The Sport of Pool Billiards 1. Ralph Eckert
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Название: The Sport of Pool Billiards 1
Автор: Ralph Eckert
Издательство: Автор
Жанр: Спорт, фитнес
isbn: 9783941484979
isbn:
- Mahatma Gandhi -
Founder of the Indian freedom movement and peaceful resis-tance
Taken from his book „He who follows the path of truth will not stumble“ (2002)
27
Chapter 2
Speed
The correct speed is of crucial importance when playing for position! Good players need a great deal of feeling for this and these exercises are designed to help you develop this feeling! Often during training, you will be told to “play very softly”, use “average power”, “hard”, “soft”, “lightly” and so forth.
Andreas Huber, German national coach:
The words „hard“ or „power“ are fatal. You can only achieve the right effect (!!!) through the speed of the stroke – power cannot be transferred in billiards!
To clarify these instructions once and for all and, at the same time, to give you an increased feeling for the right speed, here is a short series of exercises for training speed. Try them out and see if you manage to follow the cue through as I describe. Even experienced sportsmen have problems playing Speed 1 correctly.
Recommended training target: Play the four balls at Speed 1 and 2 again and again until you can play the four balls in sequence at the right speed. With Speed 3 and 4 just play one ball after the other until they all (but not necessarily in order) come to rest in the right speed field.
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Training program
All 4 balls are to be played one after the other into the marked area, i.e. 4 times in a row. They must not touch the bottom rail, i.e. there is a tolerance of 4 diamonds.
The balls must not touch each other!
As above! The same tolerance applies! I.e. the balls should roll into the area and may touch the rail (but don‘t have to). The balls must not touch each other!
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Chapter 2
Again as above, only just a little further (Speed 3)! In this exercise you‘ll have to watch your straightness, too as the balls are not allowed to touch each other or the long cushion!
Here again there is a tolerance of 4 diamonds!
There is not usually any need to play a speed stronger than Speed 4. A 9-ball break may require Speed 5 or 6 but this cannot be shown in table lengths because the cue ball would
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Training program
automatically jump when it hits the first rail. However, interna-tional table rules state that a ball must be able to run 4 table‘s lengths before it jumps.
Now you‘ve done the exercises you should be able to see whether you had any problems playing these speeds or not. At this point, though, we shouldn‘t be worrying about straight-ness. Straightness will be dealt with in the next session. The problem of finding the right speed is usually a question of the right swinging frequency! Where does the strength needed for a clean Speed 4 or higher come from? The upper arm? The forearm? Muscle power? No, it comes from the speed of the cue movement itself. In order to achieve a high speed you have to learn to move the cue „fast“. And to do this, you need to accelerate with the cue. Before you actually contact the ball you should do a few practice swings. I have often had pupils who would have gladly left these practice swings out, or who did them very slowly, quickly or cautiously. But if you do not do any practice swings beforehand, or not enough, then you‘ll generally never be able to get any real acceleration with the shot. The shot usually turns out to be a bit hacked off and rough.
If you swing too slowly, you‘ll find it difficult to hit the cue ball quickly and won‘t be able to achieve the high speeds. On the other hand, if you swing your cue too hastily, too impetuously, you‘ll have problems with the slower speeds! The best thing to do is accustom yourself to an average swinging speed and then you‘ll be able to master all the speeds!
You may be asking yourself how many practice swings are recommended before actually hitting the cue ball. There isn‘t really a simple answer to this. My advice is simply to swing
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Chapter 2
the cue backwards and forwards as often as you like until your instinct gives you the okay. (If your instinct says „this is no good“, then my advice would be to put the cue down, stand up straight and start again). If your instinct gives you the okay, then pause briefly and start your countdown, for example „1 - 2 -...shoot“. (Take a look at the 7-step procedure under 2.9 Movement cycle.)
Let‘s go through it again:
Once you feel everything is okay (cue resting in forward po-sition) .. move cue back and forwards again (1) .. move cue back and forwards again (2) brief pause .. cue back (some professionals prefer to pause here) .. follow the shot right through until your arm comes to a natural rest!
Andreas Huber, German national coach:
It is incredibly important to prepare yourself slowly, smoothly and, above all, completely before you actually cue the ball – pulling the cue back quickly in order to achieve a greater effect nearly always ends up in catastrophe.
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Training program
Little differences in style:
Some professionals tend to go „1-...shoot“ or even simply „… shoot“ rather than „1 - 2 -...shoot“! The most important thing is that, once your instinct tells you to play, you accustom yourself to your own preferred method and then stick to it! This way you can be sure that your stroke will always come through from the back in one clean, smooth movement and that you never shoot too impetuously. Some players prefer to take a short pause „at the front“ (i.e. with the cue directly in front of the cue ball) and others „behind“ (with the shooting arm at the rear). Others pause at the front and СКАЧАТЬ