Bowler's
Reference
Holding
The Ball |
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What!!!
One of the least understood,
yet most important aspects
of your starting position is
how to hold your ball.
Really; holding your ball
properly is a primary key
toward consistency.
Think about it. You pick up
the ball from the ball rack.
You hold the ball in the
stance. And, you hold
the ball during the
approach. There are specific
considerations during each
action that may enhance your
safety, your accuracy and
your score. So, let's
start at the beginning.
Picking the Ball Up
It isn't unusual to find
bowlers who retrieve their
ball from the holding rack
in a manner that threatens
their safety and negatively
affects their bowling.
A simple technique allows
you to avoid both negative
aspects of picking up your
ball.
Rolling Balls on the Rack
-
Prior too
retrieve a ball from the
holding rack, wait until all
balls
stop rolling. Many
finger injuries occur when
placing your hand into an
area when a
ball
strikes the next stationary
ball with the bowlers finger
in between.
Two-Handed Ball Pick-Up
Method
- Once the ball
stops rolling, face
the pins from the side and
pick up the ball with both
hands, with one hand on each
side of the ball rack;
NEVER
from the front or rear of
the ball. Picking up the
ball from the side will help
you avoid crush injuries to
hands and fingers, strain on
the howling hand, and
perspiration in the holes.
Avoiding Fatigue and
Perspiration
- Again,
when picking up the ball, it
is smart to use the
two-handed method.
Your fingers and will be
less fatigued and
reduce swelling of the
fingers. Also, using
the two-handed method of
picking up the ball during
bowling, prevents excessive
perspiration in the holes
and swelling of the fingers.
Holding the ball in the
stance
There are a variety of ways
bowlers hold their ball in
their stance.
Some bowlers hold the ball
high (some even above their
eye), some at waist level,
and still others close to
their thigh.
Some
bowlers, during their
stance, position their ball
in a way that
varies from the textbook
position. For
serious bowlers, unorthodox
styles are the exception,
not the rule.
Uninformed bowlers normally
deviate from the textbook
style most often because
they are searching for
solutions to flawed results.
Bowlers often introduce a
technique to make up for
other flaws. In the end, it
complicates their game when
they introduce one flaw to
correct another.
Variations from the textbook
position are useful when
adjusting to changing lane
conditions. It is
prudent to begin from an
established,
well thought out,
solid foundation.
First learn the basics, and
then the tricks of the
trade; and never reverse
that wisdom.
With that, let's build a
technique of holding your
ball shown to result in more
consistent bowling.
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Ball Position (height)
One of the most important
factors in good bowling is
timing. Good timing
begins with a
well-established stance and
the proper vertical position
of the ball.
If you were asked to hold
your ball for a long period
of time, you would end up
bracing your elbows against
your body, and raising your
ball upward toward your
upper chest next to your
chin. That would place
the majority of the weight
directly on your body and
not your arms. The
larger muscles of the body
would carry the weight.
That minimizes the stress on
your arms and maximizes the
time you could hold the
ball.
In determining up your
vertical ball position in
the stance, while
maintaining your bowling
elbow against your body, you
would lower the ball into
your desired position.
The vertical ball position
is a key factor in good
timing.
The elbow does not move;
only the forearm. This
action provides a consistent
positioning of your bowling
arm. When your ball is in
the desired vertical
position, your elbow should
be directly by, and against,
your side.
Using Vertical Ball Position
Textbook ball position finds
the elbows resting close to
the hips. The ball is nested
in the ball-side
palm,
and
supported by the
non-ball-side hand
about waist high and
slightly right of the center
of the body for right-handed
bowlers (opposite for
left-handed bowlers). Use a
soft pushaway and
completely relax all muscles
to allow the ball to descend
by gravity on its own weight
into the swing. Maintain
a comfortable ball position
before the pushaway. The
placement of the ball must
permit an easy, undeterred
pushaway.
Using Ball Position to
Affect Timing
Good timing occurs when the
feet move in coordination
with the arm swing.
Coordinated timing of the
feet and arm swing can be
adjusted by raising or
lowering the ball in the
stance.
One factor in determining
the vertical position of the
ball it the bowler's
physical makeup. A
bowler’s body height and arm
length affects how a bowler
determines ball height in
the stance, as will matching
a bowler’s energy level.
The taller the bowler,
generally speaking, the
lower the ball in the stance
is required to achieve the
same ball swing.
The higher the ball begins
in the stance, the more
distance the ball travels,
and the more time required
to complete the swing of the
ball. This longer
swing time complements a
slower foot tempo to
complete the steps of the
backswing.
Adjusting the vertical ball
position in the stance can
also affect ball speed, and
is the subject of another
discussion.
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The lower the ball begins in
the stance, the less
distance the ball travels,
and the less time required
to complete the ball swing.
This shorter ball swing time
complements a faster foot
tempo to complete three
steps of the approach.
The technique of raising or
lowering the ball in the
stance helps bowlers
synchronize their arm swing
with their feet tempo.
It should be remembered that
the length of the arm, to a
degree, determines the time
period available during the steps of their
backswing. The lower
the ball is placed in the
stance, the more there is a
tendency to raise the
backswing height, because
the ball will have less
distance to travel to reach
the optimum height.
It has been demonstrated
that there is also a
tendency for the bowler to
move their feet faster as
the vertical ball position
is lowered, and cause the speed
of the
ball to be faster. We’ll
address this consideration
later.
So, the bowler should begin
with a
medium tempo. A medium
tempo results from the ball
placed horizontally and
parallel to the lane surface
in the stance.
If slower feet tempo is
required, the ball position
in the stance should be
raised above the level of
the lane.
Likewise, if faster feet
tempo is called for, the
vertical ball position in
the stance should be
lowered.
Ball Position (side)
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Center
the ball between the center
of your body and the
ball-side shoulder.
Placing the ball outside and
in front of the shoulder
places undue stress on the
bowling arm, resulting in
tiring, balance issues and
inconsistency.
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The old school used to teach
that you should align the
ball with the ball-side
shoulder in order to
initialize an even ball
swing. That, in
essence, forces an
unbalanced body weight onto
the bowling side, and
further forces you to
rebalance your body weight
as you begin your swing.
That technique is not
normally recommended.
Consistency begins with a
balanced position, and
proceeds all the way through
the approach.
Your upper arm should rest
against your side, and
the non-all side hand should hold
the large majority of the
ball weight.
It would be difficult to ask
you to have a free arm
swing, and then ask you to
hold the weight of the ball
with your bowling arm.
You do not want the bowling
arm muscles to be tense if you want
a free arm swing.
Therefore, you don’t want it
to start in a state of
tension.
As you begin a
free (tensionless)
push-away, your arm tension
would be forced to change as
the ball swing begins.
Changing of arm tension creates a state
of muscle confusion, and
should be avoided. You
want to develop consistency,
not inconsistency. In
order to keep the bowling
arm relaxed, you want it to
be relaxed from the
beginning, and remain
relaxed as the ball swing
proceeds up to the release
point.
The ball
weight is transferred from the non-bowling hand to
the bowling hand toward end of the extension of the
arm and push-away as the body weight is transferred
to the bowling-side foot. This is true
regardless of whether you take four, five or more steps.
This transfer should be practiced until you are
comfortable with the smooth synchronizing of the
weight transfer of both the ball and the foot.
This is a basic key toward consistent timing.
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Your bowling shoulder, when
positioned to work with the
weight of the ball, should
be 2-3 inches lower than
your non-ball-side arm, and
your eye kept in line with the
ball swing.
If you don’t feel a
simultaneous ball weight
transfer to the bowling hand
at the same time the
ball-side foot is placed on
the approach, you can stop
the approach and begin again
instead of continuing with
an errant approach.
Holding The Ball During the
Approach
Wow!
with the multitude of ball
swing techniques used by
bowlers, it may best serve
us to focus more on this
element during the Ball
Swing
discussions in
the
Bowler/Approach Section.
For
now, let's
focus on just a few basic
considerations at this
point.
First, when the
gripping holes are drilled,
both point roughly toward
the center of the ball with
only slight pitch
variations.
The geometric wedge formed
by the gripping holes places
friction on the fingers
whenever the thumb points
toward or away from the
body. Conversely, when
the thumb is placed forward,
thumb-to-ball friction is
minimized.
When a ball is properly
fitted to the hand, the
finger and thumb pressure
holds the ball with minimal
gripping pressure as long as
the thumb points toward or
away from the body.
And the thumb-to-ball
friction is minimized as the
thumb is pointing toward the
direction of the ball
movement.
The point of this is one key
to holding the ball during
the approach. Maintain
your hand (thumb) position
away from the body during
the swing, and then, as the
ball passes the leg during
the last portion of the ball
swing, rotate
the wrist until the thumb is
pointing toward the
direction of the ball
travel, and the ball will
roll off the thumb as you
near the release point.
If the ball "hangs" onto the
hand during release, the
first suspect is how you are
holding the ball during
release. |
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Holding on is being strong,
but
Working with the ball makes you
smarter! |
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