10 Pin Shooting

[GeoLes]

Working with my coach. He has me stand far left and walk the 39th board. Open my stance towards my target marker and slide the ball flat through the third arrow. My release flat, wrist broken with thumb leading, other fingers trailing. (I have a tendency to add a little wrist rotation, so I focus on keeping the pinky forward-forcing me to not rotate the wrist.) This works well with my reactive ball. It turns just inside the first arrow and straight along the right gutter to the pin (of course, I am a rightie).

I have also had some sucess with the alternate approach of walking right at the pin and throwing it straight and flat. (same broken wirst, thumb leading release). The key for me is to imaging railroad tracks. I walk my feet straight along the left track that goes through the 4th arror, throwing the ball along the right track going through the 3rd arrow.

Now if I can just remember to simply pushoff at my mark, swing away from, then back down and forward through my target, instead of muscling the ball at the pin from a neutral arm postion, I would be consistent. (bad habits sneak in from everywhere)

[dougb]

Stand on 30th board, aim at 14 at the arrows, ( I tend to drift right with my feet ), flat release so the ball goes end over end.

Me too, and with a weak reactive. At least I start there and move left if the ball is hooking at the ends.

It's important for me to break my wrist, put my index finger directly against my middle finger and spread my pinky wide to really make sure the ball goes straight.

I also move farther back on the approach (about 6 inches) to get more speed and make sure I look at my target far down lane to get length.

Hope this helps.