Anyone have tips on watching the ball travel down lane.

[JasonNJ]

Every time I bowl I intend to work on trying to study the ball as it travels down lane but I always forget. I need something to help me focus on watching the ball and something to help me see the skid, hook and roll phazes and where the ball is exiting the pin deck. Anyone have any ideas on helping me with that?

[1VegasBowler]

There are 2 things that I can look at. My finger inserts/slug, and with the multi colored balls I watch the colors.

With my Ultimate Nirvana I can see the red, white & blue, and with my Thug Unruly I can see the purple & yellow go through the stages.

The rest of them are darker and they have brighter inserts/slugs

[RobLV1]

The most important thing is to learn to see the lane from front to back rather than from side to side. This is what happens: first the ball skids, but it is still rotating, it just hasn't found enough friction to begin to hook. When the ball encounters enough friction, the energy from the sideways rotation from your release becomes equal to the forward momentum created by your legs and arm swing, and the ball begins to hook. That is pretty easy to see. When it gets more difficult is if you don't understand that the ball must stop hooking before it begins to roll. This stage is called hook-out. When the ball begins to roll, it appears to stand up and roll directly into the pins, going straight. The most important thing is to learn to judge when that roll is happening and if it is too soon or too late. If it's too late, the ball is still hooking through the pins and will miss the nine pin on the left side for a right handed bowler. If it is rolling too early, you can see it deflect to the right toward the eight pin, leaving weak tens. I hope this helps.

[bowl1820]

I need something to help me focus on watching the ball and something to help me see the skid, hook and roll phazes and where the ball is exiting the pin deck. Anyone have any ideas on helping me with that?

If your doing it during practice, then you place tracer tapes on the ball.

Put one on your PAP (Axis #1).

There's two other tracers you could use also, a tracer tape running from the pap toward the fingers for counting revs and one you place above the fingers to watch the roll into the pins.

There's also two other axis you can place one on, (Axis #2-#3) as seen here.

http://s5.postimg.org/nax6eshc3/VFlare.jpg

You can also have a permanent tracer placed on your PAP, just drill a small hole there and plug with white.

Colored finger inserts are good also.

Don't forget you can also video your session's for later review.

[J Anderson]

Every time I bowl I intend to work on trying to study the ball as it travels down lane but I always forget. I need something to help me focus on watching the ball and something to help me see the skid, hook and roll phazes and where the ball is exiting the pin deck. Anyone have any ideas on helping me with that?

"Every time I bowl I intend to work on trying to study the ball as it travels down lane but I always forget."
Me too! My thought is to practice observing other bowlers' balls as they go down the lane.

[djp1080]

Here's something that worked for me as I was attempting to improve my accuracy and that was to be balanced at the foul line following the release (i.e., post the shot). Until I went for lessons I had a terrible habit of falling off to the right after most every shot from as far back in time as I can remember. Once I got in the habit of getting my non-slide leg behind me and my non-bowling arm moving to help balance me, I realized I could now begin to watch my ball go down the lane. When I get a new ball drilled up, I tend to use yellow, orange or white grips in finger tip balls which are a bit easier to see on dark coverstocks (my favorite). Posting the shot was key for me... Hope this helps...

[LOUVIT]

try to video your shot and then you can watch it to determine what to look at.. I need to count my revs somehow..lol

[Hammer]

Every time I bowl I intend to work on trying to study the ball as it travels down lane but I always forget. I need something to help me focus on watching the ball and something to help me see the skid, hook and roll phazes and where the ball is exiting the pin deck. Anyone have any ideas on helping me with that?

I can relate to that. I know that I want to watch my ball go down the lane to see the ball go through it's three cycles. What happens is I see the ball doing it's thing when it hits the pins but I forget to see where or how it went off the pin deck. The other thing is after I throw my ball I want to look down at my slide foot to see how close it ended up to the foul line. Instead of doing that I stand up and walk back off the approach and say to myself hell, I forgot to look at my slide foot. I think well I will do it on the next shot. Yeah right! It doesn't happen again. Oh well, heck with it. DOH!

[LOUVIT]

take today for instance, in practice I threw a 4 bagger with my storm phaze, started the league in the pocket 7-10, I said ok I was in the pocket. then I lost it all with the phaze. I wasn't feeling well at all almost didn't even show up. We were giving away 156 pins to the other team. First game I shot 140.Lost by 8 pins. I was not happy (157 average) I felt I lost that game. (even though no one bowled their average )Second game we were down 50 in the 8th I threw a 5 bagger with my track ball and won by 10. I didn't bowl the 3rd game. I just found out we took 6 of 8...

[bowl1820]

take today for instance, in practice I threw a 4 bagger with my storm phaze, started the league in the pocket 7-10, I said ok I was in the pocket. then I lost it all with the phaze. I wasn't feeling well at all almost didn't even show up. We were giving away 156 pins to the other team. First game I shot 140.Lost by 8 pins. I was not happy (157 average) I felt I lost that game. (even though no one bowled their average )Second game we were down 50 in the 8th I threw a 5 bagger with my track ball and won by 10. I didn't bowl the 3rd game. I just found out we took 6 of 8...


Okay, take today for a instance of what? how does that relate to the topic of watching on lane ball motion?

[Tampabaybob]

Okay, take today for a instance of what? how does that relate to the topic of watching on lane ball motion?

Funny, I was thinking the same thing !

Answering the original post:
As DJP stated posting your shot at the line is paramount to being steady enough to watch the ball. I try to have my students stay in the posted position until they see the ball drop off of the pin deck. I am assuming that you are also watching, and hitting, your target, at the arrows or wherever. The reaction you describe I call "anticipating your shot". Most bowlers are more interested in seeing the result of the shot so they immediately look up. Anytime you need to change a part of your game, of course it's going to probably feel un-natural. So what you need to try is to force yourself and actually over exaggerate whatever it is you're trying to accomplish.

Anything new you do is going to take time. Tell yourself on the approach, before you take your first step, "WATCH THE BALL". Maybe that will help. Say it for several games until it becomes automatic.