I have always been a stretch fingertip bowler but have heard that relaxed is better so I went and drilled a ball relaxed.  I tried using it for a couple of weeks and had disastrous results.  I had a hard time getting the ball off of my hand, couldn't hit my mark, and couldn't get a decent amount of revs on it.  Can someone explain these two layouts a little bit better and maybe why I couldn't do relaxed?
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*Don't swing it if you can't bring it.*

Edited on 1/28/2005 1:11 PM

After working with Bill Hall last year and watching slow motion of pba stars, i can tell you Duke, Wiseman, WRW and others use relaxed fingertip grip. He showed me there videos and you can clearly see there knuckles up about an inch or so on everyone of them. It changes the point on your hand where most of the pressure comes from slightly not as much as an clt drilling but about half an inch or so. I have gained revs and accuracy from him changing my span 1/4 shorter and going to a 1 1/4 clt drilling on every ball, feels better and makes getting the ball off the hand much cleaner.

I can see why he drilled on tour for 18 years he is a great ball fitting coach watches you breaks it down to 1/60 second frames and shows you what is really happening. He is expensive and i have since went to a cheaper silver level coach but Bill Hall was worth the money to help me out gripwise.

For me being right handed the fingers are drilled to a line 1 1/4 right of the thumb, you then use the same thumb pitches and span as standard t-grip. Each person has a certain amount of offset they can use i tried 2 inches it was too much i also tried 1/2 inch it was not enough for my hand construction.

Some people do not roll well with an offset drilling and frankly do not need it at all because there thumb is clean on every shot, others like me it puts more palm on the ball and i am able to clear the thumb without thinking about it each shot. Making being able to repeat shots easy and one less worry than just getting through the ball cleanly and hitting my mark.


I think king of the mill and lucky lefty are best to give how to drill  a clt much better than a non driller like me though.

thanks
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*Don't swing it if you can't bring it.*

This might sound sort of stupid but can someone explain to me what the difference is exactly between a stretched grip and a relaxed grip?