Snooker Cue Action Why So Difficult? Straight Cueing

If you can find a way to push your cue through perfectly straight, then snooker as a game becomes a lot easier to play. Unfortunately, learning this skill is incredibly challenging, so I'm going to show you why it's so difficult. But first, what exactly is going wrong? If we draw a straight line between the cue ball and the pocket and strike the cue ball on the side, this will make it deflect away in the opposite direction, but not by very much. Even with this distance, it's only just enough to miss the pocket. So just a small amount of unwanted side from this distance will cause the cue ball to break just wide enough that it makes the object ball rattle in the jaws. If you've lined up a shot correctly, then the only way you can miss it is by striking the cue ball away from the centre, although there are many reasons why this can happen. But the main thing that prevents you from pushing your cue through online is just something that most players simply won't know. I think this is because it gets overlooked, but it shouldn't be, because I believe this is the cueing error that causes you to miss by the furthest. But unfortunately, this won't be able to help you unless you can get the basic snooker technique mostly right. But I can explain all of that in six simple steps. The first of these involves your cueing arm when you're just about to strike the cue ball. Ideally, when your tip's right up to the cue ball, you want your arm pointed vertically down at the ground. And this is going to give it an even amount of space to move first backwards and then forwards again. Step two is to keep your elbow as vertical as possible so your cue arm isn't leaning over too much to the right or left-hand side. And this should mean when you push your cue through, it's mainly only your forearm that moves. Step three is to keep your thumb as tight as possible to your bridge hand so it doesn't wobble around at all when you're on the shot. As this is so incredibly vital, let's have a look at how to make a bridge for snooker. With your hand flat on the table, simply lift your knuckles up so your fingers and the palm of your hand remain on the table. Ideally, you want the V of your bridge somewhere between 10 to 14 inches away from the cue ball, but this is just personal preference, really, as how stable your bridge is mostly depends on how well you can keep your thumb in place. This isn't very easy to do, but it's something that can really help your game if you get it right. Step four is to very gently rest the cue against the side of your body. This will prevent it from coming offline and help you push it through straighter. And step five is literally your stance, because as long as you're getting most of the previous four steps right, then whether or not you pop the ball is going to be determined by where you're standing. If you rest the cue against the side of your body, as I showed in the previous step, then where you stand is where you're aiming. As you can see here, we're not quite stood in the right place, so there's no way I'm going to pop the pink. But if I just put my foot a little bit further over to the left, then I'll end up missing the pink on the other side. So in order to get my cue in the right place, I need to stand in a position that gets the side of my body directly in line with the shot. And that can only happen if you're standing in the right spot. And each player will have their own unique spot to stand in that will help them pop the balls the best. As standing in the right position makes a shot easier, I'm going to show you roughly how you can find out. Even though this is really exaggerated, you might be standing slightly too far to one side and not really notice it. But you can tell by what the object ball does. If it consistently misses to the left, then it means you're standing too far to the left-hand side. And if it misses slightly to the right on most shots, then you're standing too far to the right. At least, generally speaking anyway, because if you're stood in the right position, it's going to feel like the pop wants to go in the right direction. And the more precise the position you're standing in is, the more accurately you're going to be able to pop, and the easier you're going to find it to play even the hardest shots. But even if you get all of this right, it's still incredibly difficult to cue the ball straight. And this is mostly because of your grip. This is the sixth and I think most vital step, especially the way your grip needs to loosen up on the way back, and then tighten again very slightly on the way through. Because if you don't do this, you're going to end up with a hard-to-control seesaw motion. Not only that, this wrist action is used to help accelerate the cue speed, producing more spin. The way it works is to keep the thumb and forefinger wrapped around the cue, and loosen up the back three fingers on the way back, and then tighten again on the way through. Not only does this keep the cue more parallel to the table, increasing control, but it also helps you generate more speed through the cue ball. But if you get the timing of this wrong, it's probably the biggest reason you'll cue offline. Look what happens here when I grip my cue tight at the end of my backswing. I can hardly push it through again in a straight line. I couldn't push my cue through straight there because the tightness of my grip made all the other muscles in my arm tighten up. This is why I think this is the cueing error that can cause you to miss by the furthest. Because you just need to grab the cue too much at the wrong time, and the rest of your action is unlikely to work in the way you expected. But it's not just your grip that can tighten up. Just as if instead of resting the cue against the side of my body gently, I pull it in too tight, it will start going round my body, and this will make it very difficult to cue the shot straight. And of course, tensing up the muscles in your cue arm at some point on your backswing, or as you're pushing the cue through. Although I don't really think I can show that easily on camera. But the reason it's so difficult to cue the ball straight is sometimes it's almost impossible to prevent your cue arm from tightening up in some way. This might be because you're nervous or you need to play a shot with some power. Either way, it's hard to keep all the tension out of your arm. But preventing it from happening, especially on a shot like that, is incredibly difficult. But here are the things you can do that will definitely help. But first, let's just quickly find Neil in Vancouver, Canada. And that's there. To start off with, staying still on the shot will help quite a bit. However, you don't want to try and keep all of the parts of your body completely still. Otherwise, this will result in you tensing up on the shot and create more problems than it solves. It's only your feet and your bridge arm you want to keep completely still. Ideally, with your entire forearm, from your bridge hand to your elbow, tight against the table. If you keep this still, this has the weird effect of preventing you from jumping up on the shot quite a bit. Apart from your feet and your bridge arm, the rest of your body needs to be free to flex around just a little bit. And you'll find you'll pop more smoothly when you let this happen. The second tip is to make sure you're only very gently resting the cue against the side of your body. And there's no pressure there whatsoever. It's very helpful to practice keeping this and your grip the same every time. And it can allow all shots to feel a lot more predictable. Keeping this consistent during practice will help you to feel a lot more confident. The third tip is once you've settled on the shot, don't move around or change your position, even if it feels wrong. Just be confident you're in the right place and play the shot. This might not help you straight away, but eventually it'll help your game to become a lot more predictable, and you'll start to see the angles a lot easier. So the way to do this is to walk into the shot, get settled on it, and once you're in this position, just be confident you're in the right place. It might not go in and you might miss, but at least then you'll know for the next time what you need to do right. Because this should help you to become less nervous of a shot you don't like the look of, which is a big cause of you tightening up. Which leads us quite nicely into the fourth tip, which is trying not to grip the cue too tightly at any stage. If you can practice playing with a slightly looser grip, you'll find it'll be less likely that you're going to grip the cue tightly at the wrong place, like now at the back of my swing, which could cause me to miss. And the final tip is to realize that when a shot misses, this is usually caused because you've tensed your arm at the wrong stage, and not blame the rest of your technique. Because you don't play better snooker by constantly improving your technique. You play better snooker by keeping your technique the same, allowing it to become more predictable over time. If you can keep doing this and begin to play without doubt, it won't matter too much if your technique's a little bit wobbly, or if you can't quite strike the cue ball in the middle. Although, to be truthful, I cued this a lot better than I expected. Because... As long as it stays the same every time, it's going to be predictable, and that means you're going to pick up the angles a lot quicker. Not that that's particularly easy to do on its own. Because for slightly confusing reasons, you might not be able to see exactly the right place to strike the object ball straight. But don't worry, I've made two videos that explain exactly how to do it. And remember, don't just watch play, and make the commitment to becoming a better player by subscribing to the channel, and visit the website. See you later!