So, in my early days, I used to rush pots…
And NOT LOOK for long enough when focusing on the object ball before the final delivery of the shot.
Then, I wondered why I was missing them.
I’d be frustrated and ask questions like…
Was it my cueing?
Was it my aiming?
It couldn’t be both?
However, when I made a minor tweak in my game, which involved looking longer just before cue delivery, things started looking up!
I noticed I was getting more long balls.
Those I wasn’t getting were getting MUCH CLOSER than they were.
I felt more confident.
All because of just one tiny tweak that didn’t involve grip, stance, or cue action.
It was simply because I was looking for longer before the final swing.
So, ask yourself this…
How many of you really LOOK at a shot properly for long enough?
Be honest…
Maybe you rush a shot too much, and your eyes are all over the place causing you to miss “easy” shots. I bet this happens to you, right? It certainly happens to us!
Maybe it’s nothing to do with your cueing, and EVERYTHING to do with your focus!
If that’s the case, then…
…This post will be worth looking at…
Here, you’re going to learn three IMPORTANT things…
- What Quiet Eyes is…
- How QE works in relation to snooker and potting…
- How it will improve your pot success if you use it in practice and matches properly to your advantage…
But first…
WHAT IS QUIET EYE? SIMPLE DEFINITION…
Quiet eye is a technique reported to improve outcomes in various tasks requiring human visual attention.[1] It has been the subject of several articles in journalistic periodicals,[2][3][4]and of scientific studies that evaluate it in relation to activities such as sports and surgical training.[5][6][7]
[Quiet-eye theory] is deceptively simple: Before you perform an action, you focus your gaze on the salient aspects of your goal—the rim, the catcher’s mitt, the malignant tissue, and so on. In recent years, using eye-tracking technology, researchers have found that locking onto the relevant stimulus during the right time frame—typically the few hundred milliseconds before, during and after the movement—greatly improves your chances of success.
— David Kohn, The Atlantic (What Athletes See)[1]
Now, this is basically a system to get you to focus and set your mind on the pot before you deliver the final backswing…
It means looking that 2 seconds extra on your point of aim before you deliver your final swing…
What it means is committing to a line/point of aim on the object ball when you are standing up on the shot. Once you’ve picked your point, get down on the shot and then do your 2/3 feathers.
Then, just before you deliver that final backswing, LOOK at your line or point you have chosen for 2 seconds, or longer if you wish, and then deliver your cue!
Stay down on the shot to assess what happened. Did you see a difference?
Compare this to your “normal” way you’ve been striking shots pre using the Quiet Eye method.
Michael Waring, a league player from Carlisle, who runs the amateur snooker information events website Snookerhub has also been trying out the Quiet Eyes technique with immediate improvements to his game, and had this to say…
I started to try out the Quiet Eyes theory recently as I seemed to be having a problem keeping my eyes focused on the point I was aiming at.To simply pick a point and look at it just for an extra second or two has really helped my concentration on the shot. External distractions are lessened as well.The improvement has been immediate and with more practice, I believe it will improve my game considerably. Time will tell!”
=====>It focuses your mind fully on the pot…
=====> Lets you discover if you’re lined up on the shot right or not. If you’re not, get up off shot and do it again…
=====> It also lets you discover if you feel your cue action is not delivering straight as well…With SnookerZone, we could feel in our cue arm if it wasn’t delivering straight on the swings…
=====> Helps you to not rush the shot and to feel the type of power you need for the shot…
======>Also, it helps you to “zone in” and forget all the distractions around you. We were playing in a jam-packed club at the weekend full of distractions, but, we found this really helped us to zone in on the pot and focus ALL our attention on it.
What we do is normally focus on the cue ball doing two or three feathers and then pause – look at the point of contact on the OB and then deliver on the final swing…
Try it and you might find it gives you a much more measured way of delivering shots…
That two-second pause and look before the final backswing is key!…
[bctt tweet=”The Quiet Eyes helps you to “zone in” and forget all the distractions around you and JUST focus on the pot…” username=”@chrisgaynor2″]
QUIET EYE: Results…
Firstly, when you do something initially, and you’re not used to it, it’s going to feel weird and even uncomfortable. Often, things feel like that because they are right! To paraphrase a top coach in snooker, we often revert back to old habits because they feel comfortable, but that doesn’t mean they are right!
For SnookerZone, the 2 seconds extra time to REALLY look and focus on the pot on EVERY SHOT took his game to a different level in terms of potting or coming much closer to potting the more difficult balls. We found we were getting much closer to the more difficult ones and on long pots, some were rattling the jaws.
To put it in perspective, on long pots we attempted 20 and got 11/20. Before, our success rate was 8/20.
WARNING: Using the Quiet Eye is NOT a QUICK FIX – it’s simply a way of controlling the way you approach a shot and teaches you to slow down how you play a shot. You still have to line yourself up right and deliver the cue in a straight line!
AND PRACTICE IS STILL MANDATORY!
PS: The Quiet Eye is NOT about being slow, it’s about taking the time you need to focus on the pot and see the line of aim. If someone says you’re taking too long, it’s probably because their technique is all slapdash and they’re not focusing on their game enough…