Chris Barnes – 3 Basic Adjustments

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.

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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:

• Adjusting Speed
• Adjusting Axis Rotation

First!

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.