Black cut backs with bottom

[Terry Davidson]

I'm not a coach (not even a good player really) - so don't take anything I say as gospel.

All I know is that after years of playing (badly) I've made the most progress ever over the past 8 / 9 months since a pal of mine showed me the benefits of a light / loose grip, a slow, full back swing and letting the cue flow through rather than feeling tight and powering the cue through.

All I will say is don't adjust your aim to compensate for a bit of hiccup in your technique. Get to the bottom of the underlying issue. And for that I'd find a good coach, pay £20 or so for a session and he should put your right.

Both this comment and the one above by Markz (#29) are good advice. There is a general term used to get to the underlying cause of a problem which I used with Nic when he was training me and which he hadn't heard of. It's called 'root cause analysis' and means you have to dig down into your technique and try and discover the basic cause of the problem. Going to a good coach is one way and if you understand snooker technique well then doing video analysis on yourself will also help.

Tightening the grip too early and decelerating the cue is a very common fault and this is why most coaches advocate a loose grip, so that it takes longer to tighten the grip during the delivery. With video analysis and using Kinovea you can set the camera up on your grip hand side and then do frame-by-frame analysis and see just when your grip tightens. A high speed camera helps with this as it's very hard to see at 30 frames per second since it's just a big blur. I have a GoPro camera here that can get 120fps and that really helped me as I was unconsciously tightening the grip, especially on higher power shots.

Every player should find a grip which will allow him to keep it looser until after the strike. It can be any configuration (1st finger, 1st & 2nd finger, middle 2 fingers, back 3 fingers or back 2 fingers) it doesn't really matter as whatever it takes you should not tighten that grip until after the strike. If we use the 'root cause analysis' it's not actually tightening the grip on power shots that is the root cause, it's actually the wrist joint turning a bit while the player is tightening the grip. ANY movement of the wrist joint takes the butt of the cue off-line.

On lower power shots the tightening of the grip will decelerate the cue through the strike and this is why you will see players missing easy shots where they're just rolling the ball. They don't drive the grip hand through to the chest but rather stop it short, 'clutching' the cue is the term.