BowlSK

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!

Bowl Like The Pros

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.

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.