Arm swing and the release?

[extraacount]

Hey everybody, for the past few weeks, I've been testing a lot of different arm lengths and the release. Personally i understand the arm swing and how high i should hold my ball but the thing is, i dont have a consistant release + accuracy. Some games i do, some games i dont.

Lets talk about the arm swing first. Sometimes when i throw the ball, my arm and hand just goes forward past the foul line and i tend to lean forward. When ever i throw i tend to look @ the dots by the foul line where i release. For example: i look @ the arrows and when i get near the foul line, i look down. After my release i look up. Is this how its suppose to be done? Honestly my coach never taught me this. I've just done it my way.

Second of all, the release. I honestly dont know how to release the ball to make it spin anymore. Hehe well i do but its not consistant or sometimes it spins sometimes it doesnt. My coach taught me to throw it like your shaking someones hand. Hand shake up. But when do i do this? For example, when i drop the ball into backswing should my hand be like a handshake? or after the backswing, when the ball starts to drop then i turn my hand? Or when the ball almost drops to your ankles, then you handshake up? For me, i usually just drop it and let it swing till it gets to my ankles then i handshake up but sometimes i throw the ball then my hand turns. What do you guys do? (haha a lot of bad grammar but bear with me)

[Graaille]

Article 1: The Armswing.
According to John Jowdy, there are 3 types of armswings - relaxed/free, free up/muscled down, and completely muscled. A free armswing means that the arm is completely relaxed at the shoulder and gravity is doing 99% of the work - and since gravity is a constant - your swing is more consistant (think Norm Duke). A free up/muscled downswing (or it's inverse) is where you allow gravity to take the ball back, but you muscle it thru the downswing -- the inverse being you muscle it to the top of the swing and then let gravity take control thru the downswing (think PDW). The final armswing is where you control all elements of the armswing using muscles and not necessarily gravity. (Think Doug Kent or Ryan Schafer)
Appending to Article 1: Your question -- you actually asked about targeting more than the armswing. The general rule of thumb is "if you're not looking at it, you probably won't hit it." I know that if I don't laserbeam my eyes into my target thru the entire swing and followthru, I'll put that ball anywhere between 1-10 boards of where I wanted it to go. If you're pulling a Wes Mallott and following a target line back to the dots during the swing - that's fine as long as it's consistant and it works for you. Just realize that his technique is more an exception than the standard.

Article 2: The Release.
Most coaches talk about the release being where the hand is behind the ball up until the point where the thumb leaves the thumbhole, and the full weight of the ball shifts to the fingertips. This usually happens (ideally) as the ball passes the ankle. Once the thumb is out the fingers sort of move in a J pattern (for righties) or the turning a doorknob analogy. This coupled with the unloading of the wrist at the same time initially seems to be as natural as juggling 3 live porcupines one handed (in my opinion), but I've been working on it since The Gathering where I got some tips from Magic Carpet (Ron) about the release. Another good source of info is our own JAnderson, who I'm hoping will chime in here and correct any obvious holes in my response.

[extraacount]

Ok heres a response to your post Graaille.

Article 1: For the armswings i usually go with the relaxed/free armswing. And yes i know i talked more about targetting then armswings. Thanks for your reply.

Article 2: Ok so in short, the release is thumb out first, then your fingers give all the rotation and in the end your hand will appear as a handshake?

[Graaille]

Basically. The fingers + the unloading of the wrist provide the rotation/revs, the position of the hand relative to the ball provides the direction of the rotation due to the finger position thruout the release. Ultimately if you throw any type of hook ball, you should end up with either your hand in a handshake position (Norm Duke), or if not a full handshake, then more palm up than palm down.

If the hand position thru release is messing with you, you can think of a clock face sitting on the top of the ball -- it may help.

Straight up the back means no hook whatsoever - the fingers start at 6 o'clock and end at 12 o'clock,
30 degree release is where the hand rotates so that the fingers start at 5 o'clock and end at 11 o'clock (stroker/tweener release),
60 degree release is where the hand rotates so that the fingers start at the 4 o'clock position and finish at the 10 o'clock position (cranker release).

To put it into perspective, Norm Duke and WRW's A game has a release somewhere between 15- 30 degrees.
Big Wes and Chris Barnes generally play between 30- 45 degrees.
Robert Smith and Mike Wolfe generally play between 45 - 60 degrees.
and finally PDW generally plays between 60 - 90 degrees

Note this is following the path of the fingertips, not the thumb. Position of the thumb during the release will dictate the axis tilt -- which is something beyond what you're currently asking.

I hope this is somewhat clear - trying to do 3 things at once generally means I don't come off as clear as I'd like....

[JerseyJim]

Here's a link to an article by Joe Slowinski on changing your axis rotation. There's a lot of good info on this site as well. He promotes a 3 point targeting system that I've been playing around with. It works.

http://bowlingknowledge.info/images/stories/slowinski_4_point_btm_nov_2006.pdf

[extraacount]

Thanks for the responses guys and i think i start to understand how. Ill be practising this either next week or when i get my new ball and practising it @ the new centre in 3 weeks D:

[JAnderson]

This usually happens (ideally) as the ball passes the ankle. Once the thumb is out the fingers sort of move in a J pattern (for righties) or the turning a doorknob analogy. This coupled with the unloading of the wrist at the same time initially seems to be as natural as juggling 3 live porcupines one handed (in my opinion), but I've been working on it since The Gathering where I got some tips from Magic Carpet (Ron) about the release. Another good source of info is our own JAnderson, who I'm hoping will chime in here and correct any obvious holes in my response.

Thanks for the vote of confidence. No big holes there, no. As JerseyJim hints, the position of the hand at and through the release will depend on what you're trying to do with ball rotation (and sometimes also tilt). Please don't take this as an insult, but while still learning the proper technique, I think it is best to get the correct mechanics of the weight transfer (onto the fingers), timing (at bottom of swing), and starting position (behind and under) before playing with rotation and tilt.

...ssssoooOOOoooo......

Extraacount, if you've been working on a follow through position of "shaking hands" with someone facing you from the other side of the foul line, I'd suggest sticking with that as it is familiar.

From there, I'll borrow some advice from a most excellent (and sadly, departed) coach: Rolf Gauger. One of the best pieces of advice he ever gave me was to not think about the release. It happens too fast. It is better to think about the hand position in the downswing (just before the release) and the hand position in the follow through (just after the release). If you get those two pieces correct, everything else (ie. the release) in between will take care of itself.

First, think of your hand position as the ball descends through your downswing to the bottom of the swing. To stay perfectly "behind" the ball, your thumb should be pointing towards the pins in the downswing. Rotating the hand from this position before the thumb exits will decrease revs on the ball. If the thumb is pointing straight at the pins, we usually refer to this as the thumb being at 12 O'clock - if you were holding a ball down on a clock, the thumb point be pointing at 12.

Second, think of your hand position in the follow-through. If you are "shaking hands", we usually think about the fingers on the side and the thumb straight up, but that's not how we put our fingers in the bowling ball! With the fingers on the side (at 3 o'clock for righties, 9 for lefites) if the fingers were in the ball the thumb would be a 9 o'clock (for righties, 3 for lefites)

So if you get those two pieces correct, the thumb will move from 12 to 9 (or 12 to 3 for lefites). That certainly doesn't seem like much, and it isn't. How "tightly" the ball turns, how fast it revs, really depends not so much on how far you turn the hand, but how quickly. That's why we want to wait until the thumb exits the ball before starting rotation. Keep that thumb at 12 as long as possible.

Also important is staying under the ball, otherwise all the turning from the top of the ball will simply make it spin like a top! Spin doesn't create much hook - rotation (like a car's front tire) does.

[extraacount]

First, think of your hand position as the ball descends through your downswing to the bottom of the swing. To stay perfectly "behind" the ball, your thumb should be pointing towards the pins in the downswing. Rotating the hand from this position before the thumb exits will decrease revs on the ball. If the thumb is pointing straight at the pins, we usually refer to this as the thumb being at 12 O'clock - if you were holding a ball down on a clock, the thumb point be pointing at 12.

Second, think of your hand position in the follow-through. If you are "shaking hands", we usually think about the fingers on the side and the thumb straight up, but that's not how we put our fingers in the bowling ball! With the fingers on the side (at 3 o'clock for righties, 9 for lefites) if the fingers were in the ball the thumb would be a 9 o'clock (for righties, 3 for lefites)

The first part, about the hand behind the ball, i understand but the last part is a bit confusing. What I'm trying to say is i understand what you mean in both paragraphs that you wrote. Visualizing the beginning and end but i just dont understand the "wrist" part. From what i know/read is that your thumb comes out first and then your fingers "lift" or "turn" the ball giving it rotation. But do you have to turn your wrist a lot?

[JAnderson]

No, you don't turn the wrist much. It's better to focus on hand position than think about what the wrist is doing.

[extraacount]

Ok thanks