*Disclaimer* This is a bit long, but I honestly think it might interest some people.
So I started doing a pro shop tips and tricks series, I've already got a couple more ready for a new video, but I had an idea hit me yesterday. It's really easy in any business or job to get lost in how familiar your job or service is to you, and how confusing it can be or how much it can cost a customer. It's really easy for me to tell somebody they can schedule coaching with us for x-amount of dollars per hour, to tell someone they need a resurface for this cost, or change some pitches for this cost. I have a rather unique situation, my form has never been great, but my ball roll however is really good. My poor form is a result of a lot of things, the most prominent being a shoulder dislocation several years ago that really weakened my arm (wasn't just a quick pop in and out, my shoulder relocated itself behind my nipple and sat there for an hour before it got put back in). I'm pain free and have no shoulder or arm problems, just a general loss of strength. I've had a lot of things happen since then, in addition to carrying 2 jobs for a number of years, my 5 year anniversary is coming up, and when I got married, I became a step dad to a couple kids also. I've focused much more on my work and my family since then than I have on my bowling. My knowledge and experience has allowed me to "get by" so to speak with my poor form, and to "cheat" because I didn't really have the time to work on it, and because I'm really happy with my ball roll, I've always been torn between whether to fix something that isn't broken persay, or to put in the work to bring my form up to par, because honestly it affects my consistency. However, who am I to coach or criticize someone else when I myself don't look the part? Why should I tell someone else to keep their elbow in when I'm prone to chicken winging? And how quickly and easily should I REALLY expect changes out of someone else? What could I learn from trying to coach someone that's not 100% physically?
Bottom line is, I'm going to coach myself, BUT I'm going to try to do it as objectively as possible, as if I'm coaching someone else. I'm going to keep track of all costs as if I were a customer. Obviously it's going to be extremely cheap for me to do all this, but how much would this cost a customer? The coaching, the games, the equipment fixes, etc. Yeah, they all have a price that I can pull off the board, but over time, what does coaching REALLY cost? And what's the time involvement? This is the perfect time for me to do it, 2 jobs, wife and 2 kids, and having a physical issue to deal with. How much progress can really be made, and how quickly can it be made? I'm hoping to make this into a documentary, but I'll post videos every so often to update my progress, and then put them all together when I'm done.
This will also include making changes during the season. A lot of bowlers don't want to change things that will affect them in league, like fit changes or mechanical changes that could affect their scores week to week, and I have to say the thought makes me nervous too. But, for consistency's sake, I'm going to follow this thing all the way through, because I want to show what all goes into it IF you were to make every advised change, and make time for all the advised practice and document just exactly what it takes to focus on this and the challenges or problems it creates.
As an overview, here's where I'm starting. My fit is 4 3/8 middle span, 4 7/16 ring span, 3/8 reverse in both fingers, 1/8 left middle finger, 5/8 right ring finger, thumb is 0 all the way around. My span feels good, but with 0 in my thumb, I still feel like I'm going to lose it sometimes, my first fit move is going to be to 1/16-1/8 forward. As far as form goes, here are my identified issues. Low starting point, which causes an early swing the whole way through, meaning I get the ball started too soon, and unless I really concentrate on it, it gets to the line too soon, sometimes causing balance issues and reducing my leverage, and I also chicken wing it on release. I relax my wrist (like Mike Fagan in his backswing, where it's broken backwards), because I find that places more of the weight on my fingers. With my loss in strength, the more I cup it, the faster my hand/arm/fingers get tired, and the more prone I am to dumping and gripping, because the strength just isn't there. The chicken winging I think comes from the early armswing, because instead of my slide leg already being planted when the ball comes by my ankle, I still have to clear my right leg which hasn't gotten out of the way quite yet. From a coaching standpoint, this is actually kind of unique. You don't see many people with bad form and good roll. Normally one affects the other, so it's going to be a challenge to improve my form without negatively affecting my ball roll.
I'll describe my coaching recommendations, and feedback as the coach-ee along the way, but there are some primary rules in coaching. One, don't apply a cookie cutter approach to everyone. You have to work with what a bowler has to offer, improve what you can improve, and only change what you feel you have to. Obviously pro bowlers have a wide range of styles, and the majority of them have things in their game that aren't exactly textbook or recommended, however, it's their game, if it works for them and if they can be consistent with it, it might actually help them to leave it alone or work with it rather than try to fundamentally change it, and that line can be hard to identify sometimes. Also you need to take things one step at a time. You can't try to fix 3 or 4 different things at the same time, you need to focus on one thing at a time, develop the muscle memory, and then move on. Trying to remember too many things at the same time can create new and interesting bad habits.
This might be a little more personally interesting to me than to anyone else, because I think I stand to learn a lot. I have been able to figure out a lot about coaching by objectively intellectualizing things, but since I haven't actually done the math or can't walk in someone's shoes, there's a lot of things I don't think I fully understand. At the same time though, this could be a really unique perspective, and quite interesting to everyone. Anyway, I could ramble on about a lot more, but from the mental concept I'm developing, I think this could be really interesting for everyone across the board. Thoughts?
