A few nights ago I was sitting in the pool room having a few brews and there's this kid practicing 8-ball on the table in front of me. Someone had taught this kid some of the fundamentals of proper stance, stroke, follow-thru, etc and he appeared to be concentrating pretty well. What his tutor had apparently failed to tell him about was to keep a level cue.

Anytime this poor guy used any english he'd miss the shot. Then he'd set it up again and shoot it carefully - usually without english this time - and make it. This pattern went on for an hour or so, interrupted occasionally by him breaking the rack and sending the cue-ball flying at my head. He was trying the 8-ball break where you put the cue-ball near the side rail and hit the second ball back in the rack with draw. Since nobody had told him about keeping his cue level he was making a normal bridge on top of the rail. He was also striking the cue-ball well below center and shooting hard. After the fourth or fifth near miss I finally managed to catch his flying cue-ball in mid-air. I told him I would only give it back to him if he would listen to some advice on how to prevent it. Since he wanted his cue-ball back he had to agree.

I demonstrated a few good rail bridges and managed to convince him that he should strive to keep his cue as level as possible to prevent the cue-ball from curving or bouncing. I had to show him a few curve shots and jump shots to get my point across since he'd learned from his dad and his dad had never mentioned it.

The first time this kid broke with a level cue he snapped the eight in, so I had him hooked. We played for a while and I pointed out several small things like how sometimes he'd jump up from the shot too soon or he'd forget to chalk up before every shot, simple stuff like that.

I ran into him again tonight and he thanked me and told me that he'd learned something from just watching me shoot that was helping him even more than those things I'd specifically told him about, and that's the subject of this post. (This was before he started criticizing my stroke mechanics - that's another topic.)

Ever notice how just about all formal instruction on getting into a proper shooting stance starts with standing behind the shot, aligning various body parts with the line of the shot, then bending various other body parts to get into the stance itself? Why not just squat down and shoot? You'd have to change your alignment points before you squatted, but you'd end up with the exact same stance.

I think I know why you shouldn't just squat. The problem is going to be putting it into less than 1000 words and still getting my thoughts across clearly. But I really think this information can be valuable so I won't sacrifce clarity for brevity's sake.

First, and I hope everyone agrees with me here, shot angles are easier to see from an upright position. You don't see good players going around peering over the rails to plan their next shot. You plan your shots while your still standing up, while you can see the angles better. Once you bend into your stance, depending on how high your head is, you may still see the angle fairly well (upright like Bob Byrne) or you may only see a two-dimensional view of the balls (down low like Allison Fisher). The transition from seeing the shot well to being in position to execute the shot is critical. Ideally you want this transition to be smooth, so as you get into shooting position the view changes as slowly as possible - allowing your brain to keep up with the changing perspective. This means that information gained while standing up is (to your brain) still relevant once you get into your stance. There is no discontinuity caused by a too-abrupt change in perspective.

As an extreme example of this discontinuity, plan the shot while standing up then close your eyes as you get into your stance, then open them once you're set up. If you're like me at this point you have only a general idea of the angles involved in making the ball and moving the cue-ball into position for the next shot. The sudden change of perspective has caused your mind to throw out the information you obtained while standing. This discontinuity can happen any time the transition from standing to shooting position is too sudden for the brain to associate the two different perspectives into a complete image of the same shot.

So how do you minimize this discontinuity? By stepping into the shot instead of just getting into your stance. Find the shot while standing and keep looking at the shot as you move, straight along the shot-line, into your stance. This is what all the books and tapes say, but I've never seen any reasoning behind it, just references to choreographed consistency.

By paying attention to my pre-shot routine (such as it is, I'm an FP remember), it turns out that the angle formed with my eyes, the cue-ball, and the surface of the table is EXACTLY the same from the time I'm standing to the time I'm in my shooting stance. This cannot be a coincidence. It's just something I've unconsciously picked up over the years as the best way to get into position. It's like evolution. My mechanics have evolved, with no conscious thought, to the proper way to minimize this discontinuity. I think this is pretty darn cool.

My eyes in shooting position, are about 16" above and 28" behind the cue-ball. When standing my eyes are about 34" above the cue-ball. Run these numbers through some high school geometry and you can calculate the distance I must stand from the cue-ball to have the same viewing angle that I have in my stance. Plugging in numbers for other players' heights and in-stance head positions and you can figure out where they should stand to minimize the discontinuity. It turns out that more erect players should stand closer to the shot before getting into their stance and players with a lower head position should stand farther back. The chin-scrapers, in order to make full use of this, would have to stand back an impractible distance (people would think they were forfeiting the game) so they have to compensate for the increased difference in perspective by settling into their stance more slowly.

I hope this made sense. I plan to dig out my accu-stats tapes tomorrow and see if I can confirm that people are actually doing this.