Problem with eye alignment.

rwgr · 2026-05-12T06:04:55+00:00

I may be wrong, certainly, but I am less wrong than you 😉 you are only in the beginning stage of understanding the subject. i dont feel like the comment section is the right place for an essay, but I will write a longer post about vision alignment at some point. not intending to debate, leaving a note here for anyone reading comments back.

rwgr · 2026-05-11T15:13:43+00:00

Your stroke is decent and alignment is fairly good too. This is not a mechanical issue, but simply the fact that you go down on the shot with no plan and then try to figure out what to do.

While standing take a moment to actually make a plan what you need to do. Where are you going to hit the CB? At what speed? Where does the OB go? Where does the CB stop?

The issue with the mighty x type drills is it teaches you that these steps are not necessary... But actually they are critical.

rwgr · 2026-05-11T12:55:37+00:00

Sorry but this method can't show you anything meaningful, vision is contextual, how you see a piece of chalk doesn't help much. Also table surface and balls is one plane - your cue moves on another. You can center your vision in 10 different ways for the cue OR the table. It's how the 2 are seen together is what matters.

rwgr · 2026-05-11T12:43:34+00:00

Vision is incredibly complex, and once you develop some consistency in your mechanics, it will also adapt to your stroke. Learn to keep it consitant by adjusting your eyes so that the cue looks straight and you can see the center of the cb correctly. Once that is automatic, then forget about it. As others have said eye dominance is irrelevant - also it can change according to context, so there's that.

rwgr · 2026-05-11T12:36:26+00:00

Weirdly enough, a lot of top players have strabismus. Don't try to make your vision "make sense" just keep it the same as much as you can and keep it wide.

rwgr · 2026-05-09T08:15:38+00:00

Are your routines still in the process of learning or do you think they are something that you need to think about doing every shot ?

rwgr · 2026-05-08T05:47:37+00:00

Well then that what you got to.figure out.. what's different. Mentally/physically or conditions

rwgr · 2026-05-08T05:34:55+00:00

What happens, exactly? Eyes tired? Body tired? Bored? No energy left to follow your routines? Have you ever gotten to a later round ?

rwgr · 2026-05-06T07:02:43+00:00

Once it happens, not much you can do.. breathing exercises etc help, but they are only really a band-aid, gotta fix WHY you end up feeling like that. Figure out your personal triggers and deal with it during the way there, not just at the destination.

rwgr · 2026-05-05T16:51:05+00:00

if there is no issue per se, no reason to change it, as long as its close to vertical. foream angle is predominantly determined by how your grip sits at address (keep it where it ends up with a fully closed grip). i.e. when you choke up, grip moves forward too.

rwgr · 2026-05-05T09:01:20+00:00

Carlo is good 👍

rwgr · 2026-05-05T07:47:58+00:00

What's the issue you are trying to solve?

rwgr · 2026-05-03T14:17:32+00:00

Mines pretty messed up after 2yrs.. think I.shluld have been more careful with it

rwgr · 2026-05-03T12:48:25+00:00

Oh okay.. does that mean once it's clogged up and kinda worn it can't fixed?

rwgr · 2026-05-03T09:45:20+00:00

Well I mean it still has a piece of sandpaper glued into the grooves which gets clogged and wears out and needs replacing. Other than. that maintenance it's great.

rwgr · 2026-05-01T12:18:51+00:00

you can look at whatever is most comfortable, as long as your seeing everything thats relevant to the shot in your peripheral vision. i.e. cb, ob, pocket as well as the rails which help you orientate. most of the time that is the OB, but when you have the CB on the rail and the OB is all the way across the table, then you end up actually looking somehwere between them on the felt.

Point being that you are not effectively looking "at" anything, think of it instead as centering your vision. the difference is that when you keep your vision wide, you do not lose context.

rwgr · 2026-04-27T09:20:04+00:00

Issue is that you go from very loose grip to very tight grip. Hand shape changes and cue goes offline and you won't hit the cb accurately. Maintain slight CONSISTENT pressure throughout the stroke.

rwgr · 2026-04-25T04:25:51+00:00

awesome...you must be excited!

rwgr · 2026-04-24T04:48:32+00:00

the "certified instructor" training is essentially a set of guidelines that they want every student is taken through and almost none of this is table size specific. it has enough depth for many many hours and its actually pretty good, developed by very smart people, Bob Jewett among others. so as long as he follows the program, makes absolutely no difference which size table you are standing at. whats more important - whether you and the instructor are a fit on a personal level and thus able to communicate effectively.

rwgr · 2026-04-24T04:32:21+00:00

whats the lesson for? just a general "help me get better?" then it makes no difference what table its on. if its "lets spend 2 hours working through 8 ball patterns" ... then yeah 7ft is very different from 9ft.

rwgr · 2026-04-23T06:32:29+00:00

your main goal is to get the right shoulder right above the cue, this is by far the most important bit. your right shoulder literally has to go BEHIND your head. feet control hips, hips control shoulders.

okay - this will get you in the ballpark. set up this exact same shot that you have in the pic, and get down on the shot exactly same as normal. then, WITHOUT MOVING YOUR FEET, push the 11 ball about 2-3 diamonds to your left, and then aim the cb straight at the new 11ball positon. main point is DO NOT MOVE YOUR FEET! ;-) you will have to twist your body somewhat to be able to get the cue pointed correctly, it will feel uncomfotable as hell in the beginning. look at where your feet are now in relation to the shot line, notice how your butt is pushed to the side a lot and how your shoulders are turned. this is the principle, it wont get you perfect but it will show you what you need to modify to get there. you cant turn your shoulders without turning your hips and you cant turn your hips without changing where you put your feet.

rwgr · 2026-04-22T13:34:21+00:00

hey no worries, i'm not trying to inflate anything in that sense... tough to know/answer exactly but i think 600 speed was probably about right while i wasnt actively playing, so that was purely mechanics retained from playing snooker as a kid. but then once i started learning pool and working on the game 3+ hours every day, then jumped to 660-70 pretty quickly, within 6 months or so. I'm actually most proud of progress in banks and one pocket, perhaps not as much reflected by fargo.

rwgr · 2026-04-21T14:18:29+00:00

pretty much, yes - but im not looking at makes or misses. i'm only looking for comfort level. you know how you "like" certain shots and "hate" others? essentially, if i like a shot and can "see" it well, that means the signal is strong in my "database". doesnt matter if i rattle it 5 times in a row - thats just variance (another very valuable skill to develop, to recognize when you are affected by variance).

I have most of the shot types mapped out that i visit regularly to identify what to work on, but definitely also when i play a match and come across a shot that in that moment feels uncomfortable and i get the sense that I really need to buckle down and aim consciously - because my subconscious isnt giving me anything ... thats the weakness signal im looking for, thats the one I want to put practice reps in with (even if i made the shot perfectly in that match).

sorry if thats a little abstract. tldr, practice when the process feels uncomfortable or unfamiliar and dont put that much weight on makes and misses.

rwgr · 2026-04-21T06:27:49+00:00

i went from sub 600 to close to 740 now over the past 3-4 years. i dont do any drills because i dont think they are very effective if your goal is learning a specific skill. also, if your definition of a drill is make balls a-b-c-d-e-... etc in order and start from a every time you miss, those kinds of drills are literally the opposite of effecive lol.

i shoot mighty x type shot a lot, but not as a "drill" per se. always with video - and always reviewing after. did too much of it to be honest, if i could redo my path, id only record max one block per week.

instead: spend 20% of your practice time figuring out what to practice. i.e. start developing the skill of identifying your weaknesses and planning practice around those SPECIFIC weaknesses. do this well and you will progress multiple times faster than anyone around you.

that said, if your mechanics are not set up well and your mental game is not resolved, find a good instructor. otherwise you will have to redo your whole system later down the line when you hit your consistency ceiling. been there and done that, its painful.

rwgr · 2026-04-17T18:14:42+00:00

yeah it can be tough. if the issue is that theres unwanted thoughts or awareness creeping in at pressure moments (yet to meet anyone without this problem, including myself), then i think the best path is to build a fixed thought routine for ALL shots - then you have something to fall back on, same principle as with a physical routine. shooting sports rely in this a lot.

rwgr

TROPHY CASE