Fury, do you recall what you were doing with your index finger? Harder to control how? The little finger acts as the "straightening" finger. The further it is out the more it tames down the hook on your ball. The closer it is to your ring finger or tucked the more hook you will get out of the ball. Having both index and little fingers exstended out should be the easiest to control (I would think), because there is a dinminishing amount of hook on the ball as it travels towards the pocket. Was it difficult simply because you weren't used to it?

My toughest part right now, is reminding myself to use my trail leg and balance arm and stay the heck down. All of that is of course second to trying to keep my swing free.

yup not use to it. i use to keep my fingers spread. it seemed harder for me to control that way. i tuck my pinky now to see what i can do with it. i can put it on mark easier that way and seems to get more revs. hooks pretty good when i do it that way. but i'm seing my coach thursday now so i'm going to talk to him about it.

i know what you mean about staying down. at first i would stay low till i got to the line and then i would pop up at the end of the swing. really didn't even realize i was doing that till i got a coach. now i can got the hang of staying low. just got to work on release more. if i get to high on my back swing i tend to muscle it through more. so i try to just let it go as far back as it can on its own then forward own its own till my release. thats where i seem to get it wrong. but with a little help i'll get there and you will too. just keep at it! it'll come to ya demo.

If you have some bowling buddies, just have someone vid on their Cell phone and play it back. You can see quite a bit from that.

Fury, the getting low and then standing up at the line is something I noticed I was doing last night.

popping up is what was killing my revs. i was pretty much throwing it at the lane straight down. when i popped up it hit hard and lost a lot of revs. i can keep it low now and my revs are picking up. some of the guys i bowl with on league said that i get a hook and revs when i'm staying low. luckily someone people watch me sometimes.

Unfortunately, I had to leave, and I didn't hav enough time to post everything that I needed to.

1)I have got a freer swing, but I'm still muscling the ball a little on the downswing. That being said, it is getting easier and easier to produce a free swing.

2)I strapped on my wrist brace and it made a wonderful difference. I was able to relax my wrist a whole bunch more as well as my hand. I struggled with grabbing the ball a little in the beginning what I remembered my keys and relaxed it and BAM! X after X after X until a 10 pin, lol. However I do need my thumbhole opened up a little bit because I'm starting to get a little callous forming on the side of my thumb. And as for throwing with some tape in the thumbholes, I haven't got around to that yet. I'll be giving it a try on Friday though.

3)My release point is something that really hurt me last night. I couldn't seem to get it right. That's something that I'm trying to work on. Any suggestions?

4)My timing and balance were off a little to because like all of you have said before, learning to throw a free swing is going to feel like you're out of control, and it really did. I need to work on that as well. Additionally, I need to work on staying low without standing up at the line. Like I said that hurt my game as well

5)Lastly, I still need to get a plastic spare ball so I can use my normal release (whatever that is) with out changing so much because it is incredibly hard to throw a straight ball with my brace on. I don't know why. I think it's more of a mental block if anything else.

Well there's the latest update. Critique and suggest at your whim.

it is harder to throw a spare ball with the brace on. i haven't figured out why yet. it seems that by not braking your wrist it makes it harder to throw it. i'm working on that one and after thursday when i see my coach i'll have a better in site on what to do. i'll let ya know if i can work up something.
on balance i feel like a drunk bicycle try to get to the line. so i know how you feel on that one.

I tuck my 1st finger close to the middle finger and spread the little finger as far as comfortable. I put a little bit of muscle into driving the ball with the little and ring fingers. It's been reliable enough to try spare some shots from different angles (like shooting a 2-4 from the left).

When I was using the brace, I throw the spare ball just like the strike ball, cupped and with spin. It's plastic so it doesn't move unless the back is really dry or on wood then I'd tone down the revs but still same release form. Easier to be consistnt this way, don't have to think about breaking the wrist or flattening out the ball as well as hitting the mark and what angle. Now without the brace I play the same way.

If I use a wrist brace, I take it off for all spares.