No, a higher ball position because it would allow for him to have his/your comfortable high back swing. Instead of forcing the ball like Lefty is on him/you about (I don't see it Sam), gravity from the higher ball position would allow him/you to throw with his high back-swing, granted the back swing might be it a bit lower than he/you is used to but it sounds like it might work (in my opinion).

As you could see, I have my arm on a straight line with my shoulder, but the balls starting bosition is maybe more nearer to my stomach, since I hold the ball so that I got most of the weight on right hand, and my left hand is fully on the side of the ball. But once I do the pushaway, I do it so that my left hand will go under the ball. But my coach guided me to still have it bit more to outside, and I believe hes right with that being better.



After reading a bit and experimenting around with some hand weights (yeah I practise my approach with a handweight at home), I felt how I do the "whipping" kind of thing as Ron C describes on his article. It's more about the shoulder than spine, but theres still that motion which I feel. In my opinion though, It's not really forcing the ball

http://www.bowl4fun.com/ron/tip41_files/tip41.htm



But yeah anyways, my current approach has bit different timing and I don't have as high backswing as before. Just pointing some things out.

I'm aware of that technique, but that is still not going to get it as high as you have it. You start the ball at your waist and push it up close to your shoulder height. A natural swing will get the ball no higher than shoulder level on the back swing. Call that position 0 degrees. Tipping forward the way you are should get the ball at most to about 45 degrees. You're at 90. Physics says the additional movemet of the ball has to come from enegry applied from somewhere, and that somewhere is your muscles either pulling the ball down after the pushaway or pulling it up the backswing.

To add to Ron Cliftons comment about waiting on the ball to decend, because your ball is so high, it will take a lot longer to decend on it's own. It's to high. If you don't want to listen to the fact that you're causing it to go to high and it's bad for it to go that high, so be it. It's the last time I'll comment on it. I've never seen a decent bowler get the ball that high, and there's a good reason for it.

Here is what I think.

When you open your shoulders, you are doing it yourself as opposed to allowing the ball to swing and open the shoulders for you. As you rotate your shoulder back it exerts energy down your arm and pulls the ball back into your backswing.

This is assuming that you are not muscling the swing in other areas I just can't pick up on in the videos. Which I still think you are doing by pulling down after your push away.

That is my last comment on the subject as well. Like lefty said, its physics and your ball cannot get higher than where it started unless you exert force on it. Your bend at the waist is not parallel to the floor so getting the ball that high can only come from you making it go there.

The brief stop is infinitesimally small. It is the point where gravity's negative acceleration finally overtakes the momentum that was generated on your balls way down. You should not be able to count to even a half a second between when the ball stops rising and when the ball starts falling. If you can, you are (again) muscling it.

No, I really wasn't concerned with wehre the ball was horizontally, although I do prefer to have as much of the ball's weight on the non swing arm as possible while simaltaniously having the ball and swing arm aligned and maybe against the hip.

I was just curious as to whether or not you've tried starting the ball anywhere higher than your waist say up around your shoulder.

Quite a big difference between Jason Couch and Sam. I was going back through this thread and something that Lefty posted caught my eye.



Here is a picture of Jason Couch at the top of his backswing.



Notice that Couch is just about to put his right foot down to slide when he is at the top of his backswing. If you look at the picture of Sam, he still needs to take his 4th step and then slide.

Both Sam and Jason Couch (at least in the video of the 2007 Motel 6 Classic) use 5 step approaches. From watching videos of both Sam and Couch, they both start their pushaways at around the same point, the second step. Jason Couch doesn't reach the highest point of his backswing until he get to his fourth step, where Sam gets there at his third step. Then, Couch just has his slide step for the ball to come down to his release point, meanwhile Sam has 2 steps during which his ball has to come down from the top of his backswing to the release.

Let's assume that Jason Couch has a very free armswing (I feel that's a safe assumption, you don't do what he's done without one). How can Sam get his ball to the top of his backswing in 1 step without forcing it? How can Sam take 2 steps to get from the top of his backswing to his release point without controlling it on the way down?

You can have a high backswing, but there's a right way to do it and and wrong way to do it. The right way takes a long time to learn and it is not what someone who is trying to learn the basic mechanics of the approach should be doing.

Mark

Actually Jason muscles the ball quite a bit. I don't think you'd ever teach someone to throw the ball the way he does. He's been very successful with how he throws the ball but there's not many people who'd be better off with what he does. The same goes for Walter Ray. No one should try and execute the way either of these guys do. They are exceptions to the rule.

And do comment on the backswing of Couch, he still isn't as high as Sam is and he's also more bent over which will cause the ball to go higher. Tilting forward will cause the higher back swing. Look at how much Jason is tilted forward compared to Sam. Then also notice that Jason's arm is not directly up in the air.

I also noticed that Couch's backswing was slightly lower and the larger tilt. I was looking a bit more at the timing issues that are present.

Also, you are right, upon review, Couch does muscle it a good amount, no way to get the backswing that high in the time period it takes to get there. Even so, the amount that Couch muscles it must be small in comparison.

Mark

Also (a lot of those), if you compare the pause at the top of Jason Couch's swing with the pause at the top of Sam's, you will see a vast difference. Same with the speed of the ball on the way down. Sam holds the ball back - take a huge backswing then slow it down on the way down? Why?