Aslan's Weekly/Monthly Chris Barnes/Joe Slowinski Statistics Nerd Thread: Part I

[Aslan]

I thought since bowling isn't really something I'm very good at; yet I find numbers fascinating...perhaps I should focus on talking about numbers.

This is a tribute to both Chris Barnes and Joe Slowinski because both of them tend to focus on nerdy stuff like this where as most others would scroll past it.

PLAN:
Each Week/Month I will post a thread talking about ONE specific measurement of performance. I will use my stats from PinPal (but also some that I will have to do some manual calculation to gather that aren't in PinPal) to create a graph image for discussion.

Hopefully it'll be margnially interesting and generate discussion. At a minimum Mudpuppy will just scoff at it for being too long or Iceman will claim the "Gift" can't be measured using numbers...but at a MINIMUM I'd like respondants to at least answer these basic questions:

1) Does that graph tell you ANYTHING? If so, what do you see?
2) Is that STAT really that useful?

And as a bonus you can say how the graph indicates to you just how ****y Aslan is at bowling. Thats a little bonus incentive for participation...and because I specifically asked you to...so long as you keep the language appropriate...it's totally legal and you can't get any infractions for "making fun of other users" or anything like that.

ENJOY!!

PART I: First Ball Average

http://www.bowlingboards.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=1209&d=1413398492

Other details that may/may not be of interest:
- The line is almost flat at about 8.40.
- The slope is -8E05 (a very minor slope downward, essentially no trend)
- The brown vertical line (furthest left) indicates when the stats went from primarily WOOD lanes to SYNTHETICS.
- The pink vertical line (furthest right) indicates when I started taking lessons with my new coach. I had taken lessons and attended clinics before that but infrequently and with varying folks.
- Also, it includes tournaments, league play, and open bowling; but does not include sport shot league (didn't want to add that variable).

Any other questions, ASK!

And remember, this isn't so much "Help Aslan Learn to Bowl"...that ship has sailed my friends. Plus I already have a thread for that entitled "Videos for noeymc" or something like that for such a purpose. This is more a thread about whether the stat is useful or interesting...that kind of thing.

[MICHAEL]

yep Numbers fascinate most of us on this Math Site! I bet I don't miss this post very often,,,, yaaaaaaaaawwwwwNNNN!!! Wow that was a hUGE 1!! http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v201/foolishtook/LOL/tumblr_lefti4hz161qf8yek.gif (http://media.photobucket.com/user/foolishtook/media/LOL/tumblr_lefti4hz161qf8yek.gif.html)

[Aslan]

At your age; I'm sure all the numbers tend to run together. But it's okay...take a post off...let the let the younger "whipper-snappers" handle the new fangled math stuff.

Somebody get Iceman some crayons and a coloring book while the grown ups talk!

[J Anderson]

What do the points plotted represent? First ball average per game, per three game series, per day?

[vdubtx]

What do the points plotted represent? First ball average per game, per three game series, per day?

That was my first question looking at the screen shot. I am interested in the stats of bowling as I keep all of my games on Pin Pal also, league and tournaments only.

[MICHAEL]

At your age; I'm sure all the numbers tend to run together. But it's okay...take a post off...let the let the younger "whipper-snappers" handle the new fangled math stuff.

Somebody get Iceman some crayons and a coloring book while the grown ups talk!


Send coloring books and crayons to Iceman,,, much more interesting then looking at a lay out of this galaxy, with a blue back drop! Yawwwwwnnnn!!!

Very interesting,,, ya,,, right! What the hell is it???? where is earth located?

[MICHAEL]

http://i1243.photobucket.com/albums/gg546/imagine686868/1178b366-76a7-445a-83ee-f37e85cad437_zps6d05f675.png (http://s1243.photobucket.com/user/imagine686868/media/1178b366-76a7-445a-83ee-f37e85cad437_zps6d05f675.png.html)

OK,,, ICEMAN DONE!! LOL,,,,

[Aslan]

What do the points plotted represent? First ball average per game, per three game series, per day?

Sorry. First ball average per day. Thats why there are some gaps because each dot represents a day that I bowled between January and now…and I didn't bowl every day.

[Aslan]

OK,,, ICEMAN DONE!! LOL,,,,

On second thought….maybe keep the crayons away from him. I'm pretty sure he's eaten enough glue and sniffed enough markers at this point that we'll try to keep crayons away from him.

[MICHAEL]

On second thought….maybe keep the crayons away from him. I'm pretty sure he's eaten enough glue and sniffed enough markers at this point that we'll try to keep crayons away from him.

thanks captain Aslan, of the Star Ship Bowling Ball Statistics!. I don't like crayons much anyway, I wind up eating them,,,but keep the glue and magic markers coming! Where is your next stop on the Blue Chart??

OK,,, I am really done,,, sorry but,,,,, when I looked at that meaning less chart to most of us mortals, SPACE, Time, Exploration came to mind!

I will leave this thread to you, and your group of statisticians!

I am beaming out of here!!

When I look at your blue chart, I think of this HOT episode of Star Track! The blue guy in this short, reminds me of you... I mean that in a positive way!! enjoy!
HOW CAN ONE be BLUE after watching this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W-WA90u0f0Y

[vdubtx]

One statistic that I think is interesting and I am sure you will touch on in one of your later posts is which pins are left the most and why. Could even dive deeper and find which ball that you used, left you the most 10 pins for instance.

For me 4 different pin leaves are left the most and account for 46% of my leaves. 10 pin #1, 4 pin #2, 9 pin #3, and 7 pin #4.

[J Anderson]

1) Does that graph tell you ANYTHING? If so, what do you see?

Since the data points can represent anywhere from 1 game to a dozen, I don't find them very useful. The fact that the line is essentially level and the bulk of the data points are close to it, shows that, whatever improvements you've made to your game, they haven't affected your first ball pin carry. My conclusion would be that you are still missing the pocket more than you might like or that you're hitting it at the optimal angle and phase of ball motion.

2) Is that STAT really that useful?

Don't ask me. The only thing useful that I learned in Statistics was that you define what success is. All this Stat tells me is that you still have a ways to go before challenging Belmo for domination of the Bowling World.

[vdubtx]

Agreed J Anderson. Missing the pocket and only getting a 7-8.5 first ball average to me means the pocket is not being found. Likely need to work on targeting on the lanes until you can get into the 8.5-9 range.

[Aslan]

Agreed J Anderson. Missing the pocket and only getting a 7-8.5 first ball average to me means the pocket is not being found. Likely need to work on targeting on the lanes until you can get into the 8.5-9 range.

Kudos to JAnderson for actually answering the question as designed!!

I agree VDub. The only thing I can get from that STAT and that set of data points is that if the trendline is flat and about 8.40...

1) There has been no progress nor decline in terms of carrying more pins with the first ball over the course of 2014.

2) A # lower than 8.5 would indicate that you're not only not striking enough, but also leaving far too many multi-pin spares versus single-pin spares.

While both of those are interesting...this STAT doesn't really shed any light on "why" or "how" and thus isn't that useful in terms of fixing the problem. But it is useful in seeing that there IS a problem. And it is somewhat useful given the lack of a trend (positive nor negative) which shows that the changes in the person's game over the course of the year have had very little effect on the particular issue of pin carry.

Of matter of fact...THAT is the most interesting take-away from this set of data. This is a bowler with 0.5 years experience and in .75 years of data...there is no improvement (judging purely by this stat). New bowlers generally will show a much greater level of improvement early on because early, simple, fundamental types of changes tend to lead to huge gains. Once you get to a higher level (175-200 average), suddenly changes produge much less results in terms of pin carry because you're already at a very high level.

Another difficulty with this STAT/DATA SET is it's hard to tell if the R2 value is good or bad. You'd need to compare it to a similar bowler (in terms of average) to see if THIS data set is more or less scattered than it should be. It looked a LOT less scattered when the Y axis was 0-10 versus when I changed it to 5-10.

[Mike White]

Kudos to JAnderson for actually answering the question as designed!!

I agree VDub. The only thing I can get from that STAT and that set of data points is that if the trendline is flat and about 8.40...

1) There has been no progress nor decline in terms of carrying more pins with the first ball over the course of 2014.

2) A # lower than 8.5 would indicate that you're not only not striking enough, but also leaving far too many multi-pin spares versus single-pin spares.

While both of those are interesting...this STAT doesn't really shed any light on "why" or "how" and thus isn't that useful in terms of fixing the problem. But it is useful in seeing that there IS a problem. And it is somewhat useful given the lack of a trend (positive nor negative) which shows that the changes in the person's game over the course of the year have had very little effect on the particular issue of pin carry.

Of matter of fact...THAT is the most interesting take-away from this set of data. This is a bowler with 0.5 years experience and in .75 years of data...there is no improvement (judging purely by this stat). New bowlers generally will show a much greater level of improvement early on because early, simple, fundamental types of changes tend to lead to huge gains. Once you get to a higher level (175-200 average), suddenly changes produge much less results in terms of pin carry because you're already at a very high level.

Another difficulty with this STAT/DATA SET is it's hard to tell if the R2 value is good or bad. You'd need to compare it to a similar bowler (in terms of average) to see if THIS data set is more or less scattered than it should be. It looked a LOT less scattered when the Y axis was 0-10 versus when I changed it to 5-10.


Lets try an experiment this Sunday.

Lets remove from your game the one factor that it probably doing you the most harm.

I'll tell you where to stand, and what target to hit. I'll decide when you should change lines.

Your whole job will be to hit your mark.

I think it is your though process that is giving you the most problems.

Come down early enough to get a game of practice in before league.

[vdubtx]

Lets try an experiment this Sunday.

Lets remove from your game the one factor that it probably doing you the most harm.

I'll tell you where to stand, and what target to hit. I'll decide when you should change lines.

Your whole job will be to hit your mark.

I think it is your though process that is giving you the most problems.

Come down early enough to get a game of practice in before league.

Excellent. Practicing hitting the mark is great. Get all things out of your head but to hit the mark and not worry about(yet) where the ball is ending up after hitting it. Did exactly this several years ago, and also this past summer with Susie Minshew. She only wanted to see how accurate I was and how repeatable I was with my shot, not if I was hitting pocket each and every time.

[manke]

You also need to have confidence when you bowl, if youdont you will not bowl good
. You need to clear your mind and just concentrate on hiting your mark, and getting good lift on the ball and your scores will increase

[Aslan]

Lets try an experiment this Sunday.

Lets remove from your game the one factor that it probably doing you the most harm.

I'll tell you where to stand, and what target to hit. I'll decide when you should change lines.

Your whole job will be to hit your mark.

I think it is your though process that is giving you the most problems.

Come down early enough to get a game of practice in before league.

Ooooo...an "experiement"! I like those!! Sounds like a plan!


Excellent. Practicing hitting the mark is great. Get all things out of your head but to hit the mark and not worry about(yet) where the ball is ending up after hitting it. Did exactly this several years ago, and also this past summer with Susie Minshew. She only wanted to see how accurate I was and how repeatable I was with my shot, not if I was hitting pocket each and every time.

Actually hitting the mark isn't going to the problem. I don't want to spoil the results of the exeriment prematurely...but I can usually hit my mark within +/- a board. The problem is more in the release, the timing, and how square I am to the foul line.

It's one of the issues I've been having with the new plastic ball spare shooting system. The coach gave me exactly where to stand and what mark to hit...and I'd stand there...and hit that mark...and the ball would miss. And the reason I was told was I was squaring up to the foul line rather than the target. So I'd be all lined up and that at the last moment twist my torso and aim more towards the headpin rather than the pin I'm trying to pick up. To "correct" this I've been instructed to line up aiming a little left of the target...so when I have that tendency to square up...it still goes towards the pin. Granted, when I concentrate on NOT squaring up...I then miss left (7-pin) or right (10-pin).

Usually if I miss right of my mark, it's because I'm not square with the foul line. I'm "pointed" right...and it's just bad timing. I also will sometimes miss right if I put too much speed on the ball. I miss left if my timing is off (I can't remember what is late vs early). But if I'm at the foul line and the ball is still up high in my backswing I'll tend to pull the shot trying to "hurry/pull" the ball down.

And I'm also less accurate if I'm straight up and down vs. bent over/forward tilt. My old lofting style I had trouble hitting +/- 2 boards because the target was simply further away from where I was releasing the ball. I then started leaning over the foul line almost TOO much and could hit the board/target every time...but the release was too flat...the ball going to slow, no revs, and hit the pocket like a marshmellow.

But we'll see. I can't do any worse than usual. Wait...I guess I could. But thats alright. I just won't do the brackets and sidepots this week.

[vdubtx]

Ooooo...an "experiement"! I like those!! Sounds like a plan!



Actually hitting the mark isn't going to the problem. I don't want to spoil the results of the exeriment prematurely...but I can usually hit my mark within +/- a board. The problem is more in the release, the timing, and how square I am to the foul line.

It's one of the issues I've been having with the new plastic ball spare shooting system. The coach gave me exactly where to stand and what mark to hit...and I'd stand there...and hit that mark...and the ball would miss. And the reason I was told was I was squaring up to the foul line rather than the target. So I'd be all lined up and that at the last moment twist my torso and aim more towards the headpin rather than the pin I'm trying to pick up. To "correct" this I've been instructed to line up aiming a little left of the target...so when I have that tendency to square up...it still goes towards the pin. Granted, when I concentrate on NOT squaring up...I then miss left (7-pin) or right (10-pin).

Usually if I miss right of my mark, it's because I'm not square with the foul line. I'm "pointed" right...and it's just bad timing. I also will sometimes miss right if I put too much speed on the ball. I miss left if my timing is off (I can't remember what is late vs early). But if I'm at the foul line and the ball is still up high in my backswing I'll tend to pull the shot trying to "hurry/pull" the ball down.

And I'm also less accurate if I'm straight up and down vs. bent over/forward tilt. My old lofting style I had trouble hitting +/- 2 boards because the target was simply further away from where I was releasing the ball. I then started leaning over the foul line almost TOO much and could hit the board/target every time...but the release was too flat...the ball going to slow, no revs, and hit the pocket like a marshmellow.

But we'll see. I can't do any worse than usual. Wait...I guess I could. But thats alright. I just won't do the brackets and sidepots this week.

Mike is right though, you have too much going through your mind to try and get right to get the shot to go where you want. Your body is likely wanting to get muscle memory, but you're not letting your brain do that for you. Just put things out of your mind and just do it. Don't think during your approach that you body has to be square, you have to release it just so etc. Just think of that in your stance, get into your approach and let your body(muscle memory) take over. Believe me, I was in the same boat as you are years ago and I was told to stop thinking so much and just do.

[Mike White]

Mike is right though, you have too much going through your mind to try and get right to get the shot to go where you want. Your body is likely wanting to get muscle memory, but you're not letting your brain do that for you. Just put things out of your mind and just do it. Don't think during your approach that you body has to be square, you have to release it just so etc. Just think of that in your stance, get into your approach and let your body(muscle memory) take over. Believe me, I was in the same boat as you are years ago and I was told to stop thinking so much and just do.

You can blind fold someone to make them stop using their eyes.

I wonder if there is such a thing as brain fold.

Probably would require strong drugs, and likely illegal.

[Aslan]

No...you guys are right.

Sunday, Mike helped and added some targets to hit...but I just couldn't hit them. My new approach/timing is so OFF/AWFUL that I can't hit within 1 board of the target. And on sport shots you don't get 3-7 boards of miss room.

I am seeing primarily THREE issues:

1) TIMING: My coach was trying to correct my early timing by making it later. Well, now I have LATE timing and thats causing WAY more problems than the early timing. The ball is still in my backswing when I get to the line. And I've tried to alter my footwork to "delay" me getting to the foul line...which has resulted in an akward sort of stoppage after my first step. I don't know how people can bowl with late timing...it's just awful.

2) MUSCLE MEMORY: Like you guys are saying...I've lost all semblance of a "rhythm". My body wants to throw the way it's used to and I'm "messing with it". And just as I start to develop a consistent approach...I have to change it again because it's still off.

3) The new approach/delivery is more upright in an attempt to keep me from bending over the foul line and theoretically to allow me to get more revs and a better release. HOWEVER...to truly master a more upright delivery...you MUST GET LOW...REALLY LOW. And being a taller guy...with a questionable 40-year old knee...I'm struggling to get low enough. And UPRIGHT WITHOUT LOW = a shot that is much, much further away from the target when released = less accuracy. Cliff notes version...I'm back to lofting it because the ball is at hip level because I don't have enough forward spine tilt nor knee bend. So now I'm releasing it like "old me" but without the "hitting up" on the ball...because I've learned to stay more behind it. So that leads to a very high, flat shot...no movement...and + 1 to +8 boards away from my target.

I posted some scores. Two things (from a positive) that have been working are:

1) Getting low. I MUST train myself to get low as long as the knee holds out. If I get low enough that the ball is quiet when it hits the lane surface...I make a good shot. If I "toss" the ball and it thuds onto the lane = BAD shot.

2) Even though it's somewhat impossible...I MUST relax. I've found that as I get tired...I bowl BETTER. As Barry Asher would say, "my shoulders quiet down". Once I stop TRYING to bowl...and just let the ball naturally complete it's pendulum and smoothly come off my hand...I make decent shots. I don't over/under rotate. I don't hit up on the ball. I don't "grasp" the ball.

I have a couple practices and 3 league nights between now and my next lesson. No more sport league for a few weeks due to a college class I need to take on the weekend. Hopefully I can either figure things out before the next lesson or worst case the next lesson we can start over...because whatever I'm doing now....it's made me a 140-150 average bowler which is down from the 160-170 average bowler I was before.

[mc_runner]

Keep at it Aslan. Whenever you change something up you'll go down before you see the gains as you have to re-learn everything. It'll come back and when it does click... it'll feel great and the scores will be there too. It just takes some willpower to get through the downturn!