Bowl Well on Tough Shots

In July each year many of our best youth bowlers will be bowling in one of the toughest tournaments in bowling – Junior Gold. This tournament presents bowlers with the challenge of bowling against over 1000 other junior boys or against over 400 junior girls in an effort to obtain one of a handful of spots on Junior Team USA. In
order to do that, bowlers must first make a cut of about 1 in 10, then another cut to the top 16. The lane conditions are very demanding, and the competition is stiff. For them and for the rest of us, how do we perform our best when the lane conditions and the demands of the tournament are high? 

The first thing you have to master is your mind. You must keep your thoughts positive, as you will make mistakes that will cost you pins and potentially cause you anxious moments. There are many, many ways to practice this, including deep breathing, visualization, and hypnosis. One of the best ways to work on this is
to practice closing your eyes, relaxing your body and use a combination of deep breathing and clearing your mind (use a word or phrase that will allow you to do this). Once you have dropped into a state of relaxation, visualize a situation that has given you problems in the past, and see yourself having success. In this way,
when you next encounter this situation, you will be less anxious and more likely to stay relaxed and give yourself a chance for success.

Next, you need to make your physical game solid in terms of release (and rev rate), direction and speed control. This in itself can be several columns, but this month we’ll go through the short explanation. In order to keep your release solid, it must be clean and fluid. In order to do this, you need to allow your hips to get a
little lower through the last 1 ½ steps to be able to release the ball parallel to the lane surface. The other key is to allow the weight of the ball to drop to the bottom of the swing by gravity, without grabbing or pulling the ball on the way down. You will also want to create this release when you really need to make a shot. 

Use some visualization and role play – visualize yourself making a good shot in a key situation – to help you learn how to make the shot when it counts.   Speed control is important, as you will need to adjust speed to get the right ball reaction. Sometimes on really tough shots, you can’t make a move out of the part of the lane that is playing the best, so you will need to increase or decrease your ball speed to keep the ball in that play zone. To become better at controlling your speed,  practice changing your ball speed every few shots, until you finally get to the point where you can change your speed every shot and control the speed changes. Also, as you go through this drill, observe how you change your speed and how it changes your ball reaction. You will want to be able to know how much your speed  change affects your shot so that you will understand how and where to move at the same time you change speed. Practice changing your speed and adjusting your feet at the same time to stay in the pocket, and you will have confidence using speed changes when you are in tournament play.

The best way to practice direction control is to see where your ball rolls over the arrows and where it is at the break point. You will also want to have a practice partner watch these two points. For many of us, what we see is not where the ball actually rolls. Together, record where your ball hits these two points over the
course of several games. If you miss one board right at the target, the ball should be at the break point or one board right of the break point, rather than one board left of the break point (for a right-hander). Your goal is to become accurate, and to become consistent in the direction of the ball off your hand. Check the
alignment of your shoulder to your target line when you set up and when you finish. If you are not consistent, you may be grabbing the ball early in the downswing, forcing the ball off-line. 

Finally, you need to control your axis rotation on tough shots to make subtle changes in the shape of your ball reaction. Use varying hand positions from as much end-over-end roll as you can create to getting as much around the ball as you can. One simple way to achieve this is to either align your index finger with the
outside of your wrist, the middle of your wrist, or the inside of your wrist. As with your practice with speed control, make adjustments to see if you can change hand positions at will and keep the ball in the pocket.

To make all of this much more effective and to really see the benefits of practicing these changes, practice them on a sport condition. It is very difficult to see ball reaction changes on a house shot, but it is very easy to see these changes on a more blended condition.   

In order to be successful on tough lane conditions, you must train your body and your mind to perform at your best, and to make subtle changes with confidence when needed.