Become a "Cue Ball Whisperer"
Posted by Steve Jennings on Friday, June 3, 2011
Under: Instructional tips
In addition to my passion for pool, I am also an animal lover. One of my favorite programs is The Dog Whisperer. Cesar Milan is a fantastic dog trainer. But if you watch his show, you will see that his focus is almost always on changing the behavior of the dog's owners, and not directly with the behavior of the dogs. When the owners behave in the proper way, the dogs respond.
I was thinking about this the other day, and realized that we must apply the same principles to "Cue Ball Control". In order to get the cue ball to do what we want it to do, we actually have to focus on our own behavior. The cue ball is simply a plastic ball. It responds to the "commands" we give it. And we give it commands by the way we move our body and the stick we hold in our hands. So we must first learn what the cue ball naturally wants to do, based on basic physics. What does the cue ball want to do after the tip strikes it? What does it want to do when it hits another ball, or a cushion? Once we understand the natural tendencies of the cue ball, we can give it different commands. We do this in 3 basic ways. First is the ANGLE we place the cue stick in relation to the shot. Second is the SPEED we have the stick moving when it makes contact with the cue ball. And finally, we apply SPIN, based on where the tip makes contact with the ball.
If we give the proper commands to the cue ball, and we do it the right way, the cue ball will respond exactly as we want it to respond. So what we often call "cue ball control" is really self control.
To become a great player, we must become "Cue Ball Whisperers". Make sure that our behavior is the correct behavior to get the results we want from our cue ball.
Steve
I was thinking about this the other day, and realized that we must apply the same principles to "Cue Ball Control". In order to get the cue ball to do what we want it to do, we actually have to focus on our own behavior. The cue ball is simply a plastic ball. It responds to the "commands" we give it. And we give it commands by the way we move our body and the stick we hold in our hands. So we must first learn what the cue ball naturally wants to do, based on basic physics. What does the cue ball want to do after the tip strikes it? What does it want to do when it hits another ball, or a cushion? Once we understand the natural tendencies of the cue ball, we can give it different commands. We do this in 3 basic ways. First is the ANGLE we place the cue stick in relation to the shot. Second is the SPEED we have the stick moving when it makes contact with the cue ball. And finally, we apply SPIN, based on where the tip makes contact with the ball.
If we give the proper commands to the cue ball, and we do it the right way, the cue ball will respond exactly as we want it to respond. So what we often call "cue ball control" is really self control.
To become a great player, we must become "Cue Ball Whisperers". Make sure that our behavior is the correct behavior to get the results we want from our cue ball.
Steve
In : Instructional tips