Last weekend my 147 Academy travelled to the beautiful city of Salzburg in Austria to train the Austrian Billiards national team. The Austrian Billiards & Snooker Association organised the camp to improve their player’s technique and potting skills. This was the first time I had trained a billiard team but I realised the main objective is the same by getting the players into the correct address position and developing a smoother cue action to strike the cue ball with confidence.
My alignment laser helped to correct their line of aim in the address position and the 360 training cue helped the players to cue smoother and right away their potting success improved along with their top of the table billiards game. I trained the team to play various versions of billiards in a short 20 minutes time format with some games only potting allowed, next only cannons allowed and finally only in off’s. This was to help the players identify and understand their weak areas within their game so they can improve in future sessions.
I also focused on improving the players cue ball control especially the shot from black spot to the blue spot as this shot is crucial in keeping the break going at times. All the players practiced my academy cue ball control routines and this is hoped to become part of their training program from now on. Each player received a DVD of their coaching along with a coaching profile highlighting the main areas needed to improve.
Click to watch action from the training camp
It was a pleasure training the billiards players in Salzburg as their commitment was superb throughout the two day camp. I would like to thank the Austrian Association for inviting me to train the team and I look forward to holding another camp to monitor the player’s improvement in the near future.
