So I have been working on staying on the inside of the ball and it has been a more difficult issue then I expected. I have always had good revs but on video you can tell my hand stays on the outside of the ball with a flat wrist. My axis rotation is usually around 45 degrees with no axis tilt. When I try to stay on the inside of the ball, my armswing is all over the place, no swing slot. the only way I stay in a swing slot is if I throw like Amleto Monacelli (but no accuracy). What's more fustrating is I get a terrible amount of axis tilt with working the inside, I would say 60-70 degrees. I can tame the tilt with a lot of loft (late release) but it is still pronounced. What am I doing wrong.

Posting a vid would make it much easier to diagnose. Staying inside the ball is not as easy as they make it seem on TV. Need a lot of hand/wrist strength.

Without a video all I can do is speculate.

Read this article by Joe Slowinski:
http://bowlingknowledge.info/images/stories/june09_article.pdf

You are most likely trying to hook the ball instead of just keeping your wrist in position. By trying to hook the ball you turn around it too soon and too much causing it to have too much rotation and tilt.

If you can keep your bowling side shoulder (I don't know if you are right handed or left handed), back as described in the article, it makes it a lot easier to stay behind the ball and put revs on the ball without forcing it.

So I hope you can see what I'm talking about. the first video is my normal release in slow motion. the second is me trying to stay inside.



you might not be able to tell but the axis tilt is pretty bad on the second shot.

disclaimer - I'm still learning. That said:

It looks like you're not on the inside, but rather are starting on the outside and bringing your wrist over the top of the ball. In almost all of my 10 releases, the rotation comes from the hand starting underneath the ball, with the fingers "below the equator" and letting the ball drop off the fingers. The way you're throwing it, your ball will not rotate if you just let it drop, since your hand is on top of the ball, and therefore you give it a little oomph with your hand. Which is fine, if that's what you want to do. I use this shot as one of my 10 varieties, and call it the limp-wristed over-the-top with a Flip (seriously - I name all my releases).

Try just keeping the ball in front of your hand, your fingers down as low as possible, and just let the ball drop off your fingers after the thumb exits. the angle of your wrist to the foul line while the ball drops off will determine the angle of rotation (I call this release the "drop-off", of course).

To build up strength in the wrist, if necessary, use kettlebells (no, I don't own stock - there are several brands).
good bowling!

check out Slowinski at
Slowinski

Here's the article on the release:
The "Drop-off" release

To me, it looks like the mistake you're making is trying to keep your fingers at a 90 degree angle to the lane. When you bring the ball back, you're not inside the ball. You then try to just turn your hand so you palm is inside the ball.

Look at the picture I attached. Look where you ring and index fingers are. That's actually where your index finger should be. Do this:

Your hand out in front of you, palm up, with your index finger spread like you are in this picture. Now tilt your wrist to the right so that your index finger is pointing where your middle finger was. Now tip your index finger down so that side of your hand is lower than your pinkie side so the weight of the ball will rest more on your index finger. If you lower your hand to point at the ground, your index finger will be pointing there, not your ring and middle finger.

Now your fingers will be inside of the ball.

That site has really been improved. One of the things we have not discussed is on the 45 degree release to think 1:00 finish with the thumb. I am thinking I come up light on the head pin too often is because I lead with ring finger and not getting enough rotation. This is somthing I forget about.
The way I understand Slowinski is the finger positions are at release and not the address position in which the hand is more inside the ball to achieve some revs. The release is pretty much the result of all that proceeds it. I feel that the improvement I see in my own game is from what Slowinski teaches.
Time to Roll
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Get you some! Do wrist curls.



Here's Lance Armstrong! feel the burn!

Spare me. I think your refering to keeping the wrist cupped. For now I have kept my wrist neutral just to eliminate that as a factor. once I get my fingers in the correct position, then getting under the ball may be added (if needed, my revs are pretty good). Also I have been working on a free armswing so I have removed all muscle from my armswing which means no cupping for now.
Here are some video's from today.



Boy this just kills the sides of my finger. And the pad of my index finger is throbbing. Feels like the ball sitting on this is ripping it off my hand.

I guess I did not realize that my wrist was breaking back a little too much. Still leaving the head pin. Tried moving left and right and strong grip, nothing worked. So grabbed my moongoose and strapped it on.Bingo! It kept my wrist straight and I could feel the difference in the release. Then just a matter of starting ball toward the break point,waiting for the ball and releasing up the back. No more head pin leaves. I notice the women pros use a brace throwing their 15# balls, our wrists are a lot smaller. So if I want to use the 14# ball the wrist brace is a help.
Time to roll

Your new video looks great. Did you score well? Of course that would depend on lane conditions...

If your fingers are hurting that much, I would guess it's from squeezing. I can see your ring and middle finger hurting a little since the ball will be comming off with a little pressure where it wasn't before, but the pad of your index finger shouldn't hurt that bad. Are you tensing up your hand and putting pressure on the ball with your index finger? Your hand should be pretty relaxed.

I also forgot to mention that you look much better.

When I just went back and looked at the video, in the back swing of the slo-mo portion, your index finger looks bent. That indicates to me that you're putting a lot of pressure on the ball with that finger, and if you're doing that, you're more than likely squeezing with the rest of your hand as well.

The second thing I noticed is that you're turning the ball early. The ball should really be at your ankle when everything unloads, and you start to come around the ball back by your trail foot.

But again, it looks much better.

I think with just the fact I have to focus on holding my hand in this position I was probably squeezing with the grip. Thanks for noticing that, hopefully as I get more comfortable with this, I can relax the grip without loosing the position


Yea, story of my life. I don't even try to turn the wrist at all but it happens anyway. this is a forever struggle with me. the few times I do stay behind the ball until my ankle, I get nothing on the ball and it falls off my hand.

thanks

Thanks. as for the score, I have no idea. I usually don't pay attention to the scores while practicing. Most of the time my first shot of each frame is practicing corner pin spares and my second shot is focused on my strike shot. This way I know I will get 2 shots for each frame.

But you weren't in this position when you got to the line before.

I think before I was already on the outside of the ball the entire swing?
No potential to turn wrist to outside if I was already there.

Notwithstanding scores, I am curious as to whether you can actually get side roll using this method, without also getting a generous dose of mid-roll?

This looks similar to some videos I've seen on Youtube, and I'm just curious how the ball hits the pocket when you do this. Lefty or anyone is welcome to answer my query...

My understanding is that mid-roll would lengthen your shot.

Michael Fagan, Tommy Jones, PDW, Sean Rash, Chris Barnes, Mike DeVaney all use this method. To name a few. They tend not to have problems with roll (though I feel the Chris Barnes could often use a bit more axis rotation, that's not because he can't get it, it's because he chooses not to).

What exactly do you mean by mid-roll - 45* axis rotation type shots? You'll get more length out of a shot with more axis rotation (side roll), also more length from getting more axis tilt. More axis tilt will cut down on total hook and backend reaction (in most cases - extreme fried lanes may be one exception), as will less axis rotation.

In any case, you can get any of those reactions with the "inside the ball" technique. What the technique provides is:
- Hand more behind the ball allows you to impart more energy into the ball, in the form of speed and rotation.
- Hand starting inside the ball gives it more room to turn as you move to the finger exit point, which leads to more revs.

If your hand starts on the side of the ball, you can't easily impart force on it, because that would push it inside of your target. You also only get revs from the ball coming off thumb first, then fingers. A small bit may be added by a cup-uncup motion.

If you do the same, with the hand behind/inside the ball up to the release point, you can more easily impart force on it, and revs come from both the movement of the fingers and the ball rolling off thumb then fingers.

You get more angular and translational velocity, which leads to more energy at the pins.

Mid-roll being rotation around vertical axis, so 100% mid-roll is a spinner.
side-roll being rotation around an axis pointing towards the headpin, and 45% side roll being a typical shot.

My question is if your hand starts on the inside and rotates around the ball to the outside, it seems that this would generate rotation around the vertical axis, while the ball dropping off the fingers would be the action generating the side roll.

All of the bowlers you mentioned have different releases from each other. I would compare this release to Mike Devnaey and Wes Malotte rather than those other guys. I think PDW and Fagan do a variation on the Slowinski drop-off release. Chris Barnes gets his revs by coming over the top of the ball, combined with his yo-yo motion.

Not trying to start an argument. I want to try this for myself but can't visualize exactly how it would generate more revs at 45* axis of rotation than simply holding your hand still and letting the ball drop off it. I know Slowinski says it does, but I can't see why.

I'm always looking for a better way to release the ball....

Another comment - being over 60 and my tendons don't like to stretch.... Are you saying that the hand will rotate, that is that the wrist will rotate as done by Devaney and Malotte?

You don't really rotate around the side of the ball all that much, and the ball still does something similar to dropping off the fingers. You just help it by uncupping your wrist.

For whatever reason, people seem to think you have to rotate around the ball, and I think you'd find very few successful bowlers who actually rotate "around".

Malott doesn't rotate around the ball at all. He's pretty much up the back of it.

As shown in the video, the action of the wrist uncoiling from the inside position actual creates revolutions, not mid roll (what I call axis tilt). And, all of the players mentioned perform a motion similar to the one highlighted by Malott, above. They get there in different ways, but if you view a closeup, they all perform the same Slowinski motion.

Spare me, you should have your grip and span checked before trying this, you could pop a tendon in your hand or wrist if your grip is not right, especially if your span is stretched.

Keeping your hand inside the ball is dependent on keeping your bowling side shoulder back until the release, letting it come forward too soon will turn your hand around the outside of the ball.

Mid Roll as you described is called "Tilt" in bowling lingo.

Thanks, Coach Jim. It hurts me to do this arm twist even when not holding a ball, so I was planning to work on it at home until my tendons were stretched enough.

However, since I know for a fact that all of my balls were drilled about 1/4" too long a span, I will avoid actually doing this at the bowling center until I have a ball that's safe to use.