This seems odd to me....

[GoodGorilla]

My hand aches alot more than usual. This seems like evidence that pulling the balance arm up is putting more power on the hand at release. I wasn't rotating my shoulders past the desired location (either squared or pointing at breaking point), I think this is what Slowinsky was saying to do.

[Hammer]

I saw this youtube video of pros where it shows different things happening in their approach. One of them was what the balance arm does As they take the first step of a 4 step approach it is a crossover with a push out of the ball. As the ball is going into the back swing the balance arm goes from their side to the front of their body thumbdown. When the swing comes back down towards the release their balance arm goes to the side and up and back through release. The rotation of the torso doing this is supposed to put more energy into the ball at release. I have been practicing approach style lately plus dropping my ball arm shoulder and letting the ball get closer to my ankle at release. It isn't as easy as you think. On some approaches your body wants to do the wrong thing. You have to concentrate on one thing at a time.
Eventually you will be able to do it in your sleep.

[GeoLes]

I find that when I let my balance arm go, I begin gradually pitching further and further forward with my right shoulder in finishing position. The balance arm keeps my shoulders generally square. Arm out, thumb down and everything is hinged like a pendulum.

[Tampabaybob]

Today I went strict on slowinski's suggstions. I have no idea how it affected my game, but I did get a 200 and a 242 today out of 3 games. The second game my line broke down and it took me the rest of the game to find another line.

Slowinsky is one of the best coaches in the business and without exception, totally analyzes every motion a bowler will make. Sometimes his articles have driven me crazy (crazier actually) because he gets so in-depth. But following his advice, or at least trying it to see if it will fit your bowling style, will never hurt. As Bill mentioned, every bowler is unique and not every square peg will fit into that round hole. Try these different techniques, and if they help you improve, as it appears it did for you, Gorilla, then that's great. Keep up the good scoring.

Bob

[GoodGorilla]

Slowinsky is one of the best coaches in the business and without exception, totally analyzes every motion a bowler will make. Sometimes his articles have driven me crazy (crazier actually) because he gets so in-depth. But following his advice, or at least trying it to see if it will fit your bowling style, will never hurt. As Bill mentioned, every bowler is unique and not every square peg will fit into that round hole. Try these different techniques, and if they help you improve, as it appears it did for you, Gorilla, then that's great. Keep up the good scoring.

Bob

Yeah, I have kept strict on the balance arm since then and my scores have been higher. It's hard to see the difference on the ball when it is traveling down lane. Also, on my spares I tend to rotate my hand behind square, I watched some Walter ray yesterday, and it seems he does that aswell for his spare shots.

[GoodGorilla]

I am still pulling my balance arm back like slowinsky says to. However there are many times where the balance arm is not above shoulder height, sometimes it is level or below at the end. Is this wrong?

[Hammer]

When you think about it major league pitchers use this technique with the balance arm forward when throwing the ball. When you have your throwing arm going forward
and your balance arm going from out in front of you to your side you can feel that it adds extra power into the throw. So in the same way as a pitcher we should do the same thing when we are throwing a bowling ball. The balance arm going from front to the side in our swing adds power to the shot. Try throwing a ball leaving your balance arm in front of you or throwing a ball with your balance arm pointing away from you before you make your throwing motion. You can not only not get good power behind the throw but you might hurt yourself also. So it seems like common sense that your balance arm moving from in front of you with thumb down to the side of you as your swing starts to come down will add power to the shot just as that same motion works to give power to a pitchers throw during his torso rotation.

[billf]

I am still pulling my balance arm back like slowinsky says to. However there are many times where the balance arm is not above shoulder height, sometimes it is level or below at the end. Is this wrong?

Not at all. Ideally it should go lower and lower as your follow through goes higher and higher, like a see-saw.

[GoodGorilla]

Not at all. Ideally it should go lower and lower as your follow through goes higher and higher, like a see-saw.

Interesting, now that you mention it, when my back swing is high for speed it seems like my balance arm ends high, and opposite for the slower ball. Yesterday bowling I discovered this. It's just on Norm Dukes bowling dvd, when he was talking about it he was like "I want your arm up here". I watched some bowling on Youtube, and most of the balance arms were ending low, and varied.

[jbeck]

My balance arm is the key to my game. When I lap it, as you described, I get crap for carry. Were you putting it out to the side or did you put it out in front (thumb down) and then swing it to the side?
http://bowlingknowledge.info/images/...09_article.pdf

I had to learn to release the ball earlier doing this and then the movement and carry were phenomenal.

This article helped me out a good bit today! I never realized how important my balance arm was even though I use to pride myself in throwing a strike in baseball and a good lobbed spiral in football when I was a kid! I always pointed at my target with my left arm as I followed through my pitches and throws. Really good article!