Terry's Technique Video

[Terry Davidson]

itsnoteasy:

Despite what was said, I try to keep my eyes on the OB (or peg in this case) and drop the head straight down and not look at the cueball until my bridge hand is on the table and I'm in the address position. Not certain if it's because I've been doing this forever but the tip of the cue and 'V' of the bridge are always at centre-ball.

The only time I look at the cueball when getting down is if there are other balls nearby which I might foul. This is what I teach but a lot of students are tempted to look at the cueball and will lose the line of aim if they do so.

If you can get 4 lengths of the table and the cueball is within one ball's width of the brown spot AND the table is reasonably level then that is an excellent result. I can do that on my table here but not as consistently as I would like. It did help though when I moved my right foot a little more into the shot and had the heel under the grip hand.

J6uk:

Before I post another video I first want to work these coup[le of minor changes in. I note my upper body is still sliding to the right but it's less now, only about 2mm however the cue appears to be staying on the line of aim even though the head has moved right a bit. In addition I still have the grip hand moving out to the right and the tip to the left but it's a lot less now.

From these results I believe I still need to work a little bit more on this and see if I can get rid of all that lateral movement on the delivery. And by the way...I posted my video but I guess I missed your video posting you promised to do if I did one.

Terry

[j6uk]

With you there and work at it till you can do full power through to completion, not only without touching the sides but keeping it reasonably central
Something you never stop doing.

Swan vesta box, the opening is only 13 mill(just measured it) that's the winner..

[itsnoteasy]

Swan vesta box, the opening is only 13 mill(just measured it) that's the winner.
Absolutely nothing wrong in asking for help Terry, if Ronnie O Sullivan needs coaching I think it's ok for the rest of us, as for you thinking you should be able to fix it yourself the old saying of, a lawyer that defends himself ,has a fool for a client springs to mind, you need outside eyes to watch you, it's very hard to self correct otherwise we would all be banging in 147s, and have perfect cue actions.
I tried this today , belting the ball with enough power to go up and down five times, to be honest it wasn't too bad, some right over the spot others just to the right ,the odd one over a balls width out,but still to the right(which is strange as before it would always have been to the left) what I discovered was if I didn't really take time to aim properly and really make sure I dropped down straight with nose, and having that cue and bridge hand in the correct place as im getting down,that's when it went wrong, also keep locked on to chalk until I'm down on shot then switch eyes to cue ball.Dont know if any of this will help but it's all worth a try.

[j6uk]

I use to use a small plastic water bottle and I practiced with it all the time. I got to the stage were I could do full power with my eyes closed on the back pause without touching the sides. I thought it was impressive at the time, till i calipered the hole, it was 20mm but it was the smallest bottle I could find.

I don't use a matchbox but I do use a plastic water bottle with an opening of somewhere around 15mm and cue into and out of the bottle. I do hit the side on a fast delivery but it's after the tip enters the bottle which is the same result I'm getting with a cueball and shooting the spots at top power.

Terry

[j6uk]

Would you put up a 5min video of you on the lineup?
Helpful for us to see how it works for you in real-time play.

I agree there is no 'one size fits all' although I have always advocated having the grip hand directly over the straight leg foot somewhere between the toes and the arch or laces. It turns out (I think, I still have to confirm) that for me (6ft and reasonably slim) it probably should be the heel of the right foot so moving the right foot about 5" forward.

Terry

[humperdingle]

Just shows there's always room to learn.

[Terry Davidson]

itsnoteasy:

I agree there is no 'one size fits all' although I have always advocated having the grip hand directly over the straight leg foot somewhere between the toes and the arch or laces. It turns out (I think, I still have to confirm) that for me (6ft and reasonably slim) it probably should be the heel of the right foot so moving the right foot about 5" forward.

So far it appears this is forcing me to push my own butt out more and also more over to the left and that in turn is getting more weight on my left foot and side. I haven't yet confirmed via video analysis whether this has stopped that dreadful slide of the upper body to the right or not but will be doing that this morning.

I don't use a matchbox but I do use a plastic water bottle with an opening of somewhere around 15mm and cue into and out of the bottle. I do hit the side on a fast delivery but it's after the tip enters the bottle which is the same result I'm getting with a cueball and shooting the spots at top power.

As a Master Coach I do feel a little embarrassed about all this as I think I should able to at least deliver the cue straight under all powers and I will be working on just that over the next month or two...just delivering the cue consistently straight. Once I get that I will see how it's working under match conditions and whether there is any improvement as I didn't make it into the top 10 on last year's ranking list.

Terry

[itsnoteasy]

It could be that you unconsciously bring the shoulder into the shot as a result of forcing a definate follow through to the chest rather than playing freely from the elbow only and letting the momentum of the arm follow through naturally according to the pace of the stroke played.
Although your elbow is outside the line of aim it really shouldn't matter as long as the stroke is played from the elbow only, without any tightening of the grip hand, which will also cause the upper body movement you speak of, which is also an effect of playing from the shoulder.
All these things could be related to that forced follow through. Don't follow through deliberately to a certain point, don't deliberately stop the cue short at a certain point, just let the momentum of the stroke at whatever pace you play it give you the correct length of follow through.

This is a very good point by VMax, it's a very fine line we tred to cue correctly, you can't be too relaxed that everything's wobbly, but just a tiny bit to much tension and the shoulder can come in, it has to be a positive but relaxed stroke, and it has to be a stroke(even at full pace)and not a hit I think this helps to get you that natural follow through, VMax is on about , instead of drive the hand to the chest , I say let the cue do the work.
Terry have you tried J6s matchbox test, I am so sad I do it all the time at home, I cue through a swan vesta box without hitting the sides, it's not the same as hitting a ball but I think it ingrains the muscle memory into your cue action.
Terry I don't think your stance advice was wrong , it's just like everything else, it won't fit everyone, age, height, build, long legged ,short arms, long backed,all these things and more must change people's stance.

[DandyA]

It could be that you unconsciously bring the shoulder into the shot as a result of forcing a definate follow through to the chest rather than playing freely from the elbow only and letting the momentum of the arm follow through naturally according to the pace of the stroke played.
Although your elbow is outside the line of aim it really shouldn't matter as long as the stroke is played from the elbow only, without any tightening of the grip hand, which will also cause the upper body movement you speak of, which is also an effect of playing from the shoulder.
All these things could be related to that forced follow through. Don't follow through deliberately to a certain point, don't deliberately stop the cue short at a certain point, just let the momentum of the stroke at whatever pace you play it give you the correct length of follow through.

I'm not sure whether the above applies to Terry (I'm not good enough to say) but nonetheless, I think this is very good advice from vmax ...

I used to worry about my amount of follow through but these days, I just concentrate on getting a really good contact as the cue-tip hits the white ... I call it a good "clunk" ... to get that, the cue must have followed through to some extent although how much, I'm not bothered about ...

if I'm playing badly, it's often because I'm not "clunking" well enough ... if I realise that's the problem, I'll use a swing thought of "good clunk" ...

got to go now ... the men in the white coats have noticed I've escaped from my straight jacket

[vmax4steve]

I have to try and discover why my upper body moves to the right during the delivery and just before the strike. It's only about 3-4mm but that is WAY too much and I believe there is a cause and effect situation here with the upper body moving my brain tries to coordinate that and I end up going through right-to-left with my grip hand flying out to the right.

Terry

It could be that you unconsciously bring the shoulder into the shot as a result of forcing a definate follow through to the chest rather than playing freely from the elbow only and letting the momentum of the arm follow through naturally according to the pace of the stroke played.
Although your elbow is outside the line of aim it really shouldn't matter as long as the stroke is played from the elbow only, without any tightening of the grip hand, which will also cause the upper body movement you speak of, which is also an effect of playing from the shoulder.
All these things could be related to that forced follow through. Don't follow through deliberately to a certain point, don't deliberately stop the cue short at a certain point, just let the momentum of the stroke at whatever pace you play it give you the correct length of follow through.

[itsnoteasy]

This is what Chris taught me Terry, if you line up center body , its your heal, thats on the line of aim(im sure we talked about it on the a day with Chris Small thread)he also put my bridge so that weight was even on both pads of my hand and put a nice bend in my bridge arm, this brought me more kind of over the shot, and made me rock solid straight away, as before i was kind of back on the shot and my hips were a bit wobbly, and i felt like i fell away to the right(being a lefty)sometimes.
If you can run the white over the spots at that pace consistently thats great for anyone i doubt many could do better.
sounds like your on the right track.

[j6uk]

Now your talking tel

j6uk:

(and also maybe my old stance instructions regarding the arch or laces of the right foot is total bollocks!).

Terry

[ace man]

For power shots such as these, why not try with full arm, i.e. big elbow drop like some of the pros? More moving parts, yes...but, much less stress on body.
My theory is that not everybody is comfortable keeping the elbow high on power shots nor can they handle the shock of hand hitting the chest at violent speeds.

Don't worry about the video, I'd take a lesson from you in a heart beat.

Oh, and please, don't mess with technique that much. Even you as a master coach shouldn't be doing that. All it will do is fill your head with doubt and uncertainty. Last thing you need before any competition!

[Terry Davidson]

j6uk:

No, nothing feels off balance at all. My stance is nice and stable and I now have the elbow virtually on top of the cue. However, when I deliver the cue my head shifts to the right slightly about 3mm or so and I can see that I'm coordinating this by compensating somehow(probably the grip hand movement) as the cue stays right on the line of aim until I actually strike the cueball. Then right after the strike the grip hand starts moving to the right and also the elbow is not dropping straight and this may be because I started to correct the shift but with the dynamic delivery you tend to over-compensate.

I think this latter grip hand movement is over-compensation trying to correct that upper body movement as the delivery is very dynamic since I'm using higher power shots to highlight all the faults. When I drop my power right down the grip hand comes straight into my chest and the elbow hardly drops at all but it still drops straight. This is why cueing along the baulkline doesn't really show anything.

So the question is...what is the root cause of why my upper body shifts to the right slightly during my delivery?

I had to give up for today as I have other things to do but the very last experiment was moving my right foot more into the shot so my grip hand is over the heel (rather than the toes) and this forced me to lean back a bit and shift the hips more to the left and get a lot more weight over my left foot. I haven't done a video using this yet however in shooting the spots with very high power (5 table lengths) the cueball was coming right over the brown spot on the 4th leg so I might have found the problem, which was me being too far back from the shot with the right side of my body which meant I didn't have to lean back very much and therefore wasn't putting much weight onto the left side of my body. I also noticed with my old stance I tended to be on the ball of my foot rather than have the weight distributed between ball and heel as I should have.

When I moved the right foot forward about 5in or so and had the grip hand over the heel of the right foot I found I had to push my own butt further back and more to the left to get a solid stance. This also brought the elbow more into line with the cue. Now I'll have to video analyse this tomorrow morning to see if it's stopped that slide to the right.

If it has maybe I can offer clearer guidance to some of the forum members who are still experiencing trouble delivering consistently straight (and also maybe my old stance instructions regarding the arch or laces of the right foot is total bollocks!).

Terry

[j6uk]

So your feeling off balance to the right when you deliver?

Can you post a lineup video?

j6uk:
This made no difference at all and my upper body is still shifting to the right just before the strike and my grip hand is still flying to the right. The root cause of my problem is definitely not the bridge hand as that has been still and stable throughout the past 4 hours of experimenting.


Terry