Consistancy Tips?

[fortheloveofbowling]

There is nothing wrong with that average man, a lot of people would like to average 172. With that average you are probably throwing a decent amount of strikes. Get a spare ball which you can usually pay around 75.00 drilled. Go out and practice spares, find out where you need to stand to hit the 2-3-4-6-7-10 pins and remember those spots. Take an entire practice session or the majority of one to ingrain those angles in your mind. If you make just 2 extra spares in a 3 game set your average increases by 7-8 pins! Spare shooting at any level is very important but at your current level you can see a great increase in your average by really focusing on that in your practice sessions. Good luck man!

[Lloyd6770]

Hello again.

Fortheloveofbowling - I am very happy with a 172 average considering I have no actual training, bowl once a week, no spare ball, etc. The consistency is what I am unhappy with.

So, my bowling this past weekend went as expected. Game 1 close to average, game 2 above average, and game 3 was terrible. However, I did keep track of my strikes/spares/etc this time.



What I noticed is kind of what I said earlier, game 3, I start having problems getting my ball out to the 2nd arrow. I end up throwing it closer to mid lane, then it obviously hooks too far left. One thing to note was this week, one lane was probably average, but one lane was very slick. The slick lane, I ended up having to adjust so that when I released the ball, my left foot was on the center dot.

[fortheloveofbowling]

Keep working on it. One of the hardest things to learn is adjusting your line and getting out of a comfort zone in order to find a line that works for you. Good luck!

[Emery]

When practicing spares, do you just throw at a full rack? Or is there a way to adjust the rack so only 10 pins or 6 pins or whatever spare you want to practice comes out?

[Hampe]

That depends on the software/pin setter machines at the center you're playing at. Some are capable of setting up certain pins. The 2 centers I practice at are not capable of that, so when I practice spares I just shoot at a full rack.

[Lloyd6770]

Emery/Hampe - I honestly have no idea if that is possible or not. I didn't even know that was a thing. I will check in to that when I'm there this weekend.

I guess to answer your question Emery, I throw at whatever spare I leave if my first ball doesn't strike.

[Amyers]

Hello again.

Fortheloveofbowling - I am very happy with a 172 average considering I have no actual training, bowl once a week, no spare ball, etc. The consistency is what I am unhappy with.

So, my bowling this past weekend went as expected. Game 1 close to average, game 2 above average, and game 3 was terrible. However, I did keep track of my strikes/spares/etc this time.



What I noticed is kind of what I said earlier, game 3, I start having problems getting my ball out to the 2nd arrow. I end up throwing it closer to mid lane, then it obviously hooks too far left. One thing to note was this week, one lane was probably average, but one lane was very slick. The slick lane, I ended up having to adjust so that when I released the ball, my left foot was on the center dot.

Its hard to say exactly what is causing that problem with you not getting the ball far enough right in that third game. You may unknowingly be closing your shoulders and hips more or it could be that you're depleting the oil out of your line and the ball is starting earlier. I would suggest moving your feet a little to the left and your target a little to the left open your shoulders and hips up and give it a little extra room to the right when that starts to happen and see if it helps.

[Lloyd6770]

Things keep getting more out of hand. Here is my scores from this past Saturday.



As you can plainly see, splits were my biggest pain this weekend. Seven total splits in 3 games, only picking up 1... Ouch... I only had 4 open frames in the 3 games combined that were not splits.

For the 3rd game, I tried shifting to the left just a tad bit, but I still seemed to throw almost straight instead of out to the right. So I figured if I'm going to throw straight, I may as well shift to the right so my ball will end up more where I want it to. The problem with that is, there is too much rotation on the ball. If I were able to drop it on the farthest right board with my rotation throwing the ball straight, I think the ball would end up in the left gutter before it reached the pins. I almost feel like I need to get a less reactive ball for game 3, or something along those lines. But I also feel that might just be a Band-Aid for the real problem.

Full disclosure - I have been fighting a hamstring issue along with my ring finger being very sore for the last 6-7 weeks or so. With my hamstring, I pulled it bowling about 7 weeks ago. Some nights it doesn't bug me, and I barely notice it, some nights, it is painful to throw, as it gets tight in my landing leg. With my ring finger knuckle, I'm not sure what happened. I think part of the problem is I pop my knuckles, and I might have injured it bowling, and then continually popped the knuckle, has caused some swelling.

[Amyers]

Moving to the right is not going to be the answer for you and a less reactive balls not going to really help either as the slingshot is not a particulary aggressive ball anyway.

What you need to work on is moving left and throwing the ball more to the right. I'm guessing you like to play more up the boards stand right throw left but as the night goes on your either burning up your line or continuing to close your hips and shoulder. This is something that takes practice and getting used to I'm still figuring it out some myself.

Try standing on 25 throwing across 15 and get the ball out to at least 10 or 5 at the point where it would start to hook (break point). Start off this way for a couple of games in practice. Even if the ball doesn't make it back to the pocket that's okay it will get you used to throwing with that motion so you know how to do it when these third games come around.

I also line up with my right foot a little more behind my left foot and make sure I aim my shoulder at my target and reach out for the target during release. This takes some getting used too I still find myself closing up when playing these lines sometimes as it's just different

[classygranny]

It sounds like you may be experiencing something I have trouble with. As the bowling goes on, sometimes I tend to get my feet going a little to fast (for what reason, I have no idea). When this happens, I do miss my mark and the release is not clean. The more "tired" I get, the more I have to watch the speed of my feet.