Terry's Technique Video

[hotpot]

Terry , one of my issues is my elbow its way inside the line of aim , far worse than yours , Lee said it would be great if i could get it in line but its not vital . He referred to Ray Reardon and Jamie cope . As long as you drive the cue through straight then all is ok .

Have to say this forum is invaluable , so many people here with such good advise which is greatly appreciated .

[vmax4steve]

I couldnt agree more with v max here. There is no need to drop the elbow at all with low and medium power and your acceleration will dictate your follow through for these shots. However it is pretty difficult to not drop the elbow on power shots but this doesnt matter as long as its after you have struck the cue ball. I never went right through to the chest on low and medium power as there was no need and just let the momentum of the shot determine my follow through. On full power though I would always tell myself to drive through the cb with lots of follow through but this was fine for me as the cue arm elbow and shoulder were on the line of aim. If im coaching someone I always get this sorted straight away as if the elbow and shoulder are not in line then you are asking for trouble on the delivery. I once had a coach that told me my follow through wasnt good enough so he had me driving through to the chest for low and medium power shots and I told him that this was impossible as I felt that I was over hitting everything but he said persevere with it. So I did, for ten minutes then I binned himand went straight back to my own way.Needless to say I won the lg a few months later and he tried to take all the credit. So well done v max your spot on with
This subject.

Cheers Chris small

Thanks Chris, I really appreciate that.

[vmax4steve]

Chris, vmax, itsnot, Sidd and everyone:

I did get in a little practice today (unfortunately had to do some errands this morning as wifey is away) and I worked on trying to not drop the elbow on any shot, including power ones. Remember too, my table has a very fast Hainsworth Precision cloth with steel blocked cushions so getting 4 lengths of the table probably only takes power at 7 out of 10 or so. When I really wind up I can get more than 5 lengths on my table.

Although I only had time for a couple of frames after my warm-up, I am amazed at how accurate the potting has become. Those shots on a red around the pack and into the green or yellow pocket are mostly going now, especially at low power and when I had position on the black or pink I would pass on them and take a long blue just for the fun of it and was making probably 80% of those, just missing a few where I had to screw back down to around the black area.

Now, here is my last remaining question (maybe). When I was playing well years ago I noticed if anything my elbow, shoulder and head were in perfect alignment with the elbow perhaps hanging in less than an inch. However, nowadays my elbow is outside the line of aim although the shoulder and head are pretty well in line. When working in front of a mirror I can force the elbow over to the left so it's perfectlyu aligned but then when I close my eyes and feather for a bit and look again the elbow has moved to the right again.

It feels 'off' to me when I force it over to the line of aim and since I don't settle naturally into that perfect alignment I can't find a way to have that elbow aligned when I get into the address position and as soon as I feather it goes back out. Is there any method anyone knows which will help me get that ideal alignment without thinking about it and consciously pulling the elbow into my back a bit. I have to also say I do feel odd with the elbow perfectly aligned and over the past 6 or 7 days I've not been able to get that with any consistency.

Don't bother Terry. It didn't do Reardon any harm having a chicken wing style. Just concentrate on using the momentum of the stroke as a natural follow through after the grip hand has closed and you will start to hit the ball sweetly without inducing that tension into the shoulder and upper body that was giving you that movement.

The really weird thing is, when I use the mirror and cue along the baulkline the elbow is easy to align but when I switch to shooting the spots and into the camera the elbow looks to be outside the line of aim. I am facing directly into the camera so I don't know why I would get down to shoot the spots differently to when I'm just cueing along the baulkline with no balls.

I would say that's simply because in one exercise you are focussing your eyes on a target and in the other you are not. That clearly makes a difference as to where you place your feet and therefore alters your body position along with cue arm.

Terry

...........

[Terry Davidson]

Chris, vmax, itsnot, Sidd and everyone:

I did get in a little practice today (unfortunately had to do some errands this morning as wifey is away) and I worked on trying to not drop the elbow on any shot, including power ones. Remember too, my table has a very fast Hainsworth Precision cloth with steel blocked cushions so getting 4 lengths of the table probably only takes power at 7 out of 10 or so. When I really wind up I can get more than 5 lengths on my table.

Although I only had time for a couple of frames after my warm-up, I am amazed at how accurate the potting has become. Those shots on a red around the pack and into the green or yellow pocket are mostly going now, especially at low power and when I had position on the black or pink I would pass on them and take a long blue just for the fun of it and was making probably 80% of those, just missing a few where I had to screw back down to around the black area.

Now, here is my last remaining question (maybe). When I was playing well years ago I noticed if anything my elbow, shoulder and head were in perfect alignment with the elbow perhaps hanging in less than an inch. However, nowadays my elbow is outside the line of aim although the shoulder and head are pretty well in line. When working in front of a mirror I can force the elbow over to the left so it's perfectlyu aligned but then when I close my eyes and feather for a bit and look again the elbow has moved to the right again.

It feels 'off' to me when I force it over to the line of aim and since I don't settle naturally into that perfect alignment I can't find a way to have that elbow aligned when I get into the address position and as soon as I feather it goes back out. Is there any method anyone knows which will help me get that ideal alignment without thinking about it and consciously pulling the elbow into my back a bit. I have to also say I do feel odd with the elbow perfectly aligned and over the past 6 or 7 days I've not been able to get that with any consistency.

The really weird thing is, when I use the mirror and cue along the baulkline the elbow is easy to align but when I switch to shooting the spots and into the camera the elbow looks to be outside the line of aim. I am facing directly into the camera so I don't know why I would get down to shoot the spots differently to when I'm just cueing along the baulkline with no balls.

Terry

[itsnoteasy]

Totally agree VMax , I have said before I can't have drive into chest in my cue action, I have, let the cue do the work, it's all really to support smooth and straight, and if you do this I feel you naturally get long with it.
It's funny I don't like a lot of terms in snooker, I think they sound too aggressive , grip, drive, lean into the shot, this can cause bad pain in bridge arm, being over the shot is a better description I think. There must be better terms to use. Another one is dropping the elbow, I'm not sure about the technicalities of this but it's not supposed to be a deliberate action is it? Is it not a natural result of a long follow through that it will drop slightly to allow this.

[chrissmall147]

I couldnt agree more with v max here. There is no need to drop the elbow at all with low and medium power and your acceleration will dictate your follow through for these shots. However it is pretty difficult to not drop the elbow on power shots but this doesnt matter as long as its after you have struck the cue ball. I never went right through to the chest on low and medium power as there was no need and just let the momentum of the shot determine my follow through. On full power though I would always tell myself to drive through the cb with lots of follow through but this was fine for me as the cue arm elbow and shoulder were on the line of aim. If im coaching someone I always get this sorted straight away as if the elbow and shoulder are not in line then you are asking for trouble on the delivery. I once had a coach that told me my follow through wasnt good enough so he had me driving through to the chest for low and medium power shots and I told him that this was impossible as I felt that I was over hitting everything but he said persevere with it. So I did, for ten minutes then I binned himand went straight back to my own way.Needless to say I won the lg a few months later and he tried to take all the credit. So well done v max your spot on with
This subject.

Cheers Chris small

[vmax4steve]

I think VMax wins the cue, didn't he say that.

I did and I've said it many times that dropping the elbow from the shoulder is only effective if one has perfectly straight alignment of cue arm, elbow and shoulder. If the elbow is outside or inside the line of aim then dropping the elbow from the shoulder will ALWAYS result in the cue coming off the line of aim if the elbow drops before the cue ball is struck, and there is a very fine line between it dropping before or after the strike so it's best not to imo.
Terry is not alone in this as both Hendry and White started doing it at the end of their careers. Watch early footage of both and they never dropped their elbows from the shoulder when at their very best, even Steve Davis who had perfectly straight alignment didn't.
Ronnie has perfectly straight alignment and has had from the get go when he was a boy and has always played with the elbow drop and Selby has worked hard with coaches to get that straight alignment to cultivate the elbow drop himself. But if the three players in the modern game with the greatest records in pro snooker didn't have the elbow drop (Hendry, Davis and Reardon) then there is no reason to suppose that having one is the way to play just because Ronnie has and he is seen as the most talented player of all time.
He indeed may be but it's not because of his elbow drop.

I think it's wrong to teach a player to drive the cue through to a certain point in order to cultivate a follow through as this description of the stroke as a drive subconsciously suggests that the whole of the arm, including the shoulder, is part of the stroke when in fact it isn't.
It's better imo to teach a player not to stop the cue at a certain point and to let the momentum of the stroke allow the cue to follow through naturally when playing only from the elbow.

This is what I do, now if I could only keep my eye on the object ball at the moment of the strike 90% of the time instead of the 50% that I do now I could turn pro, but I'd settle for 75% just to get the odd ton here and there.
Dream on Steve

[j6uk]

I don't need non of your technique but I'd love to have your barnet, young or old

Jeez! I look young in them.

Terry

[itsnoteasy]

I think VMax wins the cue, didn't he say that.

[Terry Davidson]

j6uk:

Unfortunately, the series of action shots were for a newspaper spread back in the late 70's for a challenge match and they are in black and white plus my scanner has packed up. I have other shots of me with Thorburn from and exhibition and also Virgo but those are just us standing there with our cues and smiling for the camera (but at least they are in colour). I'll check and see if I can scan some of the photos with my supposedly all-purpose printer here.

Jeez! I look young in them.

Terry

[j6uk]

Your a tuffnut tel,
23 yrs climbing the navy ranks means you can ride these waves and more, no problem right?!
Any chance of taking us down memory lane and put up these action-shots from your successes in the 80's?

Thank you all for your comments.

I posted that video because I was extremely frustrated as I was playing so badly and have been for the past 7 years compared to how I played in the 80's and early 90's. I was looking at some action shots from those days and of course I wasn't dropping the elbow (go figure!).

Once I get this mastered I will post another video for comparison purposes but I can't promise any specific length of time as this is going to take A LOT OF WORK. (Even though I say you should not copy any specific pro I have decided I want to deliver the cue exactly like Judd Trump only right-handed.)

Terry

[Terry Davidson]

Thank you all for your comments. There were a lot of valid ones and I tried them all but without much success. I have tried to quiet down the finger waggling and the bridge thumb moving during the delivery, which has seemed to help.

HOWEVER, JUST YESTERDAY I FOUND WHAT THE PROBLEM WAS AND CORRECTED IT RIGHT THERE AND THEN. I started making everything and I know it's really STUPID as I have talked about this on here and yet I YET AGAIN failed to follow my own advice. As it happened I had the Trump/Dott match on while I was practicing and for some reason I noticed neither of them dropped their elbow on delivery except if it was a massive power shot whereas for the past 7 years for some reason I've been dropping my elbow on almost every shot, no matter what the power.

On here where we all talked about the elbow drop (like ROS and Murphy) I said only if a player learned the game at a young age and started with an elbow drop should he use it. If (like me) you didn't start with an elbow drop at 10yrs old then don't introduce it as it won't be natural to you and for some reason it's very difficult for an adult to change over to an elbow drop type of technique.

So I checked out some more pro videos (I have a bunch of DVDs here from Nic Barrow where he analyses all of the top pros using Dartfish) and with just a few exceptions none of the top players drop their elbows when playing shots at medium pace or below. All of the pros who do use the elbow drop were those that started playing when they were very young.

I took another look at my video as posted and then I did another video of myself while keeping the elbow as stable as possible and as I have Dartfish here I did an overlap of the two videos and right away it was obvious on the posted video my upper body moved to the right and my cue moved over to the left side of the chin (even though the cue stayed on the line of aim pretty well) and of course my right hand went flying right (which is actually me being unable to drop the elbow straight down like ROS or Murphy).

On the video I just took yesterday where I was trying to limit the elbow drop as much as possible it appears I still get virtually the same amount of follow through and with the correct grip I can still get similar power (meaning acceleration) as long as I keep the backswing nice and slow and its length proportional to the power I want, which in this case was over 4 lengths of the table.

I am finding though that since I've been dropping my elbow since 2005 when I returned to the game this is a VERY HARD habit to break but I'm going to work on it hard over the next couple of months since with not dropping the elbow my potting, and especially my long potting with power, has gotten MUCH more accurate.

When I'm able to master removing the elbow drop there is NO sideways slide to the right on my upper body and everything remains rock solid and also of course there's no way my grip hand flies to the right after the strike. I am not cueing right-to-left any more and I'm really happy with what I'm doing now.

I posted that video because I was extremely frustrated as I was playing so badly and have been for the past 7 years compared to how I played in the 80's and early 90's. I was looking at some action shots from those days and of course I wasn't dropping the elbow (go figure!).

Once I get this mastered I will post another video for comparison purposes but I can't promise any specific length of time as this is going to take A LOT OF WORK. (Even though I say you should not copy any specific pro I have decided I want to deliver the cue exactly like Judd Trump only right-handed.)

Terry

[Sidd]

Dear Terry,

I am your student so it is not really up to me to comment on your technique in the first place. However, sometimes we cannot see the flaws in our technique on our own unless someone else points them out to us given that one cant really find mistakes in one's own work by one's own self easily. Therefore, my feeble, not so good, worthy of ignoring suggestive points are submitted here-under:

1. The bridge; yes you have pointed it out yourself, just turning it by the wrist a little to the left thereby bringing more forefinger is the correct answer. ronnie does it to a very pronounced extent. I am a tall person and i have noticed that it I try to keep my bridge arm straight enough I cant naturally keep my bridge hand wrist straight as it comes at an angle to the arm (wrist being the fulcrum). therefore, for me, naturally I have a tendency to keep the bridge hand inwards because it is connected to the bridge arm and hence keeping it inwards means more comfort and stability. The bridge arm is not 100% parallel to the line of shot and comes in at a slight angle right so keep the bridge hand a bit inwards ... from the eye perspective it will seem crossed or at an angle and not absolutely straight. That is the way to go ... for me at least.

2. Are you not hitting with a bit of more pace than required ??? Or shall I say just a tiny bit accelerating too early ??? I think that might be the case. When I play and after the back pause we get taught by you and others of the like to start the delivery slowly and then build up the pace however with your delivery it seems sudden, if not abrupt. (you cant see the CB hitting the top cush in this video however on all shots I can HEAR the CB hitting the top cush and jumping a tiny bit upon return. If you concentrate on the sound of the CB hitting the cush you can hear two sounds i.e. CB hitting the cush ... jumping... hitting the bed of the table)... Just a thought !

3. Accidental side as well as elbow out; well i think both of these are connected. If not connected, my suggestive for correction is the one which might get both tuned up, with a singular correction. Since the elbow is a bit out and stays out even after delivery (unlike Hendry who used to have it out but it came back in upon dropping at the end of the delivery). Since it is out and remains out and if you cue straight in this manner you are destined to put that tiny bit of right hand side to the CB. actually I used ot have this problem too long ago and worked on it on my own and sorted it out myself. I might be totally wrong here and please do correct me if I am however I still do impart some left hand side (being a lefty) if I am not careful about something I am going to narrate for you here. You only need to correct that elbow a bit and the accidental side will go away. While down just tuck that right shoulder of yours a tiny bit inside the shoulder joint (I hope I am able to explain my point properly) what I mean is that the shoulder is left at east and drifts away a bit from the joint so when down just try and sort of tuck it in towards the shoulder joint .... however the key here is not to move the elbow in trying to do so forget about the elbow .. it is the shoulder joint and has to be corrected from the shoulder joint. Just try this out and I am pretty confident you will notice immediate results.

This is what i saw and felt. Forgive me if I said something wrong or idiotic ...

Regards,
Sidd.

[Sidd]

Sidd:

The video is still there and it's just been yourself and Chris Small who can't see it. As Pakistan is barred from youtube maybe it's the same thing with other public video sites. I'm not sure why Chris can't load it but he seems to be getting the same result as you are.

The thing that was troublesome was the video is about 88Mb and because I'm on a wireless broadband service it took about 15mins to upload as my speed is so slow compared to what I would get if I lived in a town or city. We were supposed to get fiber this summer but nothing so far. This is why I don't load any videos.

Terry

It is not barred, like youtube, in Pakistan as the page loads. If it were, it would not have even loaded. Anyway, i tried again today no luck but then tried to download it and it worked. I have the video now and will comment in a bit.

[alabadi]

Hi Terry

its mighty brave of you to put up a video and ask others to analyse it, as yourself do for us, being a coach yourself it shows a lot of guts and a will to keep on learning.

i myself a teacher always believe in life long learning, and nobody is too old to learn.

i took a look at your video and uploaded it to Kinovea i then placed four lines one directly dissecting the cue ball vertically, the other three horizontally, one obove your head one above your knuckles and the other above your thumb, the last three were done once you were down in the address position. i then slowed the video down to 5% original speed and here is what i observed.

1- When you are standing your nose is bang in the middle of the cueball the line splits your nose in two so you are on the line of aim., however as you are getting down you move your head to the right and eventually you end up with your left eye in line with the cueball. so the line now runs through the cueball along your cue and through your left eye.

2- as you are feathering you lower your head, this continues until you strike the cueball, the movement is straight down but by the time you strike the cueball its at least a couple of inches lower.

3- your thumb similar to the head drops a bit, very slightly but does drop until you strike the cueball. it then raises up again, however the majority of the movement is after the cueball has gone.

4- your knuckles stay level no movement there, however when you are moving your fingers, (which is quite a lot) there is slight movement from the last two knuckles which is understandable.

conclusion

i am no coach (maybe one day who knows) but i think you might not be on the line of aim but to the right of it which might explain why you cue from right to left.

your elbow is again right to the line of aim, not sure if this makes a lot of difference especially if you cue straight. however as Chris Small said better if it was all in a line, so maybe something to look at.

i think if your nose was on the line of aim you would naturally be more over to the left which would bring your elbow closer to the line of aim.

i myself have similar issues to you Terry and you have advised me on this issue your self, you told me to loosen my grip so it doesn't close until the fist hits the chest, easier said than done but i'm getting there.

I hope you eventually get solutions to your problems and would love to hear how you solved them, because i have similar ones myself.

good luck in your qualifiers

Alabbadi