[headmuses]

I ran across a pretty good player this week during league play. One thing, he had his own bridge/rake in his case. Was a pretty fancy telescopic job, looked pretty cool. Thing is I rarely see someone with thier own bridge/rake. Question is, do you have your own? I dont. Was just a survey type of a question.

Headmuses

[Pelican]

I carry a moosehead in my case i can slip on a house cue. I don't care for the metal bridges most bars have.

Pel

[Pin]

I like the moosehead idea.

I don't think I'd bother lugging my own bridge around, but having something small to slip onto a house cue and give you several different bridge positions sounds like a great idea!

[FASTLARRY]

BRIDGE CRUTCH HOW TO USE IT.

4-28-04, Rev 1I :1-4-05, 12-30-06, 4 pages, Fast Larry Guninger CR, all rights reserved. Published in DC, BPN, CZM, UPP, PPT, FLP, RSB, BTT.

There is a bridge under most tables on each side. A house stick with a bridge head on the end of it. You use it to reach shots you can’t normally get to. Only use a plastic head, they never scratch your cue shaft. If your room has a metal head bridge rub your fingers between the grooves where your shaft goes to see if it has rough edges that will put digs in your shaft. Bring in a file and smooth off those rough edges for them.
Many of these bridges are so bad you flip them over and you can’t make a high shot over a ball. It therefore becomes necessary to carry your own in your pool case. I use the new Elkhorn bridge head which has quickly became the favorite of most of the pro players on tour. It lays flat and takes up little room in your case and has a rubber grommet in the center where you just shove it over your play or break cue, or grab a house cue and you are in business. It has multiple heights you can now use and any shot you will face you can now make. I sell it for the bargain basement price of only $4.95 at www.billiards-superstore.com Every player who has a cue and case must have one of these.
So remember using those house metal bridges is where some of the scratches or digs on your shaft is coming from.

I do not know any one who likes using a bridge. Everyone hates it. Therefore players go out of there way not to use it. Why, because they are bad at it. Using the bridge is a foreign thing and they do it poorly. Players are also lazy; it is easier just to stretch than go digging under the table for a bridge. They shoot a lot of stretch shots they know they should not be doing and they pay the price for it. They are like Lemmings heading to the sea, they know it will be a disaster but they can’t help them selves. They doom them selves to one or two misses every set just because they will not bend over and pick up the rake.

The key to stop using the bridge is to realize there are dead places on the table where you roll your cue ball you just can’t reach. The answer is to memorize those spots and be cognizant of them during your practice sessions and never roll your cue ball into one of them ever again. See them and avoid them. That dead area is usually 2 diamonds down from the side pocket and one diamond up off of the end rail, about a foot of space you can’t get to with any comfort or skill in your stroke. In the future when playing shape roll your ball up and out of there further up to the side pockets so you can have a longer shot but more pots will fall since you are able to make a relaxed and comfortable stance and bridge. I am more accurate making my shot two feet farther over a solid stance that being up close and laying out on the table. This is why you see me bringing the cue ball back into the middle of the table a lot so I don’t have to look like some stiff at the morgue with a tag on his toe all laid out on the table. No matter how perfect you play the cue ball it will run into something and you will still roll into the dead zone or your opponent will put you in there.

Because the other guy will put you in weird spots learn how to really stretch out. Most do not realize you can literally crawl up and mount the pool table. On some shots I have my entire belly and body lying out on the slate and my entire leg and knee up there as well. As long as my toe is touching the floor that is legal. Learn how to mount and stretch more than you are now doing. I do not like 60” cues, cue extensions or shooting left handed. When I feel un natural, pulled or really straining, I then pull out of the shot knowing one misses a high percentage of those and I reach down and come up with and use the bridge.

I shoot a lot of rail shots backhanded and am really good at this. People have run 100 balls doing this and got in Ripley’s so with some practice this is a solid shot. Bustamonte will go after back handed shots that makes Incardona damn near faint in the booth on and pulls them off every time. I take them also it if again I do not strain on it and can get a solid stroke going. Some people like to shoot left handed and if you are ambidextrous and can learn to do it well why not. Very short people, little ladies or juniors need to learn this.

Boston Shorty was like 4’ 10” and he was fantastic shooting left handed because he had no other choice but to get good at it. In the beginning just make a fist, lay your 3 knuckles on the cloth. Now open up your index finger and thumb and shove the cue through there and circle and hold it. It’s called the beginner or drunken bridge but it works for me left handed well as I don’t make a good left handed bridge and I only attempt the simplest of shots left handed like nips or stops. If I have to move the cue ball around I dig for the crutch. I sell the stroke trainer and it trains you to develop a perfect stroke both right and left handed.

In the PBS Special, the scientists had found that when left-handed people performed a simple task with their right hand, such as brushing their teeth, both sides of their brains were activated. But when right-handed people perform tasks with their right hand, only the left side of the brain is activated.
Interestingly, right-handed people can activate their right brain by performing a task with their left hand for several minutes. Once activated, the left brain remains active for several hours.

All of my teachings and all of the teachings of Zen describe shutting down the monkey brain that is chattering to you. I am wanting the left brain totally shut down and I do not want to do anything that will turn it back on so that means not shooting left handed, or drinking my coffee left handed.

I used to hustle in bars this way playing with the fist bridge left handed and acting drunk. Later I would switch to right handed and see if any body caught it which they usually did not. If they did, I go dude, I am like Mickey Mantle, it don’t matta no how which side I play on. I use my best drunk act slurring my words and having a slight stagger to my step. Later on I begin to win after I have made the switch and got away with it.

The fist bridge is also a good one to learn when your cue ball is right up close like an inch or two away from the object ball and you have to draw and can foul with the cue ball coming back and hitting your fingers before you can get clear. The fist bridge stops this and no bridge allows you to get more low and level than it. It allowed me to also stab and jump the cue ball off the table at least once in every game just to sell the fact I was a drunken bozo. It worked like a charm and most took the hook and bait right to the bottom of the pond.

On a 6x12 English snooker tables it is so big there are shots in every game you cannot reach. Snooker players all play great with a bridge and use it a lot. Pool players rarely use it and screw it up when they do.
This is why, pool players do not get a lesson on the proper way to hold your cue and your bridge and the methods to make strokes that can produce the same shots you make without the crutch. I can snap off hard follows and draws with my crutch and have the same accuracy with or without it.

You always keep a hold of the crutch and never lay it down and turn loose of it so you can pull it out and never foul. I hold the crutch and my cue both the same way, just put my thumb under and all my fingers on top. You will find many different ways to make the holds in the better pool books.

You achieve this after your lesson on how to use it by simple practice. Every day throw out 15 balls and make your self pot all 15 using the crutch.
In a couple of weeks the crutch will now be your pal and buddy where it is now your enemy. You brain wash your noggin during the practice session.
On every shot you keep repeating, the bridge is my pal, I love using the rake. I am great at it. Soon you will begin to believe your own BS. Soon it will actually become true. Find a top player you see perform with it well or find an English snooker player and buy them a beer to show you, most will be happy to show you the holds and strokes and it does not take long to learn and master them.

During the reruns of the 1982 legends on ESPN 2 on TV in 2004 Cowboy Jimmy Moore played a perfect set of 9 ball defeating Luther Lassiter. That was the only way you could beat Luther, don’t miss. Jimmy has to stretch way out on a shot and it was the only ball that he did miss. When I saw him do that I said before he shot, I’ll bet he misses, I could see it coming. After the match Allen Hopkins asked him if he should have used the crutch on that shot and Cowboy said yes, every time I stretch way out I miss.

You have to wonder since that is so true then why do you guys keep doing this and keep making that same mistake. Even a hall of famer like Moore screws up this shot after shooting it for over 50 years. You would have thought he would have figured this one out by now. It’s ok to stretch out as long as you are comfortable and not strained. If you feel like you are really pulling hard to get on that ball then pull back and go dig up the crutch and shoot the shot right. The majority of the stretch shots you are now making on a 9’ table probably should be shot using the crutch or bridge.

Get smart here, get with the crutch and get going using it more. When you do stretch out always use an open hand bridge and hold your cue all the way down to the end of the butt which will allow you a more comfortable stroke and follow through which must be limited by what you are now doing. If you need any power and stroke on the ball and are stretched out then you are doomed unless you abort and set the crutch up.

Once more because this is so important to do I repeat it. During your daily practice session when each of the 15 balls goes in say to yourself the crutch is my friend, my pal, I love my crutch. I never miss using my crutch buddy. Brainwash your mind into believing and accepting this lie until it becomes an actual fact. Practice a variety of pots, follows, draws, stuns, so you can do it all with your crutch other than just stab at the ball.

If your home rec table is a short 8’ you may think you don’t need the crutch but you will on the larger 9’ tables at your pool hall so begin using it at home now. If they did not come with your table go by a billiards supply store and pick up the hooks that hold it under the table and screw them under both sides. Buy 2 nice plastic bridge heads. Bars buy really cheap house cues and when they lose a tip or break a ferrule they just throw the cues away. Maybe they will give you two of these or offer a really low price for them. They buy these things new for fewer than ten bucks. Now push on or glue on the head and you are in business.


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May God bless and peace be with you. May there now be peace between us. If you are a real pool player, then fast truly loves you. May the wind be always on your back and all 9 balls fall.
VENI VIDI VICI, OMNIA VINCIT AMOR. “Fastus Maximus. “ Latin for “I came, I saw, I conquered, love conquerors all. Yes I really did do it all and you can believe it, or not. If you don’t believe it, C’est La Vie. " Shoot straight, innovate, never give up, just run out on the other guy then there is no way for you to lose.

[The_Woim]

One term The Woim likes to use when speaking of the bridge is to call it a "Ladies Aid" and allow my mind to harken back to those lovely ladies in Victorian dresses...

Yours Truly,
The Woim

[FASTLARRY]

The_Woim, on Nov 28 2007, 06:16 PM, said:

One term The Woim likes to use when speaking of the bridge is to call it a "Ladies Aid" and allow my mind to harken back to those lovely ladies in Victorian dresses...

Yours Truly,
The Woim

Ah yes indeed by boy, I remember those days ah so well, and those long dresses. I would tell them, when FL is on the set, they do not need a ladies Aid. I'll take over and take it home for them.