My progress

[boatman37]

Started this thread cause realized I hijacked another thread. Synopsis here is that I practiced 7 games today and the last 2 changed my stance to start with the ball up near my chest instead of by my hip. I have been struggling to hit my mark consistently and have been pulling my shots. Today when I moved the ball higher on my start I was much more consistent with hitting my mark but my speed was erratic. My theory is that with my ball starting low I had less momentum and was muscling the ball?

Here is the post I copied from the other hijacked thread......

Well I was thinking about it and well.....now that I'm 49 and not 29, I probably need to muscle it more to get the same speed I had back then. I know I went with the lower ball placement to slow my speed about 20 years ago. Now my timing feels weird and I noticed when I do pull the ball my speed is higher. Like clockwork. My normal speed is about 16.7. Every time I pull the ball my speed is over 17.2. Today with the ball higher I was just letting the ball drop and let momentum takes its course. I may have still been muscling it a little which may be why my speed varied so much.

Another thing I was paying attention to...Somebody posted a video here the other day and in that video they talked about timing and how most pros have their arm parallel with the floor when their slide foot hits the floor. Hard to tell being by myself and no way to record a side view but seemed like I was pretty close to that. Before I don't think my arm ever came up high enough to be parallel. Actually just looked at my video from before and it wasn't getting that high (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6iG8ZPK8g8k). Who knows, it might not have been today either but felt like it. All I know is it felt more natural with the ball up near my chest.

Our team is in 4th place in our division (we have 51 wins with 2 teams ahead of us with 52 wins. First place has 64 wins so won't catch them). With me having the lowest average on the team and bowling about 30 pins lower than I think I am capable of I feel I can have the biggest impact on winning games the rest of the season so I need to get my head out of my butt and figure this out.

Open to suggestions anyone!!! lol

Here is a link to our league standings if anyone is interested. We are Sims Bar (I am Danny). http://simslanes.com/Portals/0/Leagu...=1521231621410




Above Link broke, try this one:
Beaver Falls City League
http://simslanes.com/Portals/0/Leagu...-14-103628-300

[boatman37]

Well after 7 games yesterday surprisingly I'm not sore today. So either my body is getting used to it or I', doing something righter...errr....more right

Got more 'generic' numbers from my ball. I know these aren't as close as a pro could measure but what I came up with for now. I will definitely be getting a pro to get a better assessment but just curious to see what they were and what others might think about them.

PAP is about 6" from the pin

Track is about 13.5" (0* axis tilt) but probably not real accurate as the track was hard to read

PAP to grip CL is about 5 1/4" and about 1/2" up

Grip CL to track is about 2 1/2"

Pin to track is about 1 3/4" (pin is above middle finger, not ring finger)

Track is about 1/2" away from the thumbhole

This is the new Black Rhino Gold that I got for spares and mainly 7 pins (lefty here). Happy with how it rolls. Probably should have wiped it down and threw one down the center to get a better track but wasn't planning on checking all this. I did have a piece of tape where I thought my PAP was and it was very close. Almost perfectly placed so that should be pretty accurate. Can't see any track on my Black Widow Gold so can't measure it.

Would the PAP be the same for different balls with different layouts (same bowler)?

[boatman37]

Here is the BWG:


And the Rhino Black Pearl:

[Amyers]

Yes the PAP should remain the same. Odds are good with you changing the ball height in the setup your adding some discrepancy to your timing which is causing the speed difference but .5 mph isn't crazy difference either. If you change the swing length then your going to have to change the foot speed to accommodate. Some players can do that just by feel for others especially newer bowlers it's harder to do. Make sure your setting up with the ball the same distance from your hip horizontally with both setups. I see a lot of bowlers that tend to move their setup higher tend to move the ball inside the shoulder instead of keeping in inline or outside when they had the ball lower.

[boatman37]

Yes the PAP should remain the same. Odds are good with you changing the ball height in the setup your adding some discrepancy to your timing which is causing the speed difference but .5 mph isn't crazy difference either. If you change the swing length then your going to have to change the foot speed to accommodate. Some players can do that just by feel for others especially newer bowlers it's harder to do. Make sure your setting up with the ball the same distance from your hip horizontally with both setups. I see a lot of bowlers that tend to move their setup higher tend to move the ball inside the shoulder instead of keeping in inline or outside when they had the ball lower.

Yeah I'm pretty sure my lateral placement is the same. I used to hold the ball against the front of my hip so it wasn't perfectly inline then either. I fell more 'in time' with the ball higher so hoping that fixes some issues. Definitely feel more balanced on my release and don't seem to be hopping like I was before. Should see tomorrow night. Worked good Friday but I also did much better last time I went out on a Friday then sucked again on Tuesday night...lol

Thanks!

[boatman37]

Had league tonight. Much more consistent hitting my mark but just couldn't hit the pocket just right. Kept hitting slightly light or slightly high. Did a better job of picking up spares though. About 1/2 way through the 2nd game I started opening my shoulders up a little on my backswing by rotating my upper body slightly away from the pins. Felt much better and bowled better. Not sure if I used to do this 15 years ago or not. Back then bowling was 2nd nature to me because I had done it so long I didn't have to think about it. In roughly 15 frames of this I had 8 strikes, 5 spares, and 2 opens (1 split). Had a 218 that last game. Think I definitely hit on something here. Still struggling with my 7's and surprisingly 10's too.

[boatman37]

also, had a guy next to us last night (223 average). Towards the end I was talking to him about his new ball (Storm Intense). He said he was getting mad because he only needed a 283 for an 800 and wasn't looking like he would make it (he didn't). But man, I would have been thrilled with a 700 (he had 269, 244, 181). That Intense had tons of backend. Not sure but I thought I saw him change balls that last game. I have his old Storm Sync that I got from him my 2nd week back.

Next week is our last week of regular season. We moved up to 2nd. We were in about 6th or 7th when I started. I'd like to take the credit but the whole team has been killing it. My high handicap doesn't hurt as I usually beat my average (187 average last night, overall it's 173 but rising). But when teammates are rolling out 240's and 260's consistently it's nice!