My first video.

Here's a video of me at my league this morning. It's three shots. I hope the result of them doesn't matter too much because I didn't really show the ball hitting the pins on the first two shots. Looking at it, I really gotta wonder how I average 200+. Anyways, am I horrible, or better than I thought?



Sorry if it's poor quality but it was during league so I couldn't get any angle I wanted.

Welcome to the site, you seem to be losing leverage at the release because you are too open to the right of your target and pull the ball across your body from time to time. Try keeping your balance arm up higher and square to your target at the release.

The video was too dark to see your hand position, but I like the fact that the ball was close to your ankle at the release, that indicates you have a good armswing which is rare.

You could gain a little more power by getting a little more knee bend into your slide try bending your right leg a little more as you go into your slide.

Next video try setting the camera's night vision so it takes in more light.

Thanks a lot Jim. I was told by another person I have a fluid armswing. It's nice to know I have that. My hand position was meant to be cocked to the left and cocked, both slightly. However I tend to get in the habbit of doing it too much(more than slightly). I'm not really sure if I'm maintaining the possition through the swing either. I also noticed watching my video that my balance arm goes down once I release the ball. Is that a sign of forcing the ball? What about my timing in general? I'll try working on getting lower and more leverage.

I will also admit I squease the ball a bit, but since reading these boards and Ron C's tips I've been really wanting to break that habit so I'm hopefully less tempted to "try" reving the ball. Also, with a more proper fit maybe I won't have to try so hard to hold the ball when i need my fingers to be closer to the middle ones.

I also thought this pic might be helpful in case discussion about getting the right fit goes further.



If you turn your head so that my fingers appear more vertical, you wil see my normal "thumbs up". I find it really weird but it's natural. I'm hoping by looking at this someone can take an educated guess on what my thumb pitch should be.

Currently one of my balls have 0 pitch which still takes a bit of squeasing, but the others including the one in the video is 1/8 reverse. The reason for this is that I wanted to experiment with more forward pitch.

If there's any other types of pics that would be helpful such as positioning my hand like I'm holding an imaginary bowling ball, etc let me know.

If you look at your thumb, you can see the parts of your thumb that are rubbing in the hole, mostly around the back of the thumb at the knuckle. This swelling occurs when you have to bend the thumb to hang onto the ball.

It looks like you have a fairly long thumb so you may not need to go as far forward with your thumb pitch as I have, but you definitely need to go at least another 1/4" to 3/8" forward to prevent the thumb from rubbing so much. Also it looks as though the right side of the thumb as you are looking at it rubs also so you might need to move the thumb pitch to the left an eighth at a time until it stops rubbing.

It might also be that it rubs there because of the knuckling of the thumb, but an ovaled thumb hole might help as well.

My thumb hole is oval. I would probably have to agree with you about the pitches even the lateral 1/8 or so. Once I can get over the thumb thing I'll feel like just about anything is possible. I thought my thumb was average or short though, I could be wrong.

Also, the darkness you see on my knuckle is not there as I look at my thumb now. I think it was just the lighting because I don't recall it being like that, although it is swollen compared to my left thumb. Is that because of squeasing or should all bowlers have bigger bowling thumbs than non bowling thumbs?

Also, As you can see I have a small hand and wrist. I think this makes it hard on me to get a decent rev rate because it's not too strong and perhaps a little lazy. Although I may not be able to cock my hand through the whole swing, I feel like I can cup it. Is that enough to get the proper revs I need?

Is that at Narrows Plaza Bowl on Mildred Street?

If you measure your thumb from the base to the tip as a general rule if it is 2" or longer you will not need as much forward pitch as someone with a shorter pitch, you can measure your thumb and figure that out for yourself.

The majority of the revs you see guys get on tv is from cocking the wrist into the release zone and uncocking it as the thumb exits the ball which puts a spring motion into the release which doubles the amount of revs you could normally get on the ball.

Since it looks as if you have read Ron's tips, are you able to do the cupping drill for testing your wrist strength in the bowler's release tip?

It's actually Paradise Village. What center do you bowl at?



My thumb is close to 2 1/4". I may have to go somewhere between 1/4 and 3/8 forward like you suggested.

In my attempts to cock the wrist, I think all I've done was get as many revs as if I was only cupping it because I tried to keep it the way even through the release. Now that I know you have to uncock right at release I might be able to rev up a tad more but nothing like the guys on TV because I don't feel that my wrist is that quick. Yep, I've read almost all of Ron's tips plus his Breakpoint Target articles and I can do the cupping exercise in the Release tip, but it takes a lot of effort while it seems easy for him.

I bowl at Pacific right now. I used to bowl at Narrows Plaza on Thursday nights in the Buckshooters league for a few years until I took last year off. Next year Pacific is offering a Monday Night PBA experience league. I was thinking this would be a cool idea, but I wanted to try and establish a 200 average before doing this. I also wanted to learn to shoot straighter at my spares too. Next year, I want to expand and maybe bowl a league at Paradise or maybe Bowlero because I heard that in comparison to Pacific and Narrows, Bowlero really floods their lanes.

I heard that about bowlero in the past as well. But now I'm not sure as they seem a bit drier. I actually consider Paradise's fresh pattern pretty wet. I don't know how long, but no longer than 40 feet with quite a bit of volume, so I'l say it's a little on the heavier side of Medium.

I hear Pacific is an easy house like there's a big wall and all that. I don't bowl there much but when I do I'm not finding the same results. But yeah, I encourage you to do some bowling either at Bowlero or Paradise because the experience you get from bowling at different houses teaches a lot and I'd say one of the biggest differences will probably be carry.

It seems like you're averaging 200 with your new swing and release already, I'd say you're at least ready to bowl at another house. It would be pretty cool if you actually joined the PBA Experience League Paradise will have this summer. Even though you don't average 200 now, it's a great experience and the way I see it your free armswing puts you ahead of the game. Do you have a spare ball or would you just throw your strike ball straight?

If you do decide to bowl at Paradise we can hang out and talk so that would be a plus. I think even though I'm a youth bowler they will let me do the PBAX league but I'll pay a smaller fee since I won't be playing for money with the adults.

You might want to invest in a 5 lb dumbbell and do some wrist curls forward and backward as well as stretches to help strengthen your wrist which will make it easier to maintain your wrist position. Slower and under control with more reps is better than fast and more weight.

I have been doing wrist curls from time to time for the past few days actually, but with 10 pounds. I'm not sure if that's wise or if it doesn't matter. But I think I should have 5lb around somewhere, even 8lb maybe. Do I just want to do it until my wrist gets tired or even past that? I don't want to get carpol tunnel trying to do this since I haven't had it yet.

10 lb dumbbell will work as long as you can handle the weight. It has to be slow and under control the whole rep up and down, if this feels difficult or you can't get 10 reps with this amount of weight, then you should go with a lesser weight.

I worked with a coach today in hopes of gaining better timing and leverage. We changed a few things and I'd say we were pretty successful as long as I executed correctly. Unfortunately I didn't video tape it but I'm hoping to on saturday at league again.

What did your coach tell you to do?

I hold the ball about chest high, speed my feet up a bit, and drop the ball to the bottom of my swing on the third step rather than focusing a whole lot on a pushaway. This gives the ball a natural backswing height rather than me having to help it a little when I was holding it waist high. Also, he had me hold my blance arm low in front of me and move it to my side as I come through the shot. Before, my arm was way up there. The last thing he did was make my trail leg not go too far to the left or in the air, and having me plant it more. That way my hips don't open up even more at the line, which is what caused me to miss right in one or two of my shots in the video.

It also helps to think of it as starting over a bar about 4" higher than where the ball is in your stance (it doesn't matter what height you have the ball as you will lower it later for slowing the speed down in future lessons) and push the ball over the bar and let it drop into the swing. If you looked at this push away from the side it goes slightly up then drops into the swing it is more of a rounded shape, it feels pretty vertical though so if that is what it feels like then you are doing it properly. The slight push up helps with timing since there is a natural pause even for a slight split second when the swing starts, that the slight upward motion will help set the swing in better time with your feet.

You can practice this at home by getting the ball in your stance and step with your right foot and push the ball slightly up, then back into your stance then step with the right foot and push slightly up then let the ball drop into the swing then repeat it again.

The balance arm will take a while to get used to, mostly because as soon as you stop paying attention to it it will revert back to where it was, so stay on this as long as it takes, the same with your trail leg.

It sounds like you found a good coach, work on these things, take them one at a time and make sure you do them all the time without reverting back. Let me know if I can be of further help, good luck.

Yeah, from the practice that I was doing with him, I already like the balance arm and trail leg idea. And like you said I have to pay as much attention to them as possible, or something in my body will make me automatically revert to the old way.

As for the pushaway, the way I was doing it before it just felt so long and dragged out but it felt too weird not to do it at the same time, and I literally pushed away instead of up like you were saying. Now it feels a little more natural, and I can tell if it's because of the height in my stance or because I'm not actually pushing it out like I was before.

I agree that this coach is good, and it's a cool thing because I've even known him for about 3 years because his son is in youth with me, plus my dad bowled with him when they were kids. I have league tomorrow and I will try to maintain these techniques as much as I can.

My plans are just to bowl in a fun friday nighter with my wife and a buddy. I play 4+ days of softball a week in the summer so bowling is kind of my second love in the hot season. Next year I plan on bowling two leagues. I might join the Monday league at Narrows. It is the manager's league and the prize fund is huge. If I don't bowl in that league on Mondays, I am going to join Pacific's PBA experience league. Also, I will probably bowl on a wed or thur at Pacific in a fun league with the wife. Right now, I feel like I am finally putting everything together. I signed up for a filming/coaching session on June 3 where you get video'd and they offer you some tips to help your game. Hopefully, there won't be a huge amount of issues that I need to fix.