Easy Speed Control Training Tip Most Overlook

YouTube videos that talk about speed control on a pool table talk about playing position you know things like the tangent line uh using your rails playing into the shot triangle that type of thing and there's nothing wrong with that but that's not what this video is about how do you control control how hard you actually stroke your Q stick and hit the Q ball that's what this video is about I'll Define speed control

and types of energy transfer we'll look at techniques for controlling the speed of your Q stick and then we'll wrap it up with some practice drills if you really want to master speed control on a pool table you need to understand the mechanics of controlling your Q stick the queuing Arts are unique among Sports in that we use a tool to propel the ball the speed of the ball in most sports is controlled by direct contact golfers use a tool to strike the ball but they use clubs with different mass for distance control in pool the force we apply affects the speed of the object Ball but most importantly it affects the distance the Q ball travels a machine in theory could analyze cloth friction ball cleanliness humidity chalk Q-tip position air pressure Gravity the mass of the ball and the mass of your Q stick and it would calculate the exact correct force of a mechanical Q stick your brain as the pool author and Champion player Ray Martin says is your computer and your stroking arm is where the speed control happens okay let's define speed

control and look at the forces involved uh some of this is going to be obvious to some of you but a quick summary is helpful when we talk talk about speed control the word speed refers to how far the Q ball travels the force you apply to your Q stick is first transferred to the Q ball and then divided between Q ball and object ball more on that in the second control is an illusion we don't really control the QQ ball remember we don't touch the balls we only control the Q stick and how do you control the Q stick do you have a torque wrench in your elbow no we control the Q stick with our mind as you practice your brain learns to compute how the balls behave then you adjust your expectation based on the given table conditions you know uh the speed of the cloth humidity uh how the rails react Etc this is why home table is considered such a great Advantage if you play on the same table every single day for hours a day you're going to learn how to super fine tune the details of how the balls react it can help to separate your speed control practice into two types um shots where the Q ball does not touch a rail and shots where you're using the rail to play position when the Q ball contacts a rail after the object Ball s spin becomes a major factor in travel distance if the QQ ball does not contact a rail Sid spin doesn't affect Q ball speed however sides spin can alter the contact point with the object ball thereby changing the fullness of hit which changes the amount of energy retained by the QQ ball and that is the name of the game regarding speed control energy transfer that is how much energy is retained by the Q ball after it contacts the object ball the energy that's retained by the Q ball is

different for a sliding Q ball than a rolling Q ball for stun shots and that's the sliding Q ball you see at the top of the screen the Q ball and the object ball each leave the collision with the same amount of energy when the cut angle is 45° when the cut angle is over 45° the Q ball has more energy than the object ball less than 45° the QQ ball has less energy when the Q ball is rolling and that's what you see on the bottom of your screen the Q ball and object ball have the same energy at 30° when the cut angle is over 30° the CU ball has more energy less than 30° the CU ball has less energy the final ingredient of speed control involves directional energy versus rotational energy now every shot imparts energy into the QQ ball in the case of a sliding CU ball we can assume nearly every bit of energy is directional in the direction of the Q stick but with follow and draw shots some of the Q sticks energy is directional but some energy spins the Q ball with follow and draw shots the Q ball always has less energy than the object ball after contct the Q Ball's directional energy dictates it will travel along the 90° tangent line between ball centers at impact this is true even if the C Ball has rotational energy let's draw or follow however if the Q ball has any rotational energy it will soon curve away from the tangent line in the direction of its spin until an equilibrium is reached and then it'll travel in a straight line the curve is more pronounced the smaller the cut angle I hope I've impressed upon you that a basic understanding of qall physics will help as you experiment with

Q stick speed and Q-Tip position while practicing your speed control knowing that we can only judge our results by

shooting with a quality technique and that means a q delivery system that is efficient and repeatable three components of your shot routine relate directly to speed control visualization just shot triangle in Q delivery consider this what are you thinking about when you're down on the shot if you've watched my videos on aiming you know you should be aimed before beginning any warm-up Strokes so some of your time over the ball will be checking your aim sure but what else speed control like everything else begins when you decide where you want the object ball and Q ball to go that's the positional route that most speed control videos talk about then the first step of your shot routine is standing behind the Q ball and visualizing that happening often you will see players moving their Q stick through their bridge to help make this visualization more real there's more to that which I'll get to in the next section once down on the shot this visualization is continued by using the warm-up Strokes to sense the speed and direction you want the CU ball to take this visualization is your pool computer brains torque wrench some players find it helpful during practice sessions to say these words in their mind during each warm-up stroke Direction speed aim I like that order in particular because before shooting your focus should always return to your aim the second component for consistent speed control is your shot triangle every player has a standard Bridge length they use for most shots in a corresponding grip position that places their stroking forearm at 90° to the qti see my proper

pool Q length video for more on this topic the goal of this setup is so your Q-tip impacts the Q ball at the bottom of the pendulum or at the same point in your stroke if you use a piston type stroke for most shots the the Q-tip is drawn back almost to your bridge and then your muscles contract comfortably this is equivalent to a stop shot on a ball at least 4 ft away or 1 and 1/2 to 2 and 1/2 table lengths of Q ball travel on a power scale of 1 to 10 this is your five your Q-tip speed is the result of the distance it travels over the time it takes the distance is your Bridge length and the time depends on how hard or soft you apply your muscles so rather than trying to only control our muscles can we control the distance as well sure just bring your Q-tip back half as far stroke normally and your tip speed will be close to a 2.5 but there's an even better way you've probably noticed the blue tape on my table in these examples the tape Marks Bridge lengths of 6 and 12 in notice my standard Bridge length is between the two by shortening my Bridge length to 6 in or even a bit less it's much easier to judge shorter backstroke lengths for softer shots and a longer than standard Bridge length makes it easier to access the higher end of the power range through experimentation and practice I know exactly where to grip my Q for each of the three corresponding Bridge lengths remember I mentioned moving your queue to help visualization well it's at this point you can also sense your rip position based on your shot speed decision the third component Q stick delivery has three components the backstroke transition and follow through now I could make a 30 minute

video just on this topic alone so here I'm only pointing out the importance of a quality stroke delivery for your speed control a slow backstroke is the primary key to a smooth stroke and great speed control in my opinion the length of time you take to pull your queue back should be about 80% of the total time of Q delivery a fast backstroke builds unwanted rebound energy in your muscles in tendance causing inconsistent delivery and timing if you watch w&t n ball matches you have heard the commentators Jeremy Jones and Scott Frost mention a quick delivery when a player misses this is what they're talking about the second component the transition is the change in Q stick Direction at the back of the backstroke and it's the most fragile part of the Q delivery the transition should not be forced or delayed it should happen naturally just the way a pendulum reaches its apex pauses for a split second and then begins accelerating towards the bottom of the pendulum to do otherwise can introduce unwanted muscle action causing a stroke defect now I realize that some players swear by a pronounced pause at the transition and if that works for you fine but in my opinion a pronounced pause requires effort to maintain and can cause a jerkiness to the delivery let's not add anything that can disrupt this most fragile part of the Q delivery just let it happen naturally the final component is the follow through the Q-tip should accelerate through the Q ball smoothly remember Q-tip speed is largely controlled by establishing The Bridge length and backstroke distance when setting up to the shot so you have time don't be in a hurry to get the Q-tip up

to speed as this can cause defects in your delivery the first time a player puts together a slow backstroke and a smooth transition in Q delivery is often a revelation that such control over QQ ball speed and direction was even possible in summary I thought it might be helpful to just give a quick example this is a very simple shot we're we're paying attention to the technique here but I need to pocket the three ball and play position on the seven and then I want an angle on the seven I don't want to be straight in so I can move the Q ball somewhere else on the table for the next shot so what I'm preaching to avoid is where you simply rush over to the shot and have a hurry uh Q delivery system like this Q ball might go where you want it or it might not but we don't know because everything's Rush [Music] now we understand the reasons why we want things to be slower and more deliberate so the proper technique might look something more like this if you're watching this video you comprehend that your results when practicing speed control will only be as consistent as your Q stick delivery so in keeping with that theme rather than presenting a bunch of speed control drills that you can find anywhere I want

to just give you a few tips on practicing speed control now the first one's strictly a mental exercise I'll ask you when you're watching your favorite pro play what are you looking at if you're like most people people you watch the object ball to see if it goes in and then you look to see where the CU ball went the next time I challenge you to watch the balls come apart Focus your attention on the moment the Q ball impacts the object ball notice which ball leaves the Collision faster when are the balls sliding versus rolling watch how they spin and how and when the spin changes this information will be absorbed by your pool computer brain acceler at your understanding of energy transfer and Spark ideas for your speed control practice sessions the second tip is to use targets when you practice having a visual goal during practice helps to imprint the entire process objectify your results analysis and build confidence in your expectations most targets that you can use are free like other object balls paper small pieces of paper a Post-It note a dollar bill a $100 bill there's also a variety of inexpensive Target systems very serious and motivated players will appreciate the investment in an illuminated queuing arts training system this is a computer and projector that illuminates your pool table with endless practice routines use the discount code ssop for $50 off your system at icing.com another method of setting targets is to point to where you want the CQ ball to stop during your practice sessions here is Pro Player Christina takach during a 124 Ball

straight pool run I've edited this rack to emphasize how she points to the desired position before each shot also note her slow backstroke speed what add a few racks of your favorite game to your practice session and point before every shot see what that does for your speed control finally I want to present

to you a unique drill that's really going to help you with your speed control and then an example of how to shoot a practice shot I'd like to share with you an exercise that I learned many years ago from a great Denver uh pool player I want to give credit to Chuck neelon I call this the dribble drill and all it is you just scatter the balls randomly over the table and then you want to clear the table but every single shot that you shoot you want the object ball to just barely roll up to the edge of the pocket and dribble in so you're you're experimenting to learn just how softly you can hit the ball and still goes in the PO ET and then you're also paying attention to how far does the Q ball travel given the cut angle of the shot that you shoot so in this exercise we're always going to be using our close uh grip position and a short bridge and a very short backstroke it's okay to take ball in hand it's not a challenge to see whether you can run all the balls without missing it's an exercise where you're experimenting with uh straight in shots and cut shots of a variety of angles so if you miss a shot set it back up and try it again so what I just learned is that I rushed my shot I didn't come look at the angle it was a pretty thin shot and then it's going to help you to learn to account for throw because when you're hitting the CU ball softly there's going to be a little bit more throw there's a little more friction between the balls so you need to make sure you cut it cleanly just dribble it into the pocket so you want to shoot short and

long shots remember that your long shots come in two varieties U First is when the object ball has to travel a long distance like this four ball and then the second is when your Q ball has to travel a long distance like this eight ball so as you practice this exercise an added benefit is is you're really going to learn to trust a straight delivery acoustic at slow speeds when practicing speed control you don't want to just shoot drills it's also helpful to set up a shot and shoot it over and over experimenting with speed control and direction of the Q ball so what am I talking about here's one example so this might be the end of a game of 10 ball obviously it's a very simple shot to pocket the nine and come out for the 10 ball and when you're doing that you're probably going to use your stand standard bridge and maybe uh draw the Q ball back or Draw your Q stick back about halfway and that way you get a very controlled speed and easy shot on the 10 ball to to win the game so then we'll set up the same shot and we'll say okay what if the 10 Ball's over here well I know I need to make the Q ball travel farther but does that mean I need to hit it harder this is where I want you to EXP experiment so I'm going to try to uh hit this ball with the same QP speed delivery but I'm going to use the standard grip position the only difference is this time when I do my backstroke I'm going to make sure to pull the Q-tip all the way back to my bridge [Music] so getting the position you want

controlling the speed that is the distance the cuq balls travels isn't always a matter of using uh dialing in the force that you're hitting the ball with it can be controlled very accurately just with technique there are times when you have a ball near the rail but you want to keep the Q ball on that same side of the table for example if this was a game of straight pool and I want to use the 10 ball as the brake shot I want an angle somewhere over here so that I can send the Q ball into the Rack in order to do that I don't want to have to just try and hit it really softly so what we can do is use a closer grip position and a shorter corresponding Bridge length so that we still have our shot triangle with the arm at 90° and then my backstroke is only going to be one in Long [Music] the same exact cut angle that was really easy to make the Q ball travel all the way across the table I can also hold the Q ball right here just with technique and I'm sure you can imagine the next example that I want to show you what if we're playing 10 ball and the 10 Ball's over here well now I need to draw the Q ball don't get nervous and think oh boy I got to really whack this ball no let's experiment and see where the qall goes just with technique so this is my standard brid uh grip position I'm going to move it back a little and then I'm going to have closer to a 12in long bridge uh no side spin I just want to hit it accurately and again with a longer Bridge I'll make sure that I bring my Q-tip all the way back to the bridge and then I don't have to try and muscle it up I'm going to get all the power I need we hope let's see [Music]

almost a little bit too much power just with technique the goal of this video is

to provide you with the knowledge and tools to understand how to control Q ball speed we looked at energy transfer for sliding rolling and spinning Q balls directional versus rotational energy and shot routine components that directly affect speed control then we took a look at some tips for your speed control practice sessions in upcoming videos I will present speed control exercises that build upon this Foundation if you like this video please consider clicking the thumbs up button and subscribing remember when you play pool be sure to play it straight thanks for watching see you next time on Shortstop on pool