1st Annual Billy Hardwick Memorial ZDawg vs. Aslan Southern California Championship

[Aslan]

and you talked long and passionate about wanting to post up videos of your tournament. No one told you to do this or even encouraged you.

This will be fun to watch.

Can we get a live webcast?

Please post a video on youtube. I will watch it. 5 minutes max. Use skillful editing !

I need to know the suspense is killing me did I just lose my entire life savings or did I triple it.

Does it count as a long post if I'm just reposting other posts?? I don't know what the cliff note rules are.

[tr33frog]

I'm watching the first video now. Looks like everyone was struggling a bit. Was there any warm up before the game?

Mike might have some serious hitches in his throw, but I like his arm swing and release a lot. Just looks like he couldn't figure out what to do with those lanes.

Zdawg doesn't have much arm swing at all, which I know he admitted to (and I believe I've bowled that way as well), but the ball appears to get some decent rotation for a nice down and in ball. Just seemed he was having trouble keeping the hook under control. Probably could have used some more speed, but no biggie.

I'm still not comfortable with Aslan's interpretation of DYDS, at least at lineup. Also don't understand why his arm swings off to the right after a throw instead of through the shot. But he has nice balance after the release and is looking a bit better after each video.

I have to imagine that there was a bit of pressure knowing you were going to be recorded for all of us to see, and having bragging rights here. Great job having a gathering of members, it is harder to get people together in the real world than some people imagine.

[Aslan]

I'm still not comfortable with Aslan's interpretation of DYDS, at least at lineup.

Ball to the left side of the body. Head to the right. Ball crosses the body and then goes back.

Now....

1) As weird as it was at first, having the ball go across the body DOES feel more natural biomechanically. I'm just as surprised as the next guy about that.
2) I still am struggling with the dropping of the shoulder at the foul line. Pictures that are posted on Joe's site show guys with their balance arms literally pointed straight up towards the ceiling. When I try to do that, especially at my height, I lose my balance...badly. When practicing it last Friday during leagues, I'd have to bring my bowling hand back down and touch the floor to keep from falling over.

Also don't understand why his arm swings off to the right after a throw instead of through the shot. But he has nice balance after the release and is looking a bit better after each video.

It's not "that" uncommon. WRW, PDW, and Norm Duke all release with their hands going out to the side (sometimes, depends on the video). But the REAL reason I do it...is I'm trying not to "top" the ball. I have a tendency if I try to snap that arm up straight...I end up bringing it over the top of the ball.

I actually didn't notice until I started putting the videos on Youtube....my hand position after release is not "ideal" by any means.

But thanks for the positive comments. Mike's form is definitely the most polished...but he does have a weird hitch in his giddyup when he approaches as well. And my weird leg step/skipping thing is aggravating. I thought it was getting better but it's not. I actually surprise myself that my slide foot can get back to the correct board with all the crazy movements it's doing during the approach. And watching zdawg I noticed the low speed, but also that he takes 5 steps in a much, much shorter distance than I take my 5 steps. I might need to adopt that style to keep from 'running" in my approach.

[MICHAEL]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4-RC6zgAZPk

We were expecting something,. BIGGER and BETTER then this!!!!!!! LOL Jason did a sweet job on the editing!!

[zdawg]

Zdawg doesn't have much arm swing at all, which I know he admitted to (and I believe I've bowled that way as well), but the ball appears to get some decent rotation for a nice down and in ball. Just seemed he was having trouble keeping the hook under control. Probably could have used some more speed, but no biggie.

I won't go into it too much in this thread since I have one of my own on this very subject, but yeah finally in Game 3 moved WAAAY further inside than I ever have before (after observing Mike) and was able to find the pocket a little bit - no coincidence my scored jumped up over 50 pins that game. But lack of speed is killing my game, but I think I'm starting to get a handle on fixing that.

[tr33frog]

I won't go into it too much in this thread since I have one of my own on this very subject, but yeah finally in Game 3 moved WAAAY further inside than I ever have before (after observing Mike) and was able to find the pocket a little bit - no coincidence my scored jumped up over 50 pins that game. But lack of speed is killing my game, but I think I'm starting to get a handle on fixing that.

I think speed is one of the hardest things to adjust, it is generally my last resort. Luckily I have a pretty wide range as far as position and mark.

[tr33frog]

Ball to the left side of the body. Head to the right. Ball crosses the body and then goes back.

Now....

1) As weird as it was at first, having the ball go across the body DOES feel more natural biomechanically. I'm just as surprised as the next guy about that.
2) I still am struggling with the dropping of the shoulder at the foul line. Pictures that are posted on Joe's site show guys with their balance arms literally pointed straight up towards the ceiling. When I try to do that, especially at my height, I lose my balance...badly. When practicing it last Friday during leagues, I'd have to bring my bowling hand back down and touch the floor to keep from falling over.


It's not "that" uncommon. WRW, PDW, and Norm Duke all release with their hands going out to the side (sometimes, depends on the video). But the REAL reason I do it...is I'm trying not to "top" the ball. I have a tendency if I try to snap that arm up straight...I end up bringing it over the top of the ball.

I actually didn't notice until I started putting the videos on Youtube....my hand position after release is not "ideal" by any means.

But thanks for the positive comments. Mike's form is definitely the most polished...but he does have a weird hitch in his giddyup when he approaches as well. And my weird leg step/skipping thing is aggravating. I thought it was getting better but it's not. I actually surprise myself that my slide foot can get back to the correct board with all the crazy movements it's doing during the approach. And watching zdawg I noticed the low speed, but also that he takes 5 steps in a much, much shorter distance than I take my 5 steps. I might need to adopt that style to keep from 'running" in my approach.

I think the body is supposed to be turned more to the right so you are not going as far around your body. But I haven't studied it a ton.

You did look more behind the ball, just thought the am going that way was interesting.

Congrats on the win.

[Mike White]

I'm watching the first video now. Looks like everyone was struggling a bit. Was there any warm up before the game?

Mike might have some serious hitches in his throw, but I like his arm swing and release a lot. Just looks like he couldn't figure out what to do with those lanes.

Zdawg doesn't have much arm swing at all, which I know he admitted to (and I believe I've bowled that way as well), but the ball appears to get some decent rotation for a nice down and in ball. Just seemed he was having trouble keeping the hook under control. Probably could have used some more speed, but no biggie.

I'm still not comfortable with Aslan's interpretation of DYDS, at least at lineup. Also don't understand why his arm swings off to the right after a throw instead of through the shot. But he has nice balance after the release and is looking a bit better after each video.

I have to imagine that there was a bit of pressure knowing you were going to be recorded for all of us to see, and having bragging rights here. Great job having a gathering of members, it is harder to get people together in the real world than some people imagine.

I started playing out where there was too much oil both left and right of my shot.

When I moved a little in near ZDawg, there was too much oil on the right, and too little on the left.

I pulled a couple of shots so it wasn't clear to me right away that the center was that dry.

After the 6th fame, I moved way in so I would have dry area both left and right.

All I wanted to do was hit the headpin, which I did, but on the wrong side… That resulted in the 7-9 split, so I had to try for the pocket side.

It seemed that 15 board and out was the out of bounds.

I made the 1st 3-9, but the second time, the ball was still skidding to the right as it passed the pins.

On a normal THS condition, you have to work damn hard to get a modern ball to even stay right of the 3 pin.

[Aslan]

Okay Folks!! Sorry for the delay!!

All 3 game videos are not posted!! The 3rd one took some doing because for some reason my editing software wanted to treat it as HD 1080p which made it so it was taking so much disk space, that the software crashed. It appears I've used nearly all of my free disk space…so I guess I gotta transfer some files to flash drives and external hard drives one of these days. Finally I just re-did it and the 2nd time around it finalized it at the 720p level.

Game 1:http://youtu.be/KtN2oY-cqUc

Game 2:http://youtu.be/84k7libyuKc

Game 3: http://youtu.be/IgEmDv7iA0M

Post Tournament Discussion/Recap:http://youtu.be/O9QETh2vumk

Enjoy!

[Blacksox1]

Congrats to Aslan. Liked the videos ! Mudpuppy's video was good and to the point ! The video with Iceman was good with the interview style along with a few bowling shots at the close ! Well done bowlers !