Proper Stroke of a Pool Cue
Rather read than watch? Read about the proper stroke of a pool cue below:
Setting Up The Stroke
Hello and welcome to another edition of billiards basics brought to you by Ozone billiards. I'm instructor James Roberts today we're going to look at the elements of a proper stroke. First you have your set position and second thing you want to look for is the tips proximity to the cue ball; half an inch or less ideally, a quarter of an inch or less. The third step is you want to make sure you have a comfortable bridge and comfortable bridge distance. Your forearm should be perpendicular to the cue, relaxed grip, head in line with the shot and the cue as level as possible, certainly no more elevated than a cube of chalk. All of these are elements of the proper set position.
Practicing The Stroke
Next you pull the cue back into the pause position bringing the ferrule all the way back to the bridge, the wrist pivots out, hold for one to three seconds while sighting your shot. Next, finish, propelling the tip through the cue ball until your grip hand hits your home position.The last part is your freeze which is where you evaluate your shot. I am in my home position because my grip hand is touching my chest so I can stand up now. One of the most effective ways to help develop your stroke is this particular drill or exercise right here. Place four balls around the spot with the middle two each occupying half of the middle. Pull the middle two balls out and set your cue ball up to shoot the ball up and down the table. Start first with a slow speed, just up and down the table. Don't forget to chalk and obviously the object of this is not to pocket any balls, but to really work on your ability to hit the cue ball straight on a consistent basis. Now you can see I hit this one a little hard and a little off as you see it approaching the object ball on my right but I did make it up and down the table. Do that 10 times then speed it up go up down and then back up the table as I do on this shot, again, keeping the cue ball within the two guideline or guidepost. Shoot that 10 times and track your success rate. Now we're going to pick it up and go up and down the table twice and you'll see as you perform this drill, the harder you hit the cue ball, the more difficult it is to keep it on this straight line in between the two object balls. The reason for this is that any stroke flaws that you may have are greatly magnified the harder you hit your cue ball. So there you have the elements of a proper stroke. One thing to remember when practicing stroke is and try not to focus on too many elements at one time. Pick one item or one area of concern that you want to work on and concentrate on that particular area and then exaggerate the motions that you want to achieve. Concentrate on one motion at at time, one element of the stroke at a time and you'll be playing in the zone in no time. I'm instructor James Roberts thanks for joining us.