Right now, I’m in the southern part of Japan with my wife’s family.  They live in a quiet, peaceful town a 20 minute uphill walk to and from the train station.  There are no stores nearby and it is very quiet at night.  What a change from my hectic life in New York City.

While sitting here at 2:00 in the morning waiting for the internet to be set up, I started to think about pool and some of the simple things that we can do to improve our game.  I’ve got a secret pill here that will give you an edge in every game you play. It will improve your breaking, improve your speed control, and improve your ball pocketing.  How does that sound?!  Here’s one simple drill to significantly improve your pool game.

We are going to modify one of our basic drills and add some ideas that will start to bring your game to the next level.

Here is the set up:  Notice we have added some object ball “gates” to the old fashioned “hit the cue ball up and down the table” drill.

Here is what this first step looks like.  Practice striking the cue ball on the vertical axis and having it roll up the table and back down between the “gates” and stop on the end rail.  Do this drill for 15 minutes every day and you will have a huge advantage in every match that starts with a lag.  I always like to start any game with an edge!

The good news is that we are not done yet.  After you have done this part of the drill for 15 minutes, here is part two:

For this part we want to hit the cue ball up and down the table, hitting the rails 5 times, keeping it in between the gates.  This is really hard, but you are learning how to strike the cue ball hard on the vertical axis.  Learning how to do this will improve your breaks and cause you to hit the head ball more accurately, with a better transfer of energy.

Well, there you have it.  Spend some time with this drill and your lag, break, ball pocketing, and speed control will improve. Not a bad return for 30 minutes of practice a day.

 

See you on the road.