Pro Secret? - Take The Pro Stance
Q. Matt, oh About.com Pool Guide, my stance is in a funk, and my shots, mostly erratic. Help me!
A. Have you seen TV's "Magic's Biggest Secrets" revealing professional magic tricks? You can practice thousands of hours to (maybe) learn pro pool secrets. Or you can read secrets I'm divulging in About.com week-by-week during 2011-12.
My first "pool year's resolution" is to reveal more secrets of the classic billiards stance. Enjoy, readers. You deserve better instruction than you can find most of the time in the pool world.
Pool is 80% shot selection, 20% shot execution. Most of the 20% is stance and a pro secret because watching balls roll rather than a pro's body we lose detail. And only a rare look is taken directly along the shot line in person or on television.
How do pros stand differently than amateurs? A beginner sights over the cue ball like it's a rifle. An intermediate sights over the cue stick like it's a rifle. But the secret is "arm on the shot line, head and body off the shot line." Yes, it's true, and there's no need to force your chin atop the stick either.
Here are two wrong stances then the right stance. DO ALL THREE so you can learn better what I'm discussing here.
A beginner (shooting center ball straight ahead) places their head and trunk directly behind the cue ball then bends down. But our stroking arms are to one side of our bodies so right-handers point incorrectly to their left (Illustration A) and vice versa for left-handers. The stroke must twist to pocket balls (shudder).
