Bowling Practice At Home
Why Practice at Home?
If you want to improve your game, you have to practice. So, what do you do if you can’t make it to the center? There are practice drills you can do at home that will improve your game. However, being at home is not an excuse to make your practice short or to lack focus.
Practicing Your Ball Start
A common drill for practicing the ball start move is to take a number of repetitions focused on just the first two steps (of five). This will help you work to coordinate the movement of the ball, the placement of the ball into the swing, and your footwork.
Set up in your start position. Look down at your feet. Take your first step of five (if you take four, skip this part). Start the ball into the start motion as your ball-side foot crosses directly in front of your slide foot and stays straight. When this step completes, your ball should be starting into a circular motion going into the downswing. In terms of placement, it should be going into the slot being vacated by your ball side leg. This crossover motion creates a slot for the ball to replace your ball-side leg. This gets the ball very close to your body and makes the swing much more efficient.
Practice Your Release and Finish Position
There is a great drill with a video from Gold Coach Del Warren and the folks at Kegel. The foul line drill is a fundamental isolation drill that will help you learn a lot about where your body should be at the foul line and how you should release the ball. This drill can be done at home by putting something like a pillow in front of whatever you’re using to stop the ball. This fundamental drill can greatly improve your game and keep your body in better bowling shape at the same time!
Practice Your Last Step and Finish
Similarly you can use the swing and slide drill (also provided by Kegel) at home by modifying it to use a weight instead of the bowling ball and sliding in your socks (check how slick the surface is first). Everything else about this drill is the same. Remember, by doing isolation drills you are training your body to get to a certain point at a certain time. This drill will help you transfer weight to your slide leg and get your body in a solid position to release the ball.
Full Approaches
If you have 12′ – 15′ of a surface that will allow for this (like a hardwood floor), you can practice full approaches (first, as before, check how slick the surface is if you choose to wear socks – your bowling shoes are also an option). You can take a full approach either with nothing in your bowling hand, a weight, or an Eileens’ Bowling Buddy training tool. It helps to have a method for aligning your body to a “target” line so that you know if your footwork is correct. This will allow you to work on many different things in your swing. You can work on getting to the same finish position as in the foul line drill, putting the ball start drill into motion, or making a change to your footwork.
Practice Smart
Safety is a primary concern when you start doing these drills. Make sure you’re not doing anything to damage your furniture when releasing the ball into a soft object. Make sure you don’t slip and fall when doing any drill at home with your body in motion – after all, our home is not designed to be a bowling center.
Practice for 15-20 minutes at a time, with 3-5 minutes breaks spaced between the practice intervals. FOCUS your attention on the drill at hand, as you would in the bowling center. If you do these things, you can improve you bowling and be better prepared for your next time out on the lanes!