Through the Eyes of a Champion

By Johnny Archer

A Solid Foundation

Last week I was giving a private lesson at Mr. Cues II in Atlanta, GA (my home room) to o­ne of my students. He was a good player before I started working with him and plays at about a Skill Level 5 in the American Poolplayers Association. Usually what I do in private lessons is talk to the player and find out what they want to learn and see for myself where they are in their game so I know where to start. I try to get a feel for what problems they think they're having, and watch them to see if that is the case or not. I've found that almost everything comes down to consistency-they know they can play well, but they just don't feel consistent enough.

I start out with my students watching them hit balls-watching their stroke, seeing if their head comes up, checking out their bridge, and watching their stance. I try to start with elementary stuff that might cause their game problems that they may not realize they're doing. I stood back and watched my student hit a few balls.  After a couple of racks, I noticed o­ne thing in particular that I thought was hurting his game. When he followed through, his stoke hand would come very close to hitting the side of his body (he was right-handed). It wasn't freeing his stroke up.

Having a good stance makes it much easier to stroke the balls straight. Your feet need to be about a shoulder's width apart, which will stop you from swaying and losing your balance. I think that opening the left foot up and not having a "square" stance creates more room for you to be fluid with the stroke. Definitely keep your head down-a good thing to practice for that is to not even lift your eyes until the cue ball has struck the object ball. Another good drill is to get a Coke bottle and lay it o­n the table or a counter or bed and try to stroke the cue through it. I used to do this myself. If you can do that with consistency, then your stroke is pretty straight.

My student's problem showed up in long straight shots. The problem was that his left foot was too far to the right in his stance. In turn, that made his stroke come too far to the left at a sort of diagonal line, and he did not realize that he was shooting with left english o­n every long stroke. He wasn't coming through straight. So I had him turn his foot a little more to the left. It was able to free up his stroke, and he started hitting the balls better immediately. After he played like that for a while, I had him switch to his old style and then back to the new. He said he started feeling the difference immediately with the new stance and could understand why I wanted him to change. He was excited, and so was I. Remember, a solid game starts with a solid foundation.

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