Give Your Grip the Thumbs Down
Years ago, having just walked into my local room, I spotted a friend of mine (I’ll call “Rob”) practicing alone. When he saw me, he ran over and said, “Thank goodness you’re here! I need help! I can’t make a straight-in shot and it’s driving me crazy!
A little background about the situation and the player. First, the straight-in shot Rob was practicing was a long stun shot along the diagonal between the corner pockets on a 9-foot table. The object ball was at the center of the table and the cue ball was roughly a diamond out from the corner. For a shot like this, there is little room for error. Let me re-phrase that: There Is No Room For Error. Period. If you’re off by a half-millimeter at the contact point or deliver the cue ball with ANY side spin at all, you can forget about it.
Second, Rob was an extremely strong player, left-handed and well-known in one-pocket and nine-ball circles, which of course elevated his frustration level at not being able to make the shot at hand. When he was “on,” shots like this were child’s play. He had a beautiful stroke rarely seen except at the professional level. There was also, The Sound, the unmistakable crispness heard from a well-struck ball.
“OK,” I said, “show me.” Rob set it up and missed it to the left. “Once more,” I said, and again off to the left. I wasn’t concerned about how far off to the left the ball went and didn’t pay much attention to it. What I was paying close attention to was Rob’s grip.
I’d seen enough after two shots. “Rob,” I said, “when holding the cue I want you to rotate your thumb so that it points straight down, from the Set position all the way through the stroke to the Finish position.” “That’s it?” he asked. “Yep. Now try it again.”
Five shots in succession, split the corner pocket each time, dead stun on the cue ball, and the last two shots with his eyes closed.
Needless to say he was amazed. “How did you figure this out?”
Here’s what I found. At Set, Rob’s grip hand (left) was rotated very slightly to the point where his thumb was pointing a touch inwards towards his leg. Upon delivery, the thumb’s position invited a small twist, pointing a bit more inward, and in turn caused a faint pull of the cue to his right (closer to his body). That in turn pivoted the tip to contact the cue ball to the left of the vertical axis, squirting it to the right, and cutting the object ball offline to the left. We’re talking about very subtle, miniscule misalignments here, but significant enough in scope to throw the cue tip offline a half-millimeter. That’s all it takes to miss a shot like this.
There was a second element, though, to my solution. I call it “Dumbo’s Feather.” You most likely remember Disney’s flying elephant who was convinced that he couldn’t fly without his
magic feather. As long as I had Rob thinking about his thumb, his body was free to shoot the shot naturally. The main theme here is that if we’re not thinking about it, we let our bodies do what they’re programmed to do without any mental interference.
I’m reminded of the scene in Timothy Gallwey’s great little book, “The Inner Game of Tennis,” in which a young tennis pro complains to her coach that she can’t hit the ball over the net. “Show me,” he says. So, with a give-up, disconnected air of resignation she bounces the ball, and with a perfect forehand, screams it over the net, one inch off the tape. She bounces another and slams it over again. Five in a row. “I don’t understand this,” she says. “I don’t know why this is working.”
The coach replies, “I do. It’s because you’re not thinking about it.”
The lesson here is that once we’ve decided how to play a shot, commit to it and get out of your own way. In the case of the grip hand, keeping your thumb pointed down all the way through the delivery will prevent curling the grip hand or twisting the wrist, adding more accuracy to the stroke.
By: Mark Powell, PBIA Master Instructor.