putting side on the cueball unintentionally

[alabadi]

I must admit that I myself approach the line of aim with my body positioned slightly to the right so that I'm looking down the line of aim using mostly my left eye, this means that there is no twist into the stance when I drop down, my left eye is looking along the line at all times, plant my right foot and then let my left eye lead my left foot into it's rightful position.

Vmax, this is what i do now after searching over the last couple of years , i have had conversations with you on this too. i know my left is the sighting eye however i use to stand square to the shot , this meant when i walked into the shot i moved let to right which sometimes caused me to lose sight of the line i should be taking, so when down in the address position i was fishing for it.

now i just line it up with my left eye and walk in on that line. i don't worry about my feet , where i plant the right foot ( i'm a RH player) as long as my stance allows me to get down on the line i see that's all what matters.

i use to make sure my right foot or heel was on the line of the shot, which meant i needed to twist into the shot and i found myself a lot of times to the right of where i wanted to be and on occasions when the margins were small and i couldn't detect it missed straight shots to the left.

i am still getting to grips with this method and 4 months on is still not 100% there, but in terms of improvement i am well off. my game this season has improved immensely, the league form proves that.

i'm not advocating everyone should do what i do, everyone should find their own way of sighting and getting on the line of the shot. it takes a lot of experimenting with different things (well for me it did) until you find what suits your game.

some naturally gifted players wont even think of this they might have just picked up a cue got down and started potting, that's great. but for some like myself of a particular age (no spring chicken) it doesn't come natural and we need to work on it.

[mustafa.ansarie]

i tried lining up with my dominant eye after reading ur reply, and it helped , now i can pot more balls
dont know why this helped?
do u know why?
does it mean i was always offline?

[mustafa.ansarie]

can you explain, how you let your dominant eye take over ?
i tried it today for the first time after reading these dominant eye vs lining up posts, and it sort of helped, but i dont know the idea behind this dominant eye and lining up with it

i was always missing pots by miles, but after trying this i miss balls only mm away from pocket

[mustafa.ansarie]

thanks alot for this post, i tried this today although i am still confused with few things you mentioned, but i just dropped my right eye on the line of the aim, ( im righ eyed player)

whats the jamie jones setup?

[Catch 22]

You're a good player so you do it correctly on a subconscious level, get someone to take a photo of you in your stance from directly in front and you will see it. I always knew my left eye was my dominant eye and my sighting eye for snooker, confirmed totally when I had to have a photo taken to send to an optician for my snooker glasses, cue right under my left eye.

Everybody aims along a single line using just one preferred eye, the cue is always under one eye or even a little bit closer to one than the other, this can be done purely with stance or head position, look at Bingham, cue is right under his right eye with his head tilted to the left, Ronnie it's the left eye with no head tilt, boxer stance to get the cue under it, Murphy it's the right eye with a slight boxer stance, Hendry right eye with a square stance, I could go on and on, bolton would say that I always do, but it's important to understand the way it has to be.

For those who have sighting problems, and I don't really understand why this should be so to be honest, but I guess there has to be a reason for it, those players need to find their preferred eye or their vision centre, as Nic Barrow calls it, and what I suggested worked for one of our forum members down under, although it was of course pooh poohed by all at the time, but the bloke was adamant it worked and his game was improving.

I must admit that I myself approach the line of aim with my body positioned slightly to the right so that I'm looking down the line of aim using mostly my left eye, this means that there is no twist into the stance when I drop down, my left eye is looking along the line at all times, plant my right foot and then let my left eye lead my left foot into it's rightful position, when playing a straight blue into the middle from the green side of the table, I don't stand square on to the line and then twist into position, I'm facing the middle of the side cushion between the middle and the yellow pocket, and although both eyes are open it's the left that's looking down the line, the right eye, in conjunction with the left is giving me the overall picture along with depth perception, but it's the left that's doing the aiming.

I also need to approach every shot from the left side so that this happens naturally; when approaching a shot from the right I go beyond it and then move back onto the line from the left side to sight the shot, otherwise It doesn't look right to me, and it doesn't look right because I haven't used my natural preferred eye to sight the line of aim.

Maybe mustafa needs a Jamie Jones set up, you never know, and sticking to something textbook means he can't sight the line of aim properly. It's different for all of us, coaches need to take note of that and not hammer a preferred technique into someone, point out any flaws in the absolute basics and let the student iron these out through practise routines that can be taken to the match table.

Interesting . I'm left eye and right handed . I sight the ball better if I quickly shut my right and see the line . If I were to line up like you have said above . How do you get the cue on the right line ? What I mean is if you've line up on your left side then your right foot and cue will be quite far to the right of the line . Maybe I've misunderstood though ?

[mustafa.ansarie]

im right handed player and right eyed
but i normally put the cue abit to the left, but as i said, today i was like if i am right eyed why would i put the cue under my left eye, so i started to walk to the line of aim with my right eye although both eyes were open, but i was tilting my head to the left so that my right eye drops right on the line of aim

when i was down, i was seeing the balls differently, i mean head tilted, and the balls were tilted too, ( hard to explain)
but it was good feeling, and i could pot more ball than ever

before, i was always walking to the shot without thinking if right or left eye, i was just walking to the line of aim and thats it, my head was straight when featuring

as i said before, i was always missing pots ezy balls, and i knew something is wrong with my line of aim, i talked to my coach about this, and he said its bcaz u cannot find centre of the cueball, thats y you put right side, and when you always put right side, and to you it looks thats centre of cueball.... which means you will always line up according to the cueball with a touch of side....... he said you can only fix it once you find the centre of cueball

thats y i kept putting left side until i find centre, now on every shot i always move my tip to the left to ensure im not putting right side since to me it looks centre when its right side

but as i said ,,,,,, maybe dropping with my right eye wil fix this issue?
im confused whats wrong or right, i only know that it helped me abit with my potting, and now i feel confident going for long shots and i miss it close to pocket if i do miss

[alabadi]

when I look at the tip on the cueball I see it slightly left of centre, when in fact its dead center. rather than moving the tip slightly right , I was told just leave it, eventually your brain will work it out and even if your eyes tell you its slightly left you will know its centre.

so I now know this now and come use to it. if I want to put a bit of right on the cueball I set it up too look like the tip is center.
as a lot here have mentioned there are loads of pros who do this either left or right , the main thing is you understand it and learn to recognise it.

a good test to do is form a loop bridge , stand behind the white and get down and aim at what looks to you as center ball, once you are happy , keep the loop and rest the butt of the cue on the cushion. now lift your head without moving the bridge and look where the tip is aiming.

if it's center perfect you have no problem , if its either left or right adjust it accordingly to aim at center ball. now get back down by putting your chin on the cue and look at the tip and see what it looks like to you.

now practice getting down into the same position until you can repeat this , it may take a while until you feel natural , keep checking by doing the loop bridge. eventually you will recognise where the tip need to be to hit center.

now the hard work starts , trying to push the cue straight

[vmax4steve]

Interesting . I'm left eye and right handed . I sight the ball better if I quickly shut my right and see the line . If I were to line up like you have said above . How do you get the cue on the right line ? What I mean is if you've line up on your left side then your right foot and cue will be quite far to the right of the line . Maybe I've misunderstood though ?

I have a boxer stance, right handed, left foot in front of the right foot, left eye over the cue, this means that when potting a straight blue off its spot into the middle pocket from the green side of the table, my body is facing the middle of the cushion between the middle pocket and the yellow pocket and I tend to take up this position when stood up behind the shot before getting down into my stance.
This means my left eye is sighting the line of aim because my head is facing about 30 degrees to the right of the line of aim so I don't need to twist my body when getting down, I simply take a half step forward with my right foot and a full step with my left while looking at the contact point on the blue ball, this puts me on the line of aim, left eye directly over the cue and I drop straight down.

I don't think about where my feet need to be, I let my eyes guide me, but when I'm down in my stance, if I look then the heel of my right foot is on the line of aim, toes pointing at the yellow pocket, left foot is quite wide as I'm six foot two tall so I need to get down low, toes of the left foot pointing at the middle of the cushion between the middle pocket and the yellow pocket.