Thoughts on coaching

[Terry Davidson]

As a coach I believe there are two important things that should happen even before the coaching session begins.

First is the coach should ask the student what he hopes to achieve (more consistency, improved break-building, turn pro?) and then the coach should explain what is achievable through coaching and also explain improvement takes HARD SOLO PRACTICE and just playing one or two frames a week in a league won't get a player anywhere, even with the best coaching in the world.

Secondly, and this is for players who have played awhile and achieved some level of skill, is the coach must ask the player what the PLAYER believes are his problems. As has been said when a player comes to a coach sometimes they tend to be on their 'best behaviour' and it's very difficult for the coach to detect anything badly wrong.

I have also found that video analysis does reveal EVERY little fault in a player's technique and it's also great to actually show the student and explain in real time what the problem is and showing how it effects the straight delivery of the cue. I should warn players though, when using Kinovea for instance in the frame-by-frame mode you will see a lot of problems and some of which are important and will effect the delivery but others might be the player's own natural glitches which he is either used to or else must use because of his individual physique. Be very careful in trying to iron out everything you see.

Terry

[alabadi]

I should warn players though, when using Kinovea for instance in the frame-by-frame mode you will see a lot of problems and some of which are important and will effect the delivery but others might be the player's own natural glitches which he is either used to or else must use because of his individual physique. Be very careful in trying to iron out everything you see.

Terry

if thats the case how would i know which are the glitches that need working on. i think that its a skilled coach to spot these and find solutions to them

[roykay]

You can learn something from everybody but for me a good coach should be able to demonstrate with his cue because a picture is worth a thousand words.
Roy Bacon

[tommygunner1309]

Hi Terry
Just like to get your thoughts on this one. I am helping a pal of mine who has some body and head movement on the shot. I am stressing the importance of keeping the head and upper body still while he delivers the cue and staying down on the shot until the ball is in the pocket. He said "what about Alex Higgins then?" I explained that away as Alex being a one off, a phenomenon.
Just been watching the clips of the B&H final on here - Alex v Terry - and I forgot how much movement Alex had - watching clip 6 I nearly fell off my chair - How the heck did he do it?
Tommy

[tommygunner1309]

Hi Terry
Just like to get your thoughts on this one. I am helping a pal of mine who has some body and head movement on the shot. I am stressing the importance of keeping the head and upper body still while he delivers the cue and staying down on the shot until the ball is in the pocket. He said "what about Alex Higgins then?" I explained that away as Alex being a one off, a phenomenon.
Just been watching the clips of the B&H final on here - Alex v Terry - and I forgot how much movement Alex had - watching clip 6 I nearly fell off my chair - How the heck did he do it?
Tommy

[Terry Davidson]

alabadi:

Yes, with video analysis if you don't know what you're doing you can screw yourself up worse. It takes either a good coach or else a player who is very knowledgeable on technique to use it effectively. The reason I say this is a player may have an obvious glitch (say like upper body movement) but the coach has to do further analysis to find out exactly what's causing the body movement. It could be an unstable stance, it could be the grip is too tight, it could be the player is using the shoulder muscle to drive the cue rather than the upper arm muscle and just the elbow or it could be his hips are incorrectly aligned in the address position. There would also be other problems too which would have to be corrected in this case.

Terry

[Terry Davidson]

tommygunner:

Tell this player two things...the first is if he could play as well as Alex then he could do what he wants and also if he copied the various glitches from all the top pros he wouldn't be able to pot a ball. Alex somehow got his cue back to the exact address position at the time of strike and as a YOUNG man he was able to coordinate this but as he got older and lost some of the youthful coordination he lost his ability to play well. So if your student is under 25yrs old then explain to him he could play that way if he wanted using perfect coordination or else he could learn to play somewhat like Steve Davis (staying absolutely still) and be able to play excellent snooker well into his 50's.

For the upper body movement look for what I call the 'root cause' (got this one from electronic trouble-shooting where we did a 'root cause analysis' to resolve a problem in a circuit). See my posting above but it could be any number of things causing it or it could even be a combination of two or three separate problems. But tell him keeping still on the feathers, backswing and delivery is truly one of the 'secrets' of playing good snooker.

Terry

[alabadi]

well i had my scheduled coaching session this Saturday with CoachGavin, very nice guy, we got on well and we identified a few things to work on, the main two was shortening my bridge and the other the way i sight the object ball.

i would like to say that as the session went on there were signs that the changes were making an impact, and yesterday i went down to the snooker academy in Sheffield for a couple of hours to practice and did feel more control.

i am not going to pass judgement yet because it is early days, and i am aware that sometimes the fact that making a change can feel that its better and in some cases can be the placebo effect.

however saying that i did practice straight blues of its spot from the baulk line, i did 4 sets of 10 and i got 2 @ 5/10 and 2@ 6/10. the pleasing thing for me was the misses were mostly jawed very few went a stray which is in contrast to how it used to be, i also noticed that how many consecutive pots i made. 2 of the sets i had 5 successful ones in a row.

to be honest i am not expecting miracles however, i will give these changes time to bed in and be part of my game.

i am sure that in someway it can make me a more consistant player because of it.

i would like to thank Gavin for helping me and hopefully we can work together again.

Alabbadi

[CoachGavin]

I am glad you found the lesson helpful. Like I said at the time I thought the lesson went well and with the amount of practice you put in I think you will improve. It sounds like your long potting is already benefiting from the changes. Keep up the good work!

[RocketRoy1983]

Well personally I'd listen to everyone and if he'd made such an assessment I'd run it by someone I trusted.

Also, if you knock in a 75 there should be nothing wrong with your stance, certainly not in a major way. I get your points but just think you should be listening to anyone who wants to talk. Whether or not you want to take on board what they say is another matter.