new pair of shoes they feel strange at first then when you have worn them for a while you forget about them being new .

[Leapfrog11]

Ferret, Sidd and Thinslice thanks very much for the good advice.

It is all beginning to make sense to me now, for instance before I went on the forum I didnt have a rear
pause and now I do it naturally which works well for me.

I have kept bits of advice and got rid of some advice in my game and it is working ok for me at the moment.

I now understand what ye are saying, fine tuning is the key.

I must put a video together, had 7 frames tonight won 5-2 highest break was 20 Shocking stuff!!

Many thanks
Leapfrog

Many thanks

[j6uk]

what is beginning to make sense to you?
why do you now have a rear pause?
and what advice did you get rid of?

Ferret, Sidd and Thinslice thanks very much for the good advice.

It is all beginning to make sense to me now, for instance before I went on the forum I didnt have a rear
pause and now I do it naturally which works well for me.

I have kept bits of advice and got rid of some advice in my game and it is working ok for me at the moment.

I now understand what ye are saying, fine tuning is the key.

I must put a video together, had 7 frames tonight won 5-2 highest break was 20 Shocking stuff!!

Many thanks
Leapfrog

Many thanks