An Article on basic principles by Tom Newman - from an old newspaper cutting found in a book.
I often know before a ball is struck that a man who is trying his hardest to make a shot has no earthly chance of scoring it. I have noticed the same thing all over the country when I have chanced to watch ordinary players, and commonly seen it at Burroughes Hall, when amateurs are invited to make breaks from positions left by professionals. Sometimes I am able to predict failure with confidence, because the stroke calls for more cue power, or knowledge of angles, than the average amateur can be expected to possess. But such instances are rarer than you may think. Much more frequently I can see beforehand that a man has not a million-to-one chance of making a relatively simple shot, simply because he is shaping at it in a way from which a score cannot possibly result, except by accident. Bad stance is at the root of the trouble in every case. No untaught player ever realises what stance means in billiards, he does not know that unless a man stands correctly he cannot swing his cue smoothly and truly. Failure in this vital respect brings him into hopeless and continual conflict with the mechanics of the game. When I see a man shaping at his stroke with the elbow of his cue arm stuck out away from his side, and completely out of alignment with his cue, I know that he will be everlastingly swinging his cue in a wobbly sort of sweep, instead of straight through the ball, and that he is likely to miss any mortal thing. This fault, in almost every instance, begins through throwing the left foot over too far to the left. When this happens, out goes the right elbow, to bring the cue-arm into some sort of contact with any intended portion of the cue-ball with the inevitable result that correct cue delivery is impossible. Worst of all, this throwing of the left foot too far over tilts the player to the left, and spoils any semblance of a correct stance. To cure this common fault, move your foot until you feel comfortable, with the elbow of your cue arm close to your side and directly over your cue. Don't do it too much. Two or three inches may make all the difference. Remember that the butt of the cue should be in line with the centre of the right foot, and the weight of the body fairly distributed on both feet, with the left knee slightly bent and the right leg straight.
I often notice is a man trying to play with his left arm lying on the table as if he was afraid of hurting something. This cramps and spoils cue delivery. Never be timid about stretching your left arm well out over the table. Make a firm bridge, see that your cue slides straight under your chin, and as near your chin as you can get it without strain, except when playing shots near to the cue point. Always keep your cue in dead alignment with the direction of its correct swing for any stroke, and swing it straight and freely all the time. Free and true swing is everything. I sometimes see a man who shapes well enough and hits both his ball and the object ball where he means to. Yet, especially with long losers into the top pockets, he frequently misses and his positional play is invariably bad. The reason is that he clutches the butt of his cue ever so little, possibly with the idea of keeping it straight, and thus stabs his ball a bit. This tends to distort every kind of stroke, and is fatal to many. The only cure is to let the weight of the cue do the work. It amounts to this. If you have a correct idea of how to stand and swing your cue, you have something unchanging and reliable to work on, no matter what shot you are attempting. But if you stand anyhow and hold your cue as if it did not matter how, then you can only guess at what may happen when you attempt a stroke, and you are just as likely to guess wrongly as rightly.