Safety can be a bit of a tricky area of the sport to practice seeing as it takes you away from the objective of the game, which is to pot balls. However, in order to get into that prime potting position, you may need to force your opponent to put you in play. A solid safety game can do wonders and here are some ways to help you strengthen that aspect of the game.
Travelling the Length of the Table
It doesn’t particularly matter how the balls are set up since you’re essentially practicing the same shot. However, for simplicity you could place a red somewhere between the pink and black and the cue ball at the upper end of the table. John Parrott demonstrated this exercise during a WSC segment where he places an object (i.e. chalk or tape) a few inches from the cushion where the objective is to play a safety shot and have the cue ball land behind the line of the object.
The more consistent you become at getting the cue ball behind the object line, you can move the object closer to the cushion and work on getting the cue ball tight to the baulk end. You can also practice this from different positions such as off a pack. A significant proportion of your safety shots is likely to have contact with other reds on the table, so practicing this will help you with the concept of assessing whether shooting off the pack will result in a red being left over a corner pocket.
Coming Up the Table
If you’re at the scoring end of the table and are at the end of a break, you’ll need to play back up the table to leave your opponent a difficult next shot. You can practice leaving a red along the side cushion and playing off it to leave the cue ball up the baulk end. You can practice this using one cushion or two, depending on the layout of the table. You can also place a colour in a possible snookering position and aim to get the cue ball behind it using however many cushions are necessary.
Glancing off a pack can be a useful shot to practice to learn the speed of the table and improve your judgement of pace as you travel up the table. The good thing about the shots which require you to come up the table is that you really get a hang of how the angles work, particularly when you use a bit of side.
Cushion Shots
So far, we’ve touched on the types of shots that can get your opponent in trouble, but you’ll need to be able to comfortably play the next shot if you happen to be on the receiving end of a telling safety. Similar to the first exercise, you can practice the same kinds of shots and attempt to return the safety that was played against you. The main idea here is to get comfortable cuing along the cushion and ensure you get the perfect contact on the object ball to return to baulk.
You’ll notice that these exercises aren’t as specific as simple potting routines such as a line-up. That’s mainly because safety shots can be played from a variety of different positions and table layouts. The main way to practice safety is to continuously attempt particular shots to make sure you have the correct pace and contact with the object ball.
I wouldn’t say that safety shots are something that can ever be perfected or mastered; only practiced to a point where you’re consistent enough to have a high success rate. When you become more advanced, you can experiment with different table layouts where you’ll need to negotiate the cue ball around the table. That’s where things get fun!
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