BowlSK
June 6, 2008 — cgeorgI’m proud to announce the start of my new bowling score/stat website, BowlSK. It’s still very much a work in progress, but please head over and check it out, sign up if you’d like, and make use of the feedback form!
I’m proud to announce the start of my new bowling score/stat website, BowlSK. It’s still very much a work in progress, but please head over and check it out, sign up if you’d like, and make use of the feedback form!
Nesbit’s Lanes hosted a Bowl Like The Pros event on Sunday, for the second year in a row. Last year, the pros that attended were Norm Duke, Bob Learn Jr., and Mike Machuga. I worked mostly with Bob Learn, though I got a bit of time with Norm as well. Machuga spent the whole day with the youth, so I didn’t get to talk to him at all. They were showing some video of him at the session today, and watching it, my style is very similar to his, especially his swing and wrist position at the top of the swing. Too bad I didn’t get to work with him then. Oh well! Also present was Dale Niemela, a USBC coach, who did video analysis. The main focus of the classroom and on-lane portions are to get people into a free armswing with proper timing, so that was the main focus of the video.
This year, Norm and Bob returned, and we got Brian Voss as well. In addition, former touring pro and national title holder Mike Shady came down from Erie to do some video work as well. I really liked his coaching style, and will most likely be contacting him for future lessons.
The basic structure of the event was a short classroom period, where they discussed the modern stance, pushaway, and timing of each of the last 4 steps. After that, we split into groups. Those that had attended the one last year were sent to one side of the house with Norm to go over some drills quickly, the others stayed on the other side to go through them a little more in depth.
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Welcome to part 2 of the “3 Basic Adjustments” series. Today, we are going to look at adjusting axis rotation. What is axis rotation? Axis rotation is the difference between the direction the ball is spinning and the direction that it is traveling down the lane, and is determined by how far around the side of the ball your fingers get during the release. During the skid phase, axis rotation remains relatively constant. As the ball enters the hook phase of its roll, the direction the ball is traveling starts to change as the ball grabs the lane - it moves left for a right-hander. At the same time, the friction causes the rotation of the ball to start moving to the right. Picture turning the steering wheel of your car, and then relaxing your hands. The car turns in the direction of your wheel, but your wheel also straightens out. Once the ball is traveling in the same direction it is rotating, it is in the roll phase, and its axis rotation is 0 degrees.
While the most versatile pros can change their axis rotation to virtually any angle between 0 and 90 degrees, we are going to work on learning 4 different release keys that will give us a pretty broad range of axis rotations to work with. What we are going to do to change our axis rotation is concentrate on driving towards the target with a certain finger. To give this the best chance to work, follow-through has to be long and low. You will need to reach out to the target, letting the ball roll off your hand. In addition to driving with a specific finger at the release point, I will provide different finger positions that can be used in the setup, which will help tweak some of these releases further.
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In a previous post, I mentioned that, according to Chris Barnes, there are 3 basic adjustments that every bowler should have - speed, axis rotation, and hand pressure. Today we’re going to look at ball speed as an adjustment.
As a pre-requisite for this adjustment (and also for getting to the next level in your game), your arm swing must be free. When gravity is controlling your swing, adjusting speed is a piece of cake. When you are controlling your swing, you will be hard pressed to keep a consistent ball speed to begin with, much less be able to alter your ball speed with any repeatability.
Ok, with that said, how do we change our speed? Throw harder! Just kidding. The answer lies in the setup.
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Chris Barnes answered some questions during a recent Q&A session on USAToday.com. The transcripts can be found here. I managed to get a few questions in about adjustments - here are the relevant excerpts:
Pittsburgh, PA: You are certainly one of the most versatile bowls on tour, with many adjustments at your disposal, as we saw in your recent title match against Ken Simard. Once a player has mastered their “A” game, what would you say is the first adjustment a bowler should learn to make, other than moving their feet, that will help them the most across different situations. Speed? Axis Rotation? Something else? Thanks.
Chris Barnes: You have hit on the main two that will increase your ability to hit most of the shots you see. The only thing to add to that would be adjusting your hand pressures.
Pittsburgh, PA: Sorry for all the technical questions - you’ve mentioned hand pressure twice. Can you clarify? Do you mean the finger pressure - how much you try to get on the ball? I have been working on decreasing this myself - trying to let the ball do the work, and eliminate the over/under I see sometimes. Are there situations where you find yourself trying to put a little extra on it?
Chris Barnes: Yes, that’s why you vary it. More to make the ball hook sooner and less to push it down the lane.
So when are these adjustments useful, and how do we make them? The next 3 posts will address these adjustments individually - tips for how to make the adjustment, and the resulting change on your shot.
Update: The first two tips are up, in rough form:
Well, I was hoping my first post would be a real doozy, with lots of video, and greatness, but it seems I will start out a level of mediocrity. This way I have room to grow, right?
I went to Mars Lanes today for some practice. Having been on the driest lanes I think I’ve ever seen yesterday, I was really looking forward to having my ball stay on the right side of the headpin. Seems that they had a little more oil down than they have lately today - in fact, it’s back to the way it was when I first started going. Miss outside, and the ball just keeps sliding and sliding. Miss inside, and there’s no hold. It’s a good flat shot that tests your execution, and your release. You need leverage to turn the corner on this one.
First game I threw a couple warmup shots, one of which left a 2-4-10, so I decided work on those the rest of the game. I tried a new finger position - index finger in (but not quite touching the middle), pinkie out (but not stretching as far as possible). It worked well - gave me a much more consistent end-over-end roll. I found that I can line up 9 boards left of a pin to hit it dead on throwing up the boards (so standing on 34 to make the 2 pin - also good for washouts). I also found that moving 3 right on that will be good for shooting splits (standing 31, shooting 5th arrow, was good for picking up the 2-4-10). Note that when I list my starting board, I have a piece of tape on my left shoe right around my big toe area that I use to line up.
The next 2 games I shot for score, working on staying behind the ball as long as possible, and playing a couple different angles. My Total Inferno gave the best look - I had a line playing over 3rd arrow out to about 9 at the breakpoint, and also playing over 8 out to about 5. I ended up being pretty happy with my results, and the lanes made it abundantly clear when I threw good shots and when I threw bad. It was nice to get the feedback that is typically missing from a house shot.
On the video front, I did take my webcam and shoot some, but the results were not very good. I’m still working out the best settings for taking advantage of its high frame rate. Unfortunately, the image clarity isn’t the best - with the manual focus, you can only set one focal length, and even that is blurry. Once I get it figured out, I’ll post some nice high-res, high fps release shots. Until then, the regular old camera shots will have to do.
