One of our 500 members, a 20 break snooker player, posted a video in The Snooker Gym Community on Facebook that showed a rather unsure and snatchy snooker cue action… similar to many players in a snooker club environment. I did not feel the need to post the video, as the advice given was fairly standard to many players in need of snooker coaching at the beginner standard.
Have a read and let us know if any of the advice helps….
1. You need a clearer pre shot plan - I can tell this as you are fishing for the line of aim and the correct cue height as you feather. ALL of that must be organised and committed to BEFORE you begin stepping forward into the shot. This is why you chalk the snooker cue - to give you time to organise all this in your head.
2. You need to spend the majority of your time looking at the cue ball instead of the object ball (or at least go for 50/50 eye time on each ball) - this can be seen because your cue tip is a long way from the cue ball, and adjusts a lot (which you would be self-correcting to reduce these classic snooker cueing errors if looking at the cue ball for the majority of the time).
3. Take the cue back more slowly, and under control - ie 1/2 or 1/4 of the current backswing speed that you have. Snooker world champion Shaun Murphy is a great example of this to model.
4. Watch the cue ball all the way to the pocket - at the moment you are quitting on the shot early, which is probably due to jumping your eyes to the cue ball too early and not realising the importance of knowing to within one millimeter whether the object ball hit the centre of the pocket or not. By way of reference, in a snooker club environment - probably in only 50% of all shots missed can the snooker player tell you which side of the pocket they missed to. This makes observation, self diagnosis, and improvement in your snooker game impossible.
5. Deliver your grip hand into your chest and hold it there until one second after the object ball hits the cushion or pocket. This helps build the muscle memory to give you a consistent grip delivery position, making it easier to feel if you have made any cueing deviation from normal when you miss.
Hope this helps - and let us know how you get on in your self snooker coaching efforts.