I admit that I've got a release issue. Many people have stated that for a good release one must stay behind/under the ball but no one states how one could do this. I seem to be having a mental block on what I need to do to accomplish this. What should I concentrate on in order to achieve this proper ball/hand position prior to release? Any tips would be appreciated as I'm planning on practicing this evening.

Thanks in advance!

The key is to keep the wrist straight or even slightly cupped from the set up, through the whole swing and up to the release. Some people would suggest a wrist brace to help you learn this position. Also try not to turn the wrist. The best course would be to get a coach.

Infernocal hit it spot on, not much more anyone could add... Good luck Let1Hang, hope you're able to get the idea if you cannot get a coach.

My first suggestion would be to get a coach. A wrist brace will help too.

What works for me is to start out in a position that allows your hand to stay under the ball. Start with your hand under the ball, elbows close to the hips, and ball held slightly right of the center of your body. Bring your pinky in tight to your hand and spread your first finger(pointer) far away from the middle finger. Your ring finger should be facing around 8 o'clock. Chris Barnes is a great example of a good starting ball position.

Keep your wrist slightly cupped through the release.
But a coach would be my first course of action, let them "show" you proper setup and release, and then you can go from there.
Once you have an idea, and see what you are supposed to do, ...then a lot of practice, practice , practice.
Good Luck!

Keep the inside of the elbow facing your target from start to finish in your delivery.

Need to have ring and middle fingers at 6 o'clock - 5:30 o'clock at the release point. Do not attempt to turn the ball. Think having those fingers "slicing" through the ball ending up at 1 o'clock.

You also need to not try and "help" the ball. Let your arm swing naturally. If you try to pull the ball through you'll have the tenancy to turn everything early. If you relax and let gravity do it's thing, it will turn on it's own when it's supposed to.

My Coach has a website with many tips on different aspects of Bowling Fundamentals, here is one of his tips on the bowler's release: http://www.bowl4fun.com/ron/tip20.htm

I read that and was actually trying it until I told my local pro about the technique ... he told me that cupping wasnt something that he recommended especially for a newbie just learning to hook.

Either way I've found out that the release timing is the most important thing ... staying behind the ball until it reaches the slide heal then release the thumb and turnin to about 45d with the fingers lifting up through / around the ball. Getting the thumb out consistently is the biggest obstacle at least it was/is for me.

Ron always tells me if someone wants to learn to hook the ball, you might as well learn to do it right, why bother learning the wrong way and have to take years to unlearn and relearn like I have.



The problem you are going to have is the fact that your thumb is not supposed to hang onto the ball, the ball is supposed to hang onto your thumb and the centrifugal force of the ball swinging from your shoulder is supposed to pull the ball from your thumb without effort at just the right moment without you having to release the thumb, this way it is repeatable as long as you don't interfere with it, like knuckling your thumb to hang onto the ball.

This is why I have been saying over and over how important it is to have the proper span, thumb size, thumb pitch, and finger pitches to be able to release the ball properly. If you are truly gifted and are able to release your thumb at exactly the right point every time, and there are such people, then put me on your ignore list, but the rest of us mortals you will need to spend some time and money with your local Pro Shop to get your grip exactly right.

There are varying degrees of wrist cupping; none (flat hand), slight (about 5-10 degrees), moderate (about 20-30 degrees) and a lot (over 30 degrees). You want a slight cup so the weight of the ball in your hand is more focused in the middle of your palm. If you have too much weight on your fingers (due to not cupping at all), then you might have a tendency to roll out of it too quick or come over the top of the ball. If you have too much weight towards your wrist with a massive cup, you might have a tendency to shortarm and muscle the shot (this is a problem I have when I cup my wrist too much). What was shown in the link is a slight cup.


Careful how you "turn" your wrist. It should not be a "brain movement", at least not 100%. It should be natural. The longer you stay behind or inside the ball, the more revs you will have if you come through consistently - and that's the key, consistently. But it takes practice and it is something that one needs a coach to help, especially being inside the ball for a long time. Staying behind the ball can be a feel thing. As CoachJim likes to say, think of leading the shot with your ring finger. That'll usually keep your hand in and behind the ball long enough.

I wish I could take credit for that, it is from John Jowdy's book Bowling Execution.

Whether it's Jowdy's words or not, you are the one who mentions it the most. Regardless, at least you gave credit to the proper person. I only was repeating what I've read more than a few times on here.

I'm not one of those ... thats one of my biggest problems/obstacles as I said. I only wish it all came naturally. Ive started about 2 months ago or so and bowl 3-5x a week 4-7 games an outing - I still am not any where close to gifted, LOL.

Maybe I need to get me one of those positioning supports to try and teach/train my hand to get into that cupped position. I'm confident this particular pro is a good one, so not sure why his opinion on cupping would so greatly differ from jowdys.

It's the degree of "cup". Some people tend to think that if you cup your wrist, it's "super cocked" where your palm is practically facing you (if the ball wasn't in your hand). But, again, if you go with a slight cup, which is what I do, that's what you need. A "flat" wrist does nothing but promote a weak release and frustration. A slightly cupped wrist aids in proper feel and balance of the ball in your hand throughout your swing.

Possibly I had exaggerated the cupping techinque when I asked him about it and that was what he was saying no to and not a slight cupping. I will work on a slight cupping my next outing and inquire about a support to retrain what Ive been doing the last 2 months.

Sixbagger, is your wrist strong enough to do the exercise with the ball the way Ron describes in his tip? If not your wrist is not strong enough and you need to work on that first so you don't hurt yourself.

Maybe cradling is a better word than "cupping" in this case.

I can attest to this working as well. If you free up your arm swing and just think about your ring ringer going towards your mark without trying to turn it, good things happen.

Bad things happen when you try and turn the ball or make the ball hook.

And about cupping the ball, I agree with Brian. There's a slight amount of cupping and then there's what I see a lot of kids try and do which is pretty severe cupping.

Yes, I have tried that exercise - I am able to bend the wrist and hold the ball as described. I agree that the word cup/cupping comes across misleading and thats most likely where the difference in instruction lies.

Its weird. I can't do it in the picture in Ron's tip, but when I'm bowling I can feel my wrist not bend back. Maybe its because i'm in motion?

Well, I went to the lanes last night for some more much needed practice. Tonight's session I concentrated on shortening my backswing, getting the ball closer to my ankle at release, and of course my release. Well after re-reading many articles I finally pulled somthing out of the hat with one of Ron's learing new releases articles. The pictures were very insightful

What I did to get the enlightenment was I stood with my arm next to me and I said to myself... "Self. What do I need to do with my arm/hand to get my middle/ring fingers to the 6 'o clock position?" So I rotated my arm to have my palm facing towards the pins, thus my fingers were at 6 'o clock. I also noticed that my thumb was pointing to 3 'o clock.

This is my key. I am now using this as a point of reference throughout my swing. I am trying to keep my thumb pointing around the 3 'o clock area throughout my swing and especially when the ball is around my ankle. Boy did I notice a difference. I am actually feeling the ball come off my thumb first and then rolling off of my finger tips and what a nice feeling it is.

I spent most of the night trying to get used to this great feeling. Most of the time I allowed the ball to roll off my hand naturally. On straight spares I tried to keep my fingers at 6'o clock as long as I could and I heard the thumps of a full roller. The oil Track actually ran on top of the middle finger and thumb hole.

Toward the end of the night I experimented once again and tried to change my axis of rotation along with this new feeling. Most of the time nothing really changed but this one time... whoa boy! I'm not quite sure what I did but I really felt something in my ring finger and the ball had a lot more rotations on it than it ever had. It eventually crossed over the headpin and hit on the left side of the 2. No I did not pull it as I went over my aiming board 8.

Now I know that I have this ability I will have to figure out what I did to get it to do this more consistently.

Thanks for all of your input everyone!

I'm hoping that my discovery will help someone else in the future.

Something I don't get. How do you point your ring finger at your target and still get axis rotation/revs? Unless I'm completely missing the point, the ball will go straight or hook maybe 5 boards if you're playing up the boards.

Can anyone clarify for me?

You keep your hand in that position until it passes your heel then the thumb comes out and you turn the ball with your fingers, or try thrusting the ring finger, middle finger and index finger to get different reactions. You can thrust the pinky for spares the ball will roll fairly straight.

Let1hang...the ball comes off the thumb in the 3 o'clock position cleanly?..I'm afraid to try it...mine sometimes gets hung up in the 1 o'clock position.

This is the last thing that I have done and since doing so have been bowling great. I also have turned my hand and ball so that my fingers are "inside" of the ball and my thumb is facing out to the right at about 2 or 3 o'clock. At the heal, my thumb releases cleanly and then the fingers turn the ball naturally with the follow through. All I have to do is keep a free armswing and keep my hand relaxed. The difference has been phenomenal because it makes your shot easy to repeat. All you have to do is hit your mark and stay relaxed and the rest just happens naturally. The first night I got this down, I bowled 11 games because I was so thrilled with it. The next day I went and bowled 5 more just so that I wouldnt "forget" how to do it. Then I bowled three more the next night. From doing this, I have averaged over 215 the last 19 games and been very consistent with my rev rate. The big key is just finding the ball that carries the ten pin for me on the lane condition. I think the biggest block I had with this was a mental one. I couldn't see how I could throw a hook if my fingers were on the inside part of the ball. I also found that my accuracy increased because it tends to keep my armswing tighter to my body than when I was on the outside of the ball.

chinch -

If I don't grab at the bottom my thumb releases cleanly.

Feel and real are two totally different things. All I am doing is envisioning my thumb pointing towards the 3:00 area. Perhaps what I am envisioning as 3:00 is really 1:00. I won't know this until I get a high speed video of my release and that won't be for quite some time I suppose.

However I think about it the little ditty I wrote got me over my mental block and I can only hope to help others discover this too.

whatever gets it done...I have my 1st lesson tomorrow, hopefully can get stuff straightened out...on Sat. my thumb got stuck 3 times, I lost concentration wondering if the ball would come off even before I started my approach...not a good feeling.

Try doing a one step approach, that will help you concentrate on not squeezing the ball and let you learn to get the ball off your hand clean.

To do a one step delivery start by getting in your stance approximately 3 or 4 ft from the foul line, giving yourself enough room to slide so you finish 4 to 6" behind the foul line, do your normal push away and swing without moving your feet and when the ball gets to the top of the back swing, bend your trail leg and slide as the ball falls from the top of the back swing. Do not bend forward with your upper body, get the feeling of lowering your hips into the slide. You will find that it is easy to learn different releases doing this type of delivery.

I was wondering, what does your left hand and arm do, that is before you balance yourself with it? Just curious because if you use your left arm and hand to take or hold a portion of the weight it allows the muscles in your hand, forearm and shoulder to relax and not tense up. Then you will definately stop clinching the ball, plus this should allow your backswing to be more relaxed and smooth. You might or might not be using your left side to its fullest potential that's why I'm asking.

that first lesson cleared up a lot!...the thumbhole was a little tight, opening it up made a big difference...a part of the problem was I was turning my wrist with the thumb still in there, surprising the ball ever came off..once I started keeping my wrist straight & not breaking it at the release it's easier to practice, knowing you're not wasting your time.