GETTING A LITTLE BIT BETTER

I’d like to share an idea with you today that on the surface seems trivial, but when you start looking at it in greater detail, all of a sudden makes a lot of sense, and improves your ability to pocket balls.

When playing pool, we are trying to hit a very small spot on the cue ball to send it on its way to do some work for us; pocket another ball, hide behind a cluster or break balls apart.  What is easy to overlook is how accurately we have to hit the cue ball.  A lot of times our focus is on the object ball, and we forget to think about just how precisely we have to hit the cue ball. 

I have heard that a one millimeter error on the cue ball means about a 5 millimeter error on the object ball, and a 4 inch miss at the pocket.  That isn’t a lot of room for error in our stroke.

So any movement we make in our heads and bodies before we hit the cue ball will most likely cause errors.  Now you might say, “Wait a minute!  So and so great player moves his head when he shoots!?”  And yes you are right, but he/she has probably spent a life time learning that move.  Sticking with the fundamentals is a quicker, easier way to get better.

So this week I want to look at your bridge arm elbow.  As George Fels says, whenever possible, you want to keep your elbow on the table.  Your weight distribution will be 50 percent of your bridge arm weight in your elbow and the other 50 percent in your bridge hand.

The reason for this is that if your elbow moves, your thumb moves.  Now any slight movement of your thumb of the bridge hand causes you to miss your spot on the  cue ball!  Now I’ll admit this movement is very slight, but it is there and we would like to eliminate it if at all possible.

Here is a good way to test this idea, and also practice one of the key shots in pool, the ability to hit the cue ball straight and on the vertical axis.

Set up this long, straight shot and shoot 50 with your elbow off the table and 50 with your elbow on the table.  Do this every day for a week making sure that you actually keep score.  My guess is that you will pocket a considerable percentage more with your elbow on the table. 

The wax on/wax off of this is that by practicing 500 shots of hitting the cue ball straight on the vertical axis, your game will come up as well!!

Good luck and see you on the road.