Two months ago, I made this post after watching this video of CJ Wiley playing fifteen ball rotation against the ghost. In the video, he claims that a method called "Touch of Inside" assists him in playing virtually any cut with only center to center and center to edge fractions, which completely baffled me at the time.

For example, at 1:28, he says verbatim, "I'm gonna line up center to center, then when I go down I'll go over to the right and create the angle...using the touch of inside system." The shot was a short distance cut to send an object ball to the right into one of the corner pockets.

He uses the system again while making a harder shot at 4:03, this time when cutting an object ball to the left into a corner pocket and having the cue ball right spin off the long rail afterwards into position. Before the shot, he says verbatim, "...same thing. Center to center, then I'm gonna go over to the left and create that angle."

Two months ago I had no idea what he was talking about.

Now I do, and I understand it was all because I was unable to grasp the nuance of his technique. The critical information I lacked was the concept of throw, which I know now to simply be the transfer of side spin from one ball to another.

For example, if I were to set up a straight shot and put right spin on the cue ball, that would impart left spin onto the object ball, which would "throw" it in that same direction.

This means that one could make certain cuts easier (after learning how to compensate using side spin) by letting throw do most of the work!

That's what CJ Wiley means when he says he's using the "Touch of Inside."

"Touch of Inside" = Throw.

I get really frustrated when things are made more complicated than they seem. Sometimes that's done on purpose; people make careers out of overcomplicating concepts in order to teach. When I feel that's the case, I have a habit of thinking that I could do better by dissecting what I think I know and translating it in a way that I believe most would understand. But sometimes that's impossible because I really don't know what I'm talking about. That wasn't really the case this time, but I'm blown away by how ready I was to discredit what a master at pool was trying to teach, even if it wasn't communicated as clear as I would've liked it to be.

Of course, my interpretation of CJ Wiley's "Touch of Inside" could be overly simplistic. Is it really just throw? Or is there more to it than that? If any of you knows, please tell me.

I'd love to know more.