Visit Forum

"Correct Cue-Swing"

It is the grand secret of billiard playing, but it is not an easy thing to do with consistent accuracy. You must practice it as long as you play billiards. It is never absolutely mastered; even the best of players watch their cue swing with great care to check the first sign of the least inaccuracy. Remember that this all-important cue-swing comes from the elbow downwards of the cue-arm. The shoulder may move when a hard forcing stroke is played, but not otherwise. When you strike your ball, the whole of the upper part of your body may go forward as the momentum of your stroke exhausts itself naturally, but your body should not move before your ball is struck. Until then, your cue-arm, working from the elbow with smooth precision, gives you all the movement and power you need to swing the weight of your cue forward and to allow it to do its work. I advise you to study this chapter very carefully-it describes the mechanism of cue delivery; in my next chapter I propose to tell you how to apply it.