Cuemechanics
EYE PATTERN
All kudos to ‘Cue Tech’ or ‘Masters’ Pool School for bringing the ‘Quiet Eye’ concepts to the cue sports and the SPF method.
I’ve mentioned it on other pages and a Quiet Eye method is easily applied to pool. WHERE you look and WHEN is key to improving your brain’s ability to calmly focus on the task at hand: delivering the cue ball to the proper contact point on the object or ‘target’ ball.
If you move your eyes often, especially while your arm is moving during practice strokes or final stroke delivery, you will most likely overload your brain with information that disrupts your process. Same can be said for shooting free-throws in basketball: If you bounce the ball a few times before the shot, it will be best if you are motionless when you move your eyes to your target point on the backboard or rim before you shoot.
If you haven’t viewed or don’t yet grasp the SET POSITION information on another page here, now is the time to view or review that. Another thing you should work on, if you haven’t yet, is to decide on a consistent number of practice strokes before the final delivery. This will make applying your chosen EYE PATTERN more easy to train on and practice, before you bring it to a match.
There are TWO different eye patterns for pool:
1) After checking your aim for the target ball (and LIKING IT), you focus on the CUE ball during your practice strokes, to ensure you are stroking to the EXACT point on the CUE ball you want the cue’s tip to hit. Then you STOP at the SET position, moving your eyes to the TARGET ball, where they stay as you smoothly pull back the cue and then deliver the stroke.
OR
2) After checking your aim for the target ball (and LIKING IT), you focus on the CUE ball during your practice strokes, to ensure you are stroking to the EXACT point on the CUE ball you want the cue’s tip to hit. Then you STOP at the SET position, this time KEEPING YOUR FOCUS ON THE CUE BALL while you smoothly pull back to your pause at the backswing, and NOW, during your backswing pause, your eyes move to the target ball before delivering the final stroke.
You will most likely favor one of the above patterns over the other. So try each one out, pick the one that feels best to you, and make it a habit. You’ll be glad you did.