alignment problem

[highestbreak50]

Hi

I recently been practicing atleast 3 hours /day 5 days a week for the past 16 months consistently, and been playing this game for the past 5 years on/off.

however i have improved my game alot, and recently i post another thread here, "once the grip hits the chest the tip of the cue goes to the left " NOW.... i thought it could have been the reason that i am missing alot .

but recently i saw my coach and told him that i have been practicing hard and not improving. so we found out the problem however he guided my how to fix it but i am not convinced as i am still facing that problem :

Now: what was the problem that we found?
problem: I have sighting and alignment problem

i miss all the balls to the left of the pocket consistently, so here is what my coach did to find out the problem.

put the black on its spot, pot the white on brown spot, and put 2 chalks on the cushion so the butt of the cue was in the middle of the 2 chalks. asked me to play up and down and hit the black with the lazer attached to the cue pointing on the black.

result: the lazer was aiming to the right of the black consistently and i couldnt not hit the black full ball, and the butt of the cue was very close to the left chalk.

now here is the sighting problem for me:
the coach managed to move my lower body , leg position and uppper body and we were successful to align the cue right in the middle of the 2 chalks, however to me it was looking that the black is not dead straight, even though the cue, chalk, everything is right in the middle of the table, but i sight it like i am aiming in the left side of the black this time.

once again i moved the butt of the cue towards the left chalk, and to me i was perfectly on line with black.

i cue in the middle of my chin, and i asked my coach about dominant eye, he ignored it and said dont mess with dominant eye.

End problem:
now i know why my game is not improving , its because i always aim to the right side of the object ball, and the butt of the cue is towards the left chalk if i check my alignment. but this way white and object looks very straight to me. and if i fix my alignment and put the butt of the cue right in the middle of the chalks via changing my body position then my eyes will no longer accept the straightness of the cueball and object ball.

Should i stick to what my coach told me and keep practicing up and down and fixing the alignment even if the object ball looks not straight to me? bcaz maybe i have been playing with wrong alignment for a long time and i am used to seeing a wrong line as a straight line?
or does it have to do anything with my head position or dominant eye?
today i played 3 hours of up and down with correct alignment ( putting the butt of the cue right in between 2 chalks ) but even after 3 hours, my eyes were still telling me that the black is not straight with cueball and i am aiming to the left side of it

i hope you understand however here is just an example of what i mean
sorry the video sound isnt clear, plz ignore it if you cant hear my voice clearly

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ELny...ature=youtu.be
snooker alignment2.jpg

[Shockerz]

I get where you are coming from.

I too am right handed, right eye dominant and place the cue under my right eye. The cue tip goes to the left after the shot and I have also looked to see if it is after the cue strikes the cue ball and it is but only by about an inch and a half so difficult to say with any real certainty.

I have video'd it and hits buckets of blues etc. but here's the thing with me.

I can miss blue after blue off the spot and then switch the cue to my chin (opposite to you) and then pot blue after blue so hey presto, a solution.

I can come in the next day and miss every shot and then put the cue back under my right eye and pot blue after blue, madness.

I have tried sticking to the right eye (2 1/2 years (ish)), then the chin (6 months) but I always end up missing the longer shots consistently (I am fine in the balls and have cleared the line up etc).

So, I am still searching for what it might be. Most breaks at a certain standard start with a decent length shot to get in and that's what is costing me dearly, no point if you are good in the balls if you cannot get in!

Yesterday (cue under chin), I shortened my feather and just pushed right through with grip hand over right foot and then take my stance with the cue point at the point of aim and then dropped onto the cue. My sighting even felt like everything looked straight. The grip hand felt like it had gone miles up the line of aim and was at the chest with no bounce whatsoever.

Generally with reds across the blue line (middle of table) and the white across the baulk line I would get 5 in a good day and 2 on a poor day but generally I experience a poor day (even if I am getting 100's at the line up).

Yesterday after losing 6-1 with the cue under my right eye, I went on the other table, chucked the cue under my chin and knocked in 27 out of 30 and couldn't miss, the rhythm felt awesome,, the sighting looked straighter than it has ever been, timing was spot on and I was doing it for fun with the other players just staring at me continuously potting long balls; it was a shoot til you miss scenario.

Now I know from experience that when someone says 27 out of 30 it normally means 15 like when people say I had 10 pints last night and it was really 6, well it was 27 which is a ridiculous standard.

Now when I go out later tonight and If I grab some time to do it using the same method and I hit 6 out of 30 you can imagine where my head will be as it's been there the last few years.

I feel your pain but don't go down the trial and error route like me.

You need a separate set of eyes to see what you are doing until it's cured or you will always be tinkering (like me).

From playing, you cannot see if your leg and arm is straight down, you know your grip hand hits your chest but cannot see when and you cannot see the complete action unless you keep videoing (but I bet your action possibly changes in each session as you are searching and testing).

Long post but I would think carefully before you move the cue!

[highestbreak50]

I get where you are coming from.

I too am right handed, right eye dominant and place the cue under my right eye. The cue tip goes to the left after the shot and I have also looked to see if it is after the cue strikes the cue ball and it is but only by about an inch and a half so difficult to say with any real certainty.

I have video'd it and hits buckets of blues etc. but here's the thing with me.

I can miss blue after blue off the spot and then switch the cue to my chin (opposite to you) and then pot blue after blue so hey presto, a solution.

I can come in the next day and miss every shot and then put the cue back under my right eye and pot blue after blue, madness.

I have tried sticking to the right eye (2 1/2 years (ish)), then the chin (6 months) but I always end up missing the longer shots consistently (I am fine in the balls and have cleared the line up etc).

So, I am still searching for what it might be. Most breaks at a certain standard start with a decent length shot to get in and that's what is costing me dearly, no point if you are good in the balls if you cannot get in!

Yesterday (cue under chin), I shortened my feather and just pushed right through with grip hand over right foot and then take my stance with the cue point at the point of aim and then dropped onto the cue. My sighting even felt like everything looked straight. The grip hand felt like it had gone miles up the line of aim and was at the chest with no bounce whatsoever.

Generally with reds across the blue line (middle of table) and the white across the baulk line I would get 5 in a good day and 2 on a poor day but generally I experience a poor day (even if I am getting 100's at the line up).

Yesterday after losing 6-1 with the cue under my right eye, I went on the other table, chucked the cue under my chin and knocked in 27 out of 30 and couldn't miss, the rhythm felt awesome,, the sighting looked straighter than it has ever been, timing was spot on and I was doing it for fun with the other players just staring at me continuously potting long balls; it was a shoot til you miss scenario.

Now I know from experience that when someone says 27 out of 30 it normally means 15 like when people say I had 10 pints last night and it was really 6, well it was 27 which is a ridiculous standard.

Now when I go out later tonight and If I grab some time to do it using the same method and I hit 6 out of 30 you can imagine where my head will be as it's been there the last few years.

I feel your pain but don't go down the trial and error route like me.

You need a separate set of eyes to see what you are doing until it's cured or you will always be tinkering (like me).

From playing, you cannot see if your leg and arm is straight down, you know your grip hand hits your chest but cannot see when and you cannot see the complete action unless you keep videoing (but I bet your action possibly changes in each session as you are searching and testing).

Long post but I would think carefully before you move the cue!

tnx i read it, and i understand too what you mean, i hope you get better

well yeah, as earlier i mentioned in my other posts that i have been seeing many coaches and none can detect my problem, and they all say you are after perfection.
but i bet diamond that it has to do with my eyes or head position, as 2 days ago with my coach we took a very serious session, and putting lazer on the cue, he saw it that i consistently am aiming the right side of object ball but the butt of the cue not aligned properly. and he also said y i pot some balls. its bcaz i am in bad habbit and i keep putting right hand side this way. so when i play medium to hard shot i get pots , its bcaz i put right hand side , and even i aim the right side of the object i still can pot it due to right hand side effect which slides the cueball going to the left depending on pace of the shot

atleast you can see that putting the cue under your right eye or centre of the chin makes a difference.
i tried it today, and under right eye it barely makes a difference, and under left eye it even makes it worse. so i better stay with middle chin

i only hope that its just a bad habbit and i might have trained my eyes all these years , so i have to retrain them on how a real straight line looks like

[Shockerz]

tnx i read it, and i understand too what you mean, i hope you get better

well yeah, as earlier i mentioned in my other posts that i have been seeing many coaches and none can detect my problem, and they all say you are after perfection.
but i bet diamond that it has to do with my eyes or head position, as 2 days ago with my coach we took a very serious session, and putting lazer on the cue, he saw it that i consistently am aiming the right side of object ball but the butt of the cue not aligned properly. and he also said y i pot some balls. its bcaz i am in bad habbit and i keep putting right hand side this way. so when i play medium to hard shot i get pots , its bcaz i put right hand side , and even i aim the right side of the object i still can pot it due to right hand side effect which slides the cueball going to the left depending on pace of the shot

atleast you can see that putting the cue under your right eye or centre of the chin makes a difference.
i tried it today, and under right eye it barely makes a difference, and under left eye it even makes it worse. so i better stay with middle chin

i only hope that its just a bad habbit and i might have trained my eyes all these years , so i have to retrain them on how a real straight line looks like

Although I said I swapped it to the chin and everything flew in, If I leave it there I know that my short game will get worse until I train the brain again for all the angles; this is because my brain has already adjusted to the old position so if I change that, it may be fine for straight pots (if it remains so) but I know I will have to relearn all the other angles.

For a simple game, we do make it complicated and before anyone says just go with what's natural and it'll come I also tried that for a year or two and it must have got stuck in traffic as I still had the same issue with long potting (it didn't come for me).

To clarify, the breaks came but the long potting never altered.

Ho hum!

[tyfius]

I am having the exact same problem, and it's been bugging me for ages. Because I wear contacts, I also find that my sight gets worse when my eyes get more tired, forcing me to compensate even more.

Did you make any progress with you alignment over the last couple of months?

[Terry Davidson]

Video is useless for seeing any flaws in the cue action. I have found it's always alignment and not sighting that is the problem and even then if a player decides to stick with his faulty alignment the brain eventually corrects things and allows him to play and pot accurately. The cue going to the left once the hand hits the chest is not a problem as the cueball is already away.

You are most likely cuing across the cueball right-to-left and this is a definite alignment problem usually couples with the grip being too tight or else gripping the cue too tight and too early in the delivery. My suggestion would be to put up a decent video where we can see your cue action.