Added even more video and pics to the Axis Rotation article.
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.
Read the rest of this entry »
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.
Read the rest of this entry »
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.
Read the rest of this entry »
