This is a shot I played over the weekend in a practice frame at Oxshott which I potted the blue into the right corner and screwed the white over the left side – and because I had put a bit too much screw on, the white ended up knocking the side jaw of the middle and coming back out for a red in open play.
I’ve been working on a couple of things in technique recently that have been missing from my game. I sometimes have a tendency to lift my head up early – which has been something another player noticed, and it’s working well in my game.
Sometimes, you can’t tell if you’ve got any faults yourself, unless someone points them out to you and tells you so that you are at least aware of them.
I’m also using a shorter backswing than a longer backswing, as I am feeling like the very long backswing is pulling my cue offline a bit on some shots, and so – with adjusting with just a slightly shorter backswing, I might not pull the cue offline as much – especially under pressure, although, my cue action has worked well over time in some matches in the league this season where I have potted some great balls under pressure but I feel that my length of backswing is slightly causing sometimes to come offline – or at least that’s what it feels like.
When pursuing a consistent action, it’s about finding what works for you and what doesn’t. Although sometimes, you have to adjust or tweak, once you find what works for you stick with it.
In my opinion, having a shorter backswing means less can go wrong – but there are advantages in a longer backswing such as having time to pause – whereas with a shorter backswing, you might not pause enough on the backswing and end up jabbing at the shot.
It is sometimes a case of trial and error and then finding out what works best for you.
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