Coach’s Corner Tip
So, You Want to Get Serious
This month I’d like to talk directly to the bowler who wants to get more serious about bowling. As a community, we need to encourage and help you, so here’s my set of guidelines for moving to higher levels in the sport. I’ll speak first to the junior bowler looking to get to higher levels, and then to adults looking to improve.
Let’s say you are a junior bowler who is about 14 or 15, and you’ve decided that you really want to get more involved in the sport. What do you do? First, obviously, get a good coach, as you will need focused guidance to improve. You will want to upgrade your equipment – speak to your local pro shop about whether your current ball is enough – you may need to go up in weight. You may also wish to upgrade your bowling shoes, as this contributes to your ability to post shots consistently.
You will want to practice, but you will be practicing with a purpose. Take the information provided to you by your coach and your new equipment and improve your skills. Every shot you take in practice is either going to reinforce your new skills or entrench your old ones. Every shot must be focused on one item that you want to improve to get better. This practice of focusing will also begin to improve your mental game.
If you want to get serious about the game, improve your core and lower body strength. Find someone who can teach you to work out correctly so that you won’t get injured. Learning to exercise your body will also help offset the unbalanced nature of our sport, and restoring some of that balance will help your balance and stamina.
If you are an adult bowler, many of these same ideas also will apply to you. In addition, you will need to be disciplined in order to set aside time in your life to practice. Scheduling your practice time will help you set aside the time to work on your game.
Spare shooting is critical to improving in the game. Get a plastic or urethane ball and spend a portion of EVERY practice working on your spare game. Even if you can use your strike ball for many of your spares on a house shot you will not be able to do this when you start to bowl on sport conditions under pressure. The alternative to using a ball that does not hook much for spares is to develop a straight release that you can control to shoot spares. You will need to master one technique or another to be successful at a high level.
One example of practicing to get better at your spare shooting is to shoot at a spare off of a full rack on the first ball, then either shoot at another spare on the second ball or try to pick up the remaining pins. You will find that it can be harder to miss the pocket than to hit the pocket.
You will need to be able to play different parts of the lane. Dedicate some practice sessions to playing different parts of the lane. Getting comfortable playing outside (boards 1-10), the track area (boards 10-16) and inside lines (boards 17 and left) is a necessary skill to bowling in serious tournament competition, when the oil moves and depletes significantly during tournament competition.
Finally, you will need to gain experience bowling on sport bowling conditions. Bowling on tournament-tough lane conditions will prepare you for the time when you face these conditions and will need to perform on lane conditions with much flatter distributions of oil across the lane.
Find a bowling center that will help you practice on these conditions.
So, in summary, these are the things that you will need to focus on in order to make a serious improvement in your game:
- Get a coach,
2. Improve your equipment,
3. Learn to practice with a purpose,
4. Improve your physical conditioning,
5. Become an excellent spare shooter,
6. Learn to play different parts of the lane,
7. Gain experience bowling on sport conditions.
Once you do all of this, you will want to begin to compete – there is no substitute for competition to teach you about your strengths and weaknesses. In Denver, check themilehitour.org for juniors and also check out many other tournaments available. Find something appropriate to your current level. For adults, check out the ABT and look into other available tournaments in the area. Consult the Colorado Bowler and gdusbc.com for more information.