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Got video's of me bowlin' on you tube. Don't know if that was the right place to post it...but meh. Tell me what you guys think, heh. I'll post more later or somethin.

Here's some feedback.. don't take it personally, I'm just going to point out some things you might want to work on.

There were 3 things that I noticed when I watched the video. Footwork, armswing and position at the line.

1) Footwork: you don't look like you walk straight. It looks as though you almost turn your right knee out after your 3rd step and really push off of that foot. If you can get a smoother approach where you're not trying to muscle the shot with your legs, you're going to be better off.

2) Armswing: you break your elbow in your backswing and it stays broken through the rest of the shot. Another sign that you're trying to over power the ball. You actually loose power because of this.

3) Position at the line: Look at where you finish. Your shoulders are facing the wall instead of facing your target. That's because you're trying to foce the shot and it twists your body.

If you can, look at video of Tommy Jones. He's got a high backswing as well, and you turn the ball out like he does. He also has a fantastic approach, keeps his arm straight and keeps his body and shoulders facing his target. And I don't think you can say his ball lacks anything.

In addition to what Lefty mentioned concerning the shoulders, I would also point out the orientation of your hips at the point of release; they're pointed about 45 degrees away from your target when the ball leaves your hand. To create more consistency, you'll want to keep everything (shoulders and hips) pointed at your target. One way to help close those hips up a bit would be to concentrate on keeping your balance leg behind you, as opposed to off to the side.

Now, you've probably noticed as I have that most of the pros end up with their balance legs well off to the side at the end of their pose at the line. But if you look closely, you'll notice that the ball is gone well before that happens. At the actual point of release, the vast majority of them have their hips pointed square at their targets, with their balance leg behind them.

I'll give you something positive out of that video - your pushaway and first step is almost perfect. A good pushaway is key to good timing. Your elbow is locked until it gets to the bottom of your swing at which point you bend it. From that point on, though, Lefty hit your weak points, and you need to work on those, especially the "twister" part of your game. Too many moving parts makes it much more difficult to stay consistent.

The crankers who are making a living/killing out on tour do not twist. While they appear to be twisting because of how open they are, I can pretty much tell you they're not. There is no excess or forced hip movement - just an elongated backswing with an open hand coming through the ball. They might muscle the ball with the shoulders or upper arms, but the trunk is only following the shoulders.

I agree with what Brian said too. It looks like you have a lot of potential. You just need to reduce the number of moving parts, and the amount of exertion you're doing.

If you pause the video as you're going into your 3rd step, you can see how far behind your back the ball is. Even with the odd angle, I can tell it's behind your back, if not right around your left hip at that stage. If you straighten your elbow throughout your swing, you will benefit greatly, and it'll square up your shoulders a lot to your target. Take a good, hard look at your body alignment right when you're in between your 2nd and 3rd step and you'll see what I mean.

I know you're going inside-out with the ball, and you have to because of your revs, but only a "recovering twist" saves you from throwing the ball into the gutter at 10 feet. Same goes for that 10 pin shot of yours. The speed is good - it minimizes hook - but I would venture to guess your spare percentage on a 10 pin isn't where you would like it to be.

I calcualted your ball speed to be around 16 mph, which for a cranker, is a little low, but not terrible. If you can keep that elbow straight and minimize excessive movement, you'll actually gain a few more revs and at that speed you'll actually begin to come up higher on the headpin. And, even better, you'll be a lot more consistent.

Revs kill. Speed kills. And a good combinaiton of speed and revs kills the pocket and opens it up greatly. Accuracy disctates how many times you hit that wide-open pocket.

As a fellow cranker, with a high backswing who used to have the same problems, it helps if you learn not to pull it behind your back (which means you're having to move your hips more) and also I noticed that your timing was incredibly late to the point where it looks a little painful, late timing is okay, but your backswing was actually at it's highest point when you planted, generally you want it to be on the downswing, but at about shoulder level. In my experience that creates the highest amount of power/revs and increases accuracy and decreases the effort required.

Heh...basically all the things here are things my coach and I have been trying to work on, especially the bent arm thing. Reason why that's such a problem is for most of my bantam and beginning of junior years I used to bowl two handed. So even now, it's still there. But I'm working on it. As well as all the other things ya guys mentioned, which I appreciate, it's nice to have insight from many other people. It just reinforces what I have to work on. Right now my coach and I were working on timing. I tend to push the ball away, but hesitate to let it drop, but I'm already moving forward. Hence, as Black Jack pointed out, at the highest point of my backswing I've already planted.

I have video's from today at league, but nothing's really changed except for a couple shots where my arm isn't quite so bad. But everything else is the same. I'll upload more video's once I've had a decent practice and where things might've changed.

Thanks for the input guys!

If anyone else has video's of themselves bowling, post them!

Here's something to think about for the bent arm:

Try relaxing all the muscles in your arm, and then don't use them for the shot. If your arm is relaxed, it's impossible to bend your arm because you have a 15 pound weight swinging from it. But be warned, it will feel drastically different but it will give you a good idea of what you want to get to.

Thanks Lefty, that's good advice. I'll keep that in mind tomorrow when I practice.