Monthly Archives: December 2015

The Eyes Have It!

“Stephen Feeney has invented a foolproof way of making certain that you are sighting correctly behind the line of the shot, not just when you are above the shot, but also when you are down over the Cue…….”

“SightRight® very quickly trains you to choose the right Line of Aim regardless of how you approach the shot.”
“The Eyes Have It!”
by Steve Davis

Even the most naturally gifted cueists will have questioned their cueing technique at some stage during their career and also they will have pondered over the most elusive of all subjects – that of how to improve one’s potting.

If you’ve agonized over your consistency levels and feel like you’ve hit a brick wall as far as improvement is concerned, then perhaps there is one aspect that you haven’t considered.

Do you often misjudge cut shots to the same side of the pocket? Do you fail to make an acceptable percentage of dead straight shots? Do you just miss pots too often for your own mental well being? Fear not! Some relatively sensible help is at hand.

Have you read the instructional manuals and tried to copy their advice? Have you had coaching from a recognised authority within the game and been told that in order to improve you must stand a certain way or change your bridge hand, Back hand, grip or delivery of the cue?

Take a look around at the top players. Do they adhere to the instructional manuals and do they all have the perfect cue actions that you’re being asked to adopt? I think not. So where does that leave you? Unfortunately to some degree, dumped with the old saying “you’ve either got it or you ain’t!”

But don’t give up hope, we’ve all got some talent to some degree, it’s just a case of trying to maximize what we’ve got!

Identifying the most important aspects of technique is the key to utilizing your available practice time to the full. By all means experiment, but for most people time is precious and separating good coaching advice from the ineffective dictum is a welcome benefit.

I have been competing in the world of Snooker as a Professional over four different decades and in that time I have seen a great deal of brilliant exponents of a game that is judged very highly on accuracy of potting (especially over distance). Therefore much of my cue wielding life has been devoted to discovering its art. Here are some of my current thoughts on the subject.

How do we judge a pot?

Initially we judge a pot when we are standing somewhere behind the shot. It is from this upright (standing) position that we find ourselves in as we arrive to take up our stance. Obviously it is a good position to utilize our spatial judgment. We find the intended “angle” of the pot from this “high” position. When we are down on the shot this “angle” would not be so easy to determine.

Through the familiarity of trial and error and using our spatial awareness we hone our skills in judging a pot. Even though we are probably still judging the potting angle when we are in the “low” position (chin on the cue) this position is best used to judge the line of the cue and the intended line of aim of the cue.

Some of us are better at potting than others; however, it may not be that we judge the potting angle any better or worse but that we can send the Cue-ball where it’s needed more consistently.

There is no judgment to a dead straight pot yet so many people have severe trouble with this shot.

The first thing a coach may look to when faced with a player who has this type of difficulty is to determine whether the player is delivering the cue in a straight line and check that he is aiming at and striking the Cue-ball in the centre. He will attempt to alter a variety of things in order to “straighten things out.” However these “faults” may not necessarily be the cause of missing the pot but possibly the effect of attempting to correct the consequences of the real cause of missing the pot!

In theory, to correctly judge the line of the pot we should be standing with our eyes directly behind the intended line of the shot. Few do and most players judge this intended line from the side!

Question:

How do you know that your eyes are directly on the intended line of the shot when you get down? The answer is that you don’t!

The “off line” sighting method that many people risk adopting during the natural process of taking up a stance, goes a long way to explaining why so many players have trouble executing a straight pot. It also explains why so many players seem to hit across the line of the shot and also why players have a habit of missing a cut pot to the same side of the pocket.

If your eyes are not on the exact line of the shot then how can you expect to accurately judge a cut shot without some possibly undesirable consequences? And how can you guarantee moving your cue through on a straight line if your eyes are looking along a different one?

Accurate Sighting – Why take the risk!?

Stephen Feeney has invented a patented Sighting Aid & patented Method of Use (SightRight®) which provides a foolproof way of making certain that you are behind the line of the shot, not just when you are above the shot but also when you are down over the cue.

SightRight® very quickly trains you to choose the right line regardless of how you approach the shot. If you or your coach needs to establish that your eyes are lined up where you think they are lined up at any stage of the pre-shot routine then the SightRight® proves it!

SightRight® also takes out of the equation the mystery and possible excuse making of the “dominant eye” theorists because however we “see” only one image through our two eyes, that image is the correct one for us.

With Sight Right® you don’t have to know if you have a dominant eye or not the Patented Design shows you! Job done!

“Seeing really is believing”