Novel Concept/Idea: The Bowling ball does not matter??

[Amyers]

I wouldn't necessarily say wrong with your thinking but your cutting off some other lines that might work and probably aren't finding your miss room also if you throw a slightly shorter pattern you would be at say eight on THS your basically just dropping the ball off in the dry from the start.

Experiment I'm not a huge rev guy either but I can comfortably play anywhere between 5 and 20 at the arrows standing anywhere from 20 to 40 depending on ball and condition. Don't lock yourself in to any one spot experiment and if your not comfortable especially moving in to the left practice it. The more options you have the better off you will be.

[bobforsaken]

Agreed on all counts... I was just commenting specifically on "where to start to find your initial line" to answer the question posed by Aslan. I do find often times I need to move my feet a board or two right or left keeping the same target... but that's about as far as I've wandered away from the system except for when I try to play deep and find a line. My walk path playing steep angles is off so the system stops working for me after about the 30 board.

[Aslan]

The way I determine my initial line is probably unique and you have to realize I practice and bowl a LOT.

But, what I do…is I bowl practice with every ball in my arsenal starting at 2nd arrow…I keep bowling with that ball until I see a "general" strike line develop and I jot down my left foot position and target board. I then do the same exercise for each of the other balls. That creates my "middle" lines for all 5 balls.

I repeat that starting moving right and targeting the 5-board area. I develop a line for all 5 balls out there what I call "outside". I then repeat that standing far left and aiming up the 17-19 board…thats my "inside" line.

I then take each ball and figure out the "net" board movement which gives me a number for "aggression"…I rank the balls from least aggressive to most aggressive and I use the ball in the middle as my benchmark ball. Then, in practice, I'm able to use each "benchmark ball" on the determined lines, both lanes which helps me choose where to play the lanes. To do that with all 5 balls on each line on each lane would take too much time.

So I figure out which is the "middle aggressiveness" ball is and make it the benchmark. Do that for each line (inside, middle, outside). And then figure out in practice which line is playing best on each lane. I then have a lot of options if the lane breaks down…because I have 2 balls to "ball up" to and 2 balls to "ball down" to. Rarely over a standard 3-game league night does the lane break down enough to require a ball change…but thats sort of where my question came in…maybe I'm waiting too long? I don't "think" so…because if that was the case I'd see a consistent bad 3rd game…and my stats don't show that right now. But still, it's something that is on my mind.

[Aslan]

Just wanted to give everyone a quick update…I finished the last part of the video tonight after bowling the VBT. I just need to bring all the footage together, do some editing, and get it published to Youtube. Then I'll get the entire project posted in this post.

Figured I'd hurry and revive this before Bowl1820 closes it!

[Aslan]

Well, thought I'd get at least 3/4 of it done tonight…but just found out iMovie08 doesn't have a FastForward feature and much of this video needs to be fast forwarded…so I'm going to have to hope the iMovie11 on my laptop will open the iMovie08 project or I need to just start over using iMovie11 on the laptop.

I try to do them in my desktop in iMovie08 because the desktop still has nearly 250GB of space to move big video files around. The computer is at about 4.7GB so bigger projects tend to push my limits. Now I've moved all the video files to an external hard drive(s)…but I still need to import them temporarily in order to create the video project.

[Perrin]

Very interesting experiment. Part of the misconception about bowling balls, as we've discussed so often, is that bowlers actually think that one ball hooks more than another. It doesn't. It just hooks earlier. Your experiment verifies this. Now, the interesting thing is that less experienced bowlers think that the reason to use one ball over another is to get to the pocket. It isn't. The reason for choosing one ball over another is it's ability to carry the corners, particularly the ten pin once it gets to the pocket. Hopefully, your experiment will help bowlers to understand this. If you don't have a release that can create a lot of entry angle, then no ball with any layout imaginable is going to compensate for it. For every $200 spent on a bowling ball that is going to be the magic one that is going to hook for you, you can get four to six lessons, depending on the particular coaches rate, that will help you to learn to hook the ball yourself.

I don't think I can agree with this. There are cases where a ball that hooks later hooks more overall without burning out. between coverstock, surface prep, lane conditions, and of course release specs... speed, rotation, revs, etc

[Aslan]

I ended up getting most of it edited last night. I just need to add in the last session, edit that last part, then go through it and do some slow motion shots at the end where it's easier to see what each ball did in terms of where it started to hook, the breakpoint, and if it ended up getting to the roll phase and/or burned out.

Preliminarily...looking at the footage only briefly...it looks like with the surfaces the same...the change in drilling layout (which was I think considered by many to be minor)...had really not much effect at all. But the video will have a section where Mike is sort of explaining his thought process behind the layouts he chose so that might help explain it.

However, the SURFACE change DID appear to show a difference in ultimate ball path/reaction. But like Rob said, it didn't seem to make the ball hook MORE (on a normal shot)...it just made it hook earlier. So the less aggressive shiny ball would go up 2nd arrow and hit light...and the surfaced more aggressive version would start hooking much sooner and end up either hitting the pocket flush or even go left of the headpin.

I also threw a couple shots with each ball at the end of the video where I intentionally hit up on the ball a great deal to see if revs made the differences more noticeable. But we'll see if that was conclusive or not. Since it's not my normal release/style...I was probably adding the wrong kinds of revs.

[Perrin]

Here we go.

Radical uploaded a video to their facebook page called Perception versus Reality

It compares the Radical Guru to balls from other manufacturers.

Balls drilled the same. thrown by throwbot so the same on those aspects with a large effort to make the lanes the same for both throws.

The last comparison in the video compares a Radical Guru to a Storm Zero Gravity

The Guru hooks both later and more than the ZG as measured by the CATS

[Mike White]

Here we go.

Radical uploaded a video to their facebook page called Perception versus Reality

It compares the Radical Guru to balls from other manufacturers.

Balls drilled the same. thrown by throwbot so the same on those aspects with a large effort to make the lanes the same for both throws.

The last comparison in the video compares a Radical Guru to a Storm Zero Gravity

The Guru hooks both later and more than the ZG as measured by the CATS

You have to be careful what to get from this kind of video.

It is a marketing tool, and you know how marketing people like to make their product look good, even at the expense of the truth.

First off, throw bot is lined up to throw the Guru on it's strike line.

If it was just intending to shot the Guru hooked more, then throw bot could have lined up to strike with the other brand, then show Guru hook into the nose.

Next is the highlighting of the path the ball takes to the pocket.

When it's the Guru, they were careful to keep the path indicator centered on where the Guru was rolling.

When it's a competitor, the path indicator exaggerates the difference between the two balls.

Finally, for the Guru to get down the lane that far and not hook early, there is plenty of oil on the lane.

How then do other balls seem to be following a slightly different path already noticeable in the first 7-8 feet.

Seems like they may have tinkered with throw bot a little.

[Perrin]

You have to be careful what to get from this kind of video.

It is a marketing tool, and you know how marketing people like to make their product look good, even at the expense of the truth.

First off, throw bot is lined up to throw the Guru on it's strike line.

If it was just intending to shot the Guru hooked more, then throw bot could have lined up to strike with the other brand, then show Guru hook into the nose.

Next is the highlighting of the path the ball takes to the pocket.

When it's the Guru, they were careful to keep the path indicator centered on where the Guru was rolling.

When it's a competitor, the path indicator exaggerates the difference between the two balls.

Finally, for the Guru to get down the lane that far and not hook early, there is plenty of oil on the lane.

How then do other balls seem to be following a slightly different path already noticeable in the first 7-8 feet.

Seems like they may have tinkered with throw bot a little.

THanks I coudln't link the vid from the machine I was posting on.
I should have linked to my other post to show what I was referencing the video for.... that more hook does not 100% equal earlier hook when you are comparing different balls.

I do understand that earlier hook will equal more hook up till the ball rolls out of course especially if you are comparing 2 balls with the same coverstock.

I completely understand it's a marketing video but I'm primarily referncing the CATS data though.
the ball could be knocking down 1 pin for all I care as long as the data provided is accurate.

The beginning of the video outlines the conditions of the testing. so unless they are flat out lying there was no tampering with the lane conditions or throwbot settings.