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How to Step Into Your Shots

Rather read than watch? Read about how to step into your shot below:

Standing to Shooting Position

Hello again, today we're going to go back to the basics and take a look at the best practices for transitioning from your standing into your shooting position and how to build your stance around the shot line. A lot of players that I see, when they set up for the shot transitioning from standing to shooting , will come up for the shot very close to the table and they'll step away from the shot. The potential issues with that are, first and foremost, staying straight on the shot line.

Setup

I've set up a long straight in shot to illustrate and by stepping back you'll see it's very easy to get off of that straight line. Stepping away from the shot, there's almost a natural tendency to miss that straight-in alignment. A more efficient and effective way to do this is to step into the shot and if you watch many of the pro players you’ll see virtually all of them do this. I can't think of a single player that steps away from the shot when they transition from standing, down to the shooting stance.

Lining Up The Shot

So, that would look something like this… Now, I'm a left-handed player so for you righties out there you're going to have to switch it over to the other side but the principles are the same. Here I'm going to find the straight line that extends from the pocket I'm shooting toward, to the object ball, down to the cue ball, to behind the cue ball. I’m going to confirm this with my cue stick with my left foot on the line, a small step forward. Step forward with my right foot pivoting and down. So, if you're stepping away from the shot line make a change and work on stepping into the shot line when you're transitioning from your standing to your shooting position. For you players who are already doing this you want to work to refine this to make sure your footwork and stance is consistent every time. This is a technique that’s worth practicing regardless of your skill level. Till next time I'm JP Roberts, keep playing in the zone!