Cueing problem : Arm moving in on delivery

[reactant]

Hey guys, i've been struggling with my cue action lately. I've come to notice that my elbow is vertical and completely on the line of aim during feathering up till the rear pause. However, as i deliever the cue my elbow is dropping inwards(into my body) as oppose to dropping in the line of the shot (like ronnie or stephen lee does). I've tried everything, ranging from having a much looser grip, different stance, or not dropping the elbow at all(elbow still move inwards). I really hope you guys could help me.Thanks!

[cris0000food]

Hey "reactant" if your sure its not technique its probably the balance of your cue. The length or weight could be an issue but its more likely the balance. IMO

[Terry Davidson]

This problem is what Stephen Hendry has and he has always played with it. A little different as his elbow drops into his back on the backswing and then back up on the delivery and it has become one more moving part he has to coordinate to get his cue through straight.

In your case I would look to your grip arm shoulder. Assuming you are a righty then try and get the LEFT shoulder down towards the table as much as possible but with the RIGHT shoulder don't force it up as high as it will go but rather just keep it perfectly still during the delivery. The shoulder socket has to remain still but of course if you drop your elbow during delivery then the ball inside the socket (upper arm bone) must rotate a little bit to allow the upper arm and elbow to drop down.

What is happening is you are allowing your upper arm (the ball inside the socket) to move sideways a little bit. However this is not a really huge problem as chances are you are still driving the cue through reasonably straight however it is one more moving part you have to coordinate.

I don't have any set-up drill that I know of that will help you to stop moving the upper arm sideways and in order to cure it you must find out what is causing that upper arm to drop sideways into your back. It has to be the major muscle around the shoulder socket and I believe you can only concentrate on keeping that shoulder socket still during the delivery. Not dropping the elbow should have almost cured this problem and I suspect it might be driven from your grip in the end.

If you use a severe wrist cock (the wrist turned out all the way like Steve Davis) try modifying that a bit to more like Hendry's grip with a less severe wrist cock. Try this in slow time with a mirror set up if you can and watch the elbow and upper arm for sideways movement while you cue into the mirror and see if you can control it

Terry

[nrage]

Hey guys, i've been struggling with my cue action lately. I've come to notice that my elbow is vertical and completely on the line of aim during feathering up till the rear pause. However, as i deliever the cue my elbow is dropping inwards(into my body) as oppose to dropping in the line of the shot (like ronnie or stephen lee does). I've tried everything, ranging from having a much looser grip, different stance, or not dropping the elbow at all(elbow still move inwards). I really hope you guys could help me.Thanks!

Did you use a video camera to find this out? Do you have video of directly behind? If so, post it on youtube and place a link here for us to look at.

Does your elbow hang outside/inside or directly over the cue at address position?

Does your wrist twist on the shot? To try and 'feel' this, concentrate on where the cue touches the palm of your hand at address position, at full pull-back position, and at full push-through position. A wrist twist will cause the elbow to move. To fix this, you can either adjust the grip tension, or initial position, or simply concentrate on learning how it should feel, without a twist, and train that feeling into the body so that it does it naturally.

I have tried all 3 myself. The grip tension, making it looser, had an immediate effect. But, was not the complete solution. Changing my initial grip position made a smaller improvement, but more importantly allowed me to really 'feel' where it should be, and I am now trying to train in the correct feeling.

Without a white or OB, get into your address position, look at your grip hand, see how it looks, now push it slowly through and look at it again, has it rotated? If it has, adjust it, now concentrate on how that 'feel's. Go back to address, how does that 'feel', move between the two without twisting, really concentrate on the 'feel' of that motion.

Now get a white ball on the brown spot, get into address position and play it straight up the table, pause at the end and look at your grip hand, did it twist? Repeat, focus on the grip hand, and stopping the twist, concentrate on how it feels - because you need your eyes to be looking elsewhere, you have to learn to do it by feel.

[reactant]

Thanks a lot guys...I would definitely try what you guys had mention in my next practice session and also post a video soon!! Thanks!!