There are a lot of great things on Bob Jewett’s site (www.sfbilliards.com) – reprints of his articles from Billiards Digest, technical articles on all sorts of pool-related topics, etc.  But in my opinion, one of the best things is the article focusing on Progressive Practice Drills.

The concept is simple – you set up a shot and execute it.  Every time you are successful you increase the difficulty, if you miss you make it easier.  You do this exercise with 10 or 15 balls and you will finish very close to the 50% point of making or missing the shot.  You can keep a log with your scores and track your progress over time.  His excellent article demonstrates exercises for working on stop shots, follow, draw, and even certain cut shots, each progressively more difficult.

At the top of the diagram above is the setup for the follow exercise, level 1.  Set up the 1 ball a little off the rail near the first diamond and the cue ball 1 diamond away.  Shoot a follow shot and try to follow the cue ball to within 1 diamond of the end rail.  Very simple from this initial position, but it gets harder…  When you make this first shot, move both balls back a diamond, so now the object ball is at diamond 2 and the cue ball is still 1 diamond away.  As mentioned, every time you make it move back a diamond, every time you miss move back to your previous position.  Even if you get to position 7, keep shooting out all 15 balls, we are after consistency not best attempt.

The bottom of the diagram shows the initial position for both the stop and draw shots in the easiest configuration.  For the stop shot, simply make the ball and leave the cue ball in the 1 x 1 diamond square near the corner pocket.  For the draw shot, you must make the ball and draw back at least 1 diamond from the object ball.  For each successful attempt, leave the object ball where it’s at and move the cue ball back 1 diamond, thus making the distance between the balls increase with each attempt.

This is only level 1 for the stop, follow, and draw drills.  Levels 2 – 5 increase in difficulty by requiring you to be more and more precise with your shots in order for them to count as a successful attempt.  For instance, in the level 3 draw drill, you have to draw back to at least the starting position of the cue ball but not more than 2 diamonds past.  That means that for the number 7 draw shot, you have to make a ball that’s 7 diamonds away and draw it back 7 diamonds but not more than 9 – very tough indeed!

Check out the original article at http://sfbilliards.com/Misc/progpract.pdf and do the exercises and track your progress, you might be surprised on the difficulty of some of these drills and your game will definitely benefit from the challenge!

This drill is from the PAT, which is a Playing Ability Test designed by Ralph Eckert, Jorgen Sandman, and Andreas Huber.  Ralph is a professional pool player and trick shot champion as well as a top coach, I’m not sure of the other two gentlemen’s playing credentials but they are both well renowned national level coaches in Europe.

The PAT has three levels and is a point-based test.  You typically perform each exercise multiple times, scoring points for each successful attempt based on the parameters of the exercise.  There are exercises for cue ball control, shot making, and position play.  As you move from level to level some of the exercises change, but more typically the exercises are similar but with increasing difficultly, either by adding distance, more balls, or more difficult goals to the exercise.

The drill diagrammed above is the Follow and Draw drill and is excellent for working on both of those skills.  Line up 6 balls as diagrammed along the third diamond, and starting two diamonds away place the cue ball so it’s straight in with the first object ball.  For Level 1, the object is to make the 1 ball and leave the cue ball near the corner pocket, no more than 1 diamond in either direction.  Do the same thing with the 2 – 6 balls.  For Level 2, you must make each ball AND follow it into the pocket, which requires both careful alignment of the balls as well as a smooth and straight stroke.

For the draw portion of the exercise, use the same setup as above.  For Level 1, make the ball and draw it back to within 2 diamonds of the top rail.  For Level 2, the object balls are placed 1 diamond further away, or even 2 diamonds further away, and you must draw back to the end rail within 1 ½ diamonds.  You can see how this can become more and more difficult very quickly.

This is a great practice drill for follow and draw.  If too difficult as diagrammed, move the balls closer together and/or closer to the pocket.  Focus on a smooth stroke, shooting only as hard as needed to accomplish the goal.  It’s not a power follow or power draw drill, the emphasis should be on clean pocketing of the object balls and smooth but strong action on the cue ball.  I would recommend doing at least 3 if not 5 repetitions of both follow and draw regularly until you can execute the shots confidently.

If you are more interested in the PAT, you can check out their website at http://www.pat-billiard.com/ and also check out YouTube for some sample exercises, including this one, being demonstrated by none other than Thorsten Hohmann.