Going to the ITRC for a lesson on Friday

[vdubtx]

I will be headed to the USBC International Training and Research Center on Friday this week for a lesson. Have been wanting to do a lesson with them for quite awhile.

What I hope to do with this lesson is to find out, for my game, what is possibly holding me back from performing at a higher level and more consistently. Also, one area I would like to improve on is on Sport Shots and how to play those patterns.

From what I understand, I will go through some shot repeatability exercises first of all using their CATS data. They will be taking video of me from all sides while I do this. Then, they will breakdown my form and shot making to see what liabilities they can see in my game. Finally, they will work with me on the lanes to correct what was identified.

They tell me I will leave with a personalized practice plan and also videos and data gathered during the lesson.

[JasonNJ]

That sounds awesome. I did something similar 2 years ago at Kegel but I'm not the bowler you are but it did help me and I think before my lesson I don't think I ever would have hit a 200 average and now I'm pretty close and my ball roll is so much better.

[ALazySavage]

That is great, happy for you and jealous of you. Have you happened to watch any of the youtube series called "The Core" (at least I believe that is the name)? In all honesty it is essentially about an hour long sales pitch for the ITRC, but it may give you some additional information to what you should expect to see there.

[vdubtx]

That is great, happy for you and jealous of you. Have you happened to watch any of the youtube series called "The Core" (at least I believe that is the name)? In all honesty it is essentially about an hour long sales pitch for the ITRC, but it may give you some additional information to what you should expect to see there.

Thanks, yeah, I have seen those videos from USBC. In the Core Challenge 2, Cindy is actually our league secretary on my Tuesday league. She is a very good bowler.

Will give an update after the lesson tomorrow.

[mx1alex]

I'm jealous! I would love to do something like that!

[asimovian]

Will give an update after the lesson tomorrow.

You are keeping us in suspense!

[vdubtx]

You are keeping us in suspense!

LOL!!

Sorry for delay in reporting back. Lesson went really well I think. Started out by warming up, then an interview with USBC Gold coach Lou Marquez. We spoke about what my expectations were of the lesson and what I wanted to accomplish.

After the interview he had me do a 10 shot analysis using Specto data. The 10 shots are all done on a long sport pattern. I felt pretty good through 7 shots, then on shot 8 I knew I tugged it, 9 and 10 I got a little outside. The 10 shots showed that I am very accurate in the front part of the lane, it was further down lane where my accuracy was part of the issue. The data showed that for the first 30 feet of lane I was 0.5-1.0 boards variance between my shots. Then when getting to break point and line to the pins is where I was between 2-4 boards variance. The tug I think really skewed the data, but it is what it is.

Speed control was very good and Lou said is in line with Pro's at less than 0.5mph. Rev control was also very good and less than 40rpm per shot. My revs are 400, not the 375 that I had previously listed in my signature.

After the main review of data and seeing that the down lane accuracy was where we needed to focus on, we reviewed some video to see what in my approach/delivery/release may be the cause of this. Lou identified a couple things.

1) My wrist from my stance to the backswing moves and rotates a bit.
2) My head upon delivery moves down very slightly. At the elite/pro level the head should not move and is at same level throughout approach and release. That head movement is the main cause of my either tugging or getting ball outside of my target.

See this analysis of my head positioning at point of ball delivery:



We worked on the issues identified above. First was focusing to sure my wrist is locked throughout the approach. This was an easy tweak. Next, one other thing identified was to get my left or trail arm more stable. See video above and the position of my left arm when I deliver the ball. My left arm tends to come towards my body. Lou had me rotate my arm as soon as I am in my swing to have my thumb pointing down and my palm backwards. Doing this will keep me more stable and balanced and not tend to have my arm come in towards my body as easily. IN the next couple posts/videos, you can see this tweak already corrected.

[vdubtx]

Next we worked on my head movement at the point of delivery:
Here is a before video on a different lane, yellow circle is my target to keep my head within while delivering the ball:

[vdubtx]

And after a couple of shots working on keeping my core and head more level:



Really good here, you can see my head stays within yellow circle until I release the ball, and I do pop up, however, it isn't until after the ball has been delivered and this pop up can't affect it anymore. if I were to pop up while still delivering the ball, this would have a big effect.

We didn't really get into another topic I wanted to get into was getting better at Sport Shots. I think the accuracy and the tweaks that we identified, and that I will be working on, will certainly help with this on it's own.

All in all it was a great lesson I think. Some things to work on and to keep improving.

[ALazySavage]

Very nice, looks as though it was productive (still seething with jealousy over here). Have a feeling I'm going to be watching these videos a few times when I get home, thank you for sharing.