As a personal billiards coach to many skilled players, it comes naturally to me to tell you what to concentrate upon, even before you bend to the table to shoot.Here's a great key though to focus upon that will improve your game overall.
Your mindset must allow your cue stick to flow using the principle of inertia in the classic stroke. The right mindset will further allow you to silence the inner critic that causes fear over the next shot in competition, which ultimately creates the clenching or tightening of the body that hampers the inertia stroke.
It may seem like I'm oversimplifying, but having one key thought or key process will improve your play a great deal. The best thought to have while looking at the next shot is this:
"...I need the cue ball to hit the object ball here and then the cue ball needs to take this line to here, here and end up here.
Sounds so simple that you might be saying, "But I don't know how to make the cue ball travel where I want!" Controlling the paths of the balls is what much of this GuideSite to Pool & Billiards is designed to do, including years of blogs and instructional articles, hundreds of them on every aspect of position and player control at the table.
Meanwhile, always plot the ideal path of the cue ball in your head, then take a relaxed, comfortable stroke, and your mind/body computer will assess results and constantly improve your shotmaking, and your pre-shotmaking visualization, too.
"Hit here and then the cue ball goes there and there to there," is my main, relaxed focus in competition.
Billiards photo (c) Matt Sherman, licensed to About.com
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