sticking at the foul line

[tracy]

i carry a 182-185 average in both leagues. it seems lately when i think i should be bowling better , i start sticking at the foul line and then my game goes down from there as you can imagine and then i start to go back and fourth from 5 steps to 4 steps ,moving right and left,forward and backwards on the approach to try and figure it out. by that time i am so messed up. what should i do to come back?

[bowl1820]

If your sticking at the foul line and if its do to the approach, just have them come out and clean the approach just before the foul line. Might be some residue from the lane machine.

Now if you mean your sticking at the end of your slide on any lane. Your body is probability leaning back some and is transferring your weight on to your heel when you go into your slide. This will cause your shoe to brake your slide.

[JAnderson]

My suspicions are the same Bowl1820: you're likely doing something that is causing you to drop your heel. You state that it seems to happen at the same time you begin struggling to score. The two events are likely related. The good news is that you have a no-guess, no-doubt indication that you've fallen into a non-productive habit. This is much better than something that creeps up on you without notice.

Fixing it is a challenge. It is difficult for any of us to help you conclusively over the Internet. A couple of videos would be a big help: a video of you bowling when you're not "sticking" and one when you are would be the only way for us to not guess at the cause and suggest a fix.

Even so, are you generally missing inside (left for righties/right for lefties) of target when you start to stick or outside of target? If you're missing inside, you're likely shifting your weight back at the foul line. If you're missing outside, you're likely shifting your weight forward and bending at the waist too much at the foul line. Both of these can cause you to drop your heel.

Through your slide, you should should be leaning slightly forward with your toe-knee-chin close to being in a straight line.

Here are some examples.

http://www.pugnest.com/bowling/line1.jpg
No Knee bend (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hDAOP5U-VOo) Here you can see a bowler that bends more at the waist than the knee. Freeze-frame at 14 seconds in. I've drawn two lines over the frame, one line in green from toe to knee. You can see that the chin is nowhere close to being inline. Also, notice that this bowler's heel is flat on the floor. He's dropped the heel. Because of this bowler's waist bend and heel kick, he likely misses right of target often.

http://www.pugnest.com/bowling/line2.jpg
Good knee bend (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TFw7c96jEHw). Here, the bowler shows very good position at the line and a smooth slide. Good balance, slightly forward. You can see the proper toe-knee-chin relationship. Captured at the end of the video. Note that the weight is not completely on the bowler's heel.

http://www.pugnest.com/bowling/line3.jpg
Sitting back (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e45ZG6ylkBc). While it is generally good to be in a sitting position (as the previous bowler) you don't want to "rear back" like this bowler. Freeze frame 20 seconds in. You can see how this bowlers weight is pulled back from the foul line with all the weight on her (non) sliding heel. It also causes a late release point and hitting up on the ball. See in the capture. This bowler likely often misses inside of target.

Tracy - this last example is what I suspect is happening. Can you have a teammate or friend watch you and tell you what they see?

Note: I don't know any of these bowlers. They just happened to be the first couple of examples to illustrate my points I could find via YouTube.

[tracy]

thanks for the help. it seems looking at the photos, that i was not getting my knee bend (as in the 2nd photo) and was coming back on my heel. since then, i have started to get back on track as someone on the league caught me leaning back and clued me in. thanks again