Note to self for striking on league night-slow and easy..........

[Hammer]

Bowling doesn't have to be going coast to coast with an aggressive ball and higher speed. Tonight on league night my first two games were a 189 and a 183. Needless to say our team lost the first two games. The third game started out for me with spares only in the first five frames then four opens in a row. I tried all kinds of ways in the third game to find the pocket to strike again like I did in the first two games. No luck. I thought that we would lose the third game also. So in the tenth frame I thought of Earl Anthony and how nice and easy he would make his approach and just give the ball a little flip with his hand on release. Also I remembered when I was warming up before it counted I would go make my approach nice and slow and give the ball a little flip on release like Earl and I would strike. So I thought that I might as well try that now. First ball in the tenth frame strike. Second ball in the tenth another strike. Okay! I got something going here. Third ball another strike. It was only a game of a 154 but so what. We won that game because of me getting those three strikes in the tenth. Even though I bowled lousy that last game we won it. I found out that game that in order to find the strike zone all I had to do was slow down my approach like in practice and let the ball swing with no help and give it a little flip with the fingers on release and watch it belly out real nice and come in hard to the pocket and kick those pins butts. All that time in the beginning of the third game I did everything to find the pocket. Changing boards with my feet and changing the target on the lane and trying more revs but to no avail. I was leaving the 7 and leaving hard spares. All of the time the solution was so simple. Bowl like Earl Anthony. Use a slow and small step approach and let the arm swing naturally with no muscle help and give the ball a little lift on the release. It gave the ball a nice belly out to the gutter and a nice solid arc into the pocket. By the pin action on the hit I can tell the ball hit hard. Sometimes during league competition our adrenalin is going and we do too much thinking when we can't get strikes. We use more speed, more revs and changing our target on the lane and still can't figure out why we can't strike. The solution for me was quite simple. Bowl like Earl Anthony. Thank you Earl where ever you are. Note to self for next league night: Bowl like Earl.

[J Anderson]

I think that any one who watched the PBA in the 70s & 80s wishes that they could bowl like Earl!

What amazes me is that Earl was quoted as saying he never felt he had to be perfect to win, 80% was good enough. Goes a long way toward explaining why his approach and swing looked so relaxed.

[Hammer]

Here is a link of Earl in action. Watch the small steps in his approach and the relaxed swing of the ball. He does the same thing all of the time. Got him to the Hall of Fame. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eiKEqATbAWk

[Hammer]

Here is a link of Earl in action. Watch the small steps in his approach and the relaxed swing of the ball. He does the same thing all of the time. Got him to the Hall of Fame. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eiKEqATbAWk

OOPS! Try this link to see him bowl. Plus he talks about releases. http://www.youtube.com/watch?NR=1&v=Bp1yasIXq5I&feature=endscreen

[Hammer]

I forgot to put in that I am usuing a Blue Hammer urethane ball with a length layout and the pin above my ring finger setup for a left handed person like me . Earl Anthony was left handed also.

[Big Nick]

Hammer, I couldn't agree more with you. I had a frustrating league night yesterday, and somewhere around the beginning of the third game I remembered to relax. Once I did, my shot fell back into the groove and the pins started falling. Went from shooting 116 and 136 in the first two games to bowling a 193 in the last.

[Hammer]

Hammer, I couldn't agree more with you. I had a frustrating league night yesterday, and somewhere around the beginning of the third game I remembered to relax. Once I did, my shot fell back into the groove and the pins started falling. Went from shooting 116 and 136 in the first two games to bowling a 193 in the last.

Very nice. When we start league bowling when it counts all of a sudden we have more adrenalin, our arm muscles get tight and we tend to try and controll the ball too much instead of just letting your arm swing in a relaxed state. Depending on what kind of ball you are using, in my case a urethane Blue Hammer with a controlled hook
layout, it works best to hit the pocket by taking a slow approach and a relaxed swing like you see in Earl Anthony's link. I have never seen Earl change his approach no matter the oil condition. I am sure that he uses a ball that will work on the oil condition that he plays on that day but his approach and arm swing always looks the same. It always looks like an easy relaxed pace. I will have to put a post-it on my ball to remind me to try this on my next league night.

[e-tank]

ive been slowly adjusting from trying to gun it down there 100mph wanting to make the pins explode to more relaxed, controlled and accurate

its paying off in high games and raising my average

[Tampabaybob]

e-tank.......Power lifter ?? At least we know where the speed originates. Just remember ...nice and easy does it. Relax and let the ball do the work for you.

Bob

[scottymoney]

I wrestle with this all the time. But I have found when I start trying to bowl too slow and easy that it doesn't do what I need it to do. As soon as I put a little bit more speed in my approach I watch pins explode and X's appear. For some this may help for other maybe not. I agree you can't muscle it down the lanes but you need to find a happy medium and whatever may work for you.

[Hammer]

I wrestle with this all the time. But I have found when I start trying to bowl too slow and easy that it doesn't do what I need it to do. As soon as I put a little bit more speed in my approach I watch pins explode and X's appear. For some this may help for other maybe not. I agree you can't muscle it down the lanes but you need to find a happy medium and whatever may work for you.

The slow approach only works if you have the right ball. An aggressive resin ball and layout probably will not work on this style of bowling. Like I said above the ball I use is a urethane Blue Hammer with a length layout and the pin above my ring finger. This type of setup gives it a controlled hook. If I add too much speed it hits light in the pocket leaving a lot of 7 pins(I am left handed). So if I can control my adrenalin on league night I will have more pocket hits. That is what I like about this ball. I don't need high revs and speed to get a good pocket hit. And it is good as a spare ball also.

[Tampabaybob]

I wrestle with this all the time. But I have found when I start trying to bowl too slow and easy that it doesn't do what I need it to do. As soon as I put a little bit more speed in my approach I watch pins explode and X's appear. For some this may help for other maybe not. I agree you can't muscle it down the lanes but you need to find a happy medium and whatever may work for you.

Scott, I'll agree to a point with you about a bit of speed. If you try to "baby the ball", you'll end up trying to point it too often. Some speed on the follow thru is required. It's a very fine line that you want to meet between having too much speed and not enough and we all struggle trying to find that happy medium. When I said that to etank, I was referring to not overpower the ball.

Bob

[Hammer]

If I am not mistaken when pros or anyone that throws the ball coast to coast wants the ball to hit the break point and go to the pocket I don't think they put a lot of speed on the ball. They hit the ball with a lot of revs but I think they give the ball average speed so it doesn't go into the gutter and instead makes the turn to the pocket. So they have to be careful with the speed they put on the ball.

[Tampabaybob]

Sunday, I watched the PBA tour stop that was in Vegas. I was very surprised to see them throwing the ball as fast as they were. I would estimate they were averaging about 17mph. They were bowling on the shortest pattern that was very, very dry on the outside, so i imagine it was for that reason they were really pitching the ball hard. The top 4 in the elimination all averaged OVER 250 for the 16 semi-final games. That's outrageous ! Many years ago when I held a PBA card and shot tournaments in the Northeast, we never were told what the oil pattern was like they do today. We always traveled with a trunk full of balls and hoped we brought something that would work. All of the full time touring pros all received free balls from the ball manufacturers they bowled for, so they could just walk out to the truck and have them drill something different if they needed to. A lot has changed over the years.

Bob

[billf]

There are plenty of pros who throw it hard, Tommy Jones, Robert Smith and Sean Rash all consitently hook the lane at over 20mph at the pins. Speed is just another variable that is bowler specific.

[Tampabaybob]

True, but the "average" bowler shouldn't try that. Speed is a killer to someone just starting out, and I think you'll agree to that. I try and get people and kids to stay at or below 16mph. If they can learn to control the ball and move their speed up from there fine, but a slower speed gets them used to 'feeling' whats going on.

Bob

[GoKidd]

Is there a good exercise or something to help me regulate my speed? This is a very helpful thread for me.

[e-tank]

e-tank.......Power lifter ?? At least we know where the speed originates. Just remember ...nice and easy does it. Relax and let the ball do the work for you.

Bob

Yea especially now that i learned to bowl with 3 fingers, i can just let gravity do the work since i actually have a backswing now. Focusing on spares has helped my accuracy tremendously aswell.