Elbow dropping to side on pressure shots

[mindmyseat]

Hi all,

During my cue action, before and when I strike the white, my elbow stays in the same plane as my wrist and head. However, after the white leaves the cue tip, in an effort to "finish on the chest" my elbow moves laterally and drops to the right side (right handed) instead of dropping straight down to extend my follow through. This is a problem for pressure shots (e.g. when going for a new high break) because sometimes I may mistime the stroke and move my elbow laterally before I strike the white, resulting in a miss.

So I want to nip the issue in the bud and just follow through with a straight elbow drop even after I have struck the white.I realise lateral movement of the elbow is not an issue if it consistently occurs only AFTER the white has left the cue but I'd say 1 in 10-15 shots I do it BEFORE I have struck the white. How do I fix my current habit?

[Terry Davidson]

It's easy, all you have to do is train your brain a bit. Try cueing very slowly without a cueball for awhile and watch the ferrule to tgry and keep it straight, both on the backswing and delivery. Do this every day for at least a month. In your normal playing slow your backswing right down.

[MrRottweiler]

When down on the shot turn your head so you can see what's going on with your cueing arm and how the elbow is positioned. My elbow tends to move outwards when I strike so I have to make a mental effort when taking the shot to keep it piston-like still. This approach works and makes me much more consistent.

Cue along the baulk line at an imaginary cueball to see how straight your follow through is and another way to test straight cueing is to put the cueball on the brown spot and send it down the table over the blue, pink and black spots before coming back and hitting the tip of your cue. You can make it harder by putting the cueball on the cushion and making it come back to the exact spot of striking. During a coaching session I had with Karen Corr she was impressed at how I made the cueball come back to hit the tip of my cue. Sorry, I always have to throw that in.

[mindmyseat]

In your normal playing slow your backswing right down.

I've been doing this lately (after seeing your many posts about it over the years). I started slowing down my normal backswing to around 4-5 seconds about a week ago which is pretty painstakingly slow. Because I was already doing it for about a week I've pretty quickly found a way to fix the lateral elbow movement, just today, after 5-6h of practice. Thing is, the fix involves a pretty big elbow drop (about 4 inches). I'd say it's very comparable to the elbow drop in this video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nj4lUJpQtjM&t=152s). Cueing with this big elbow drop, there is significantly less lateral elbow movement and I find I'm cueing way better than before because I'm not worried about mistiming my lateral elbow movement anymore (and I'm no longer decelerating before I strike the white). However, I see a lot of people on this forum that aren't very big proponents of the big elbow drop on all shots (being it isn't necessarily ideal on finesse, soft shots).

How would you advise I go about my stroke given this revelation? Should I just keep doing the big elbow drop on small shots in an effort to "finish on the chest" or should I do something else that I am missing?

[Terry Davidson]

I've been doing this lately (after seeing your many posts about it over the years). I started slowing down my normal backswing to around 4-5 seconds about a week ago which is pretty painstakingly slow. Because I was already doing it for about a week I've pretty quickly found a way to fix the lateral elbow movement, just today, after 5-6h of practice. Thing is, the fix involves a pretty big elbow drop (about 4 inches). I'd say it's very comparable to the elbow drop in this video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nj4lUJpQtjM&t=152s). Cueing with this big elbow drop, there is significantly less lateral elbow movement and I find I'm cueing way better than before because I'm not worried about mistiming my lateral elbow movement anymore (and I'm no longer decelerating before I strike the white). However, I see a lot of people on this forum that aren't very big proponents of the big elbow drop on all shots (being it isn't necessarily ideal on finesse, soft shots).

How would you advise I go about my stroke given this revelation? Should I just keep doing the big elbow drop on small shots in an effort to "finish on the chest" or should I do something else that I am missing?

I have no idea why you're doing a big elbow drop when you slow your backswing down unless you're doing it intentially. There is no reason to have a big elbow drop at all although you might have a small elbow drop at the very end of a long backswing and at the very end of a delivery but neither is necessary (even though Nic Barrow does it on some shots).

[mindmyseat]

I have no idea why you're doing a big elbow drop when you slow your backswing down unless you're doing it intentially.

It's a bit intentional because I seem to have to follow through a lot (after the white has already left the cue tip) to be able to "finish on the chest" as advised by Nic Barrow's videos. It was actually why I had a lot of lateral movement of my elbow in the first place. Previously, in an effort to combine "finish with a high elbow" (advice I read on the forum once) and "finish on the chest" (Nic Barrow's videos), I had to drop the elbow about an inch downward to the right to extend the follow through into the chest. Now, instead, I'm dropping straight down, resulting in a huge elbow drop.

As per your advice I will go back to the drawing board re: the straight elbow drop. Perhaps the reason why I need to force such a huge follow through to end on the chest is because I grip the cue too far back. I'll try gripping further forward and maintaining a high elbow finish with a 0-1 inch straight elbow drop max on the more medium-high pace shots.