Staying Down - Viking Cues Tip of the Week with Mike Roque, author of Build Your Game.
STAYING DOWN
“Bet on the guy who stays down longest.” -Jimmy Reid
STAY DOWN forever. If the head moves, the rest of the body moves with it and the shot goes south. If you don’t believe it, have a cup of coffee on league night and watch how many shots are missed because players jump up too soon. You’ll see a lot of them.
Experts advocate staying in your stance for a count of three before raising your head, or staying down until the object ball drops.
The concept is simple: keep your head still and your visual references stay constant. If you learn how to stay down, you will make more balls.
An effective way to learn to keep your head still and stay down is to shoot balls in practice with your eyes closed.
Set up the shot and move into your shot routine. Take your warm up strokes and just as you pull back for the final stroke, close your eyes. Take the shot and don’t open your eyes until you hear the ball drop into the pocket.
You may be surprised at how accurate you can be with this technique, because there’s no distraction, nothing to look at, no cue stick to steer, and no result to jump up and peek at. Try it, you’ll like it.
Stay down and watch the ball go into the pocket.
Love our Tuesday Tip of the Week with Mike Roque? You can purchase your own copy of his book "Build Your Game" at the BEBOB Publishing Website at