Keeping the ball in front of you depends a lot on your particular physical game , so on its face, it is a difficult question to answer unless one can see how you throw. I am an old-school, speed- dominant player. For me, my "A" game naturally allows me to keep the ball (or my angles) in front of me. For strokers like myself, keeping the shoulders and hips square to my target line is key.
As for the crossover step, I must confess that I never believed that such a step is a good thing for maintaining good balance and staying within the body's center of gravity. Over the 50+ years I have been bowling and giving lessons, I found that the crossover step works best if it follows the direction of the pushaway trajectory. For bowlers who tend to push (or drop) the ball more in the direction of the center of their torso, the crossover step is indeed, a good way to stay within the body's center of gravity. On the other hand, if you classify yourself as a "stroker" and push the ball out in the direction of your bowling shoulder, then the crossover step is not the best way to maintain your center of gravity. Instead, it is usually better to allow your foot to
follow in the same direction of the ball, which means no crossover step. You can try it for yourself. You will immediately feel more balance than if you did a crossover step.
Another important point regarding the crossover step. It is often implied that the crossover step is necessary in order to clear the hip on the backswing. However, unless one has extremely wide hips and /or they have VERY late ball timing, taking the pushaway step (for strokers) straight ahead will not cause the ball to "bump the hip". If a bowler falls into the latter category (which is rare), I advise dropping the bowling shoulder a little lower in the stance as a better way to "clear the hip".
On the other hand, many power players WILL benefit by using a crossover step . This allows them to more easily get the ball into an inside-out trajectory, which allows them to more readily project the ball from left to right (for a righthander). Even with them though, , if their pushaway motion is directed in-line with their bowling shoulder, their body has a little extra work to do to maintain good balance and staying within their center of gravity if they deply a crossover. Crossover steps really do the opposite. They narrow the body's lateral center of gravity, making it harder to maintain good balance in most instances, particularly for older-school strokers. If you watch many of the elite old school strokers (like Jim Stefanich, Mike Durbin, John Handegard, etc. ) you will notice that
they did not use a crossover step. In my view, this resulted in better balance and shot consistency. It kept their bowling shoulder in-line from start to finish, which is critical for bowlers who, by virtue of their style, rely much more on accuracy than power. The more that a stroker's shoulder moves (in any plane) enroute to the foul line, the less consistency they will have at the release point. Power bowlers in general, can get away with more shoulder movement because their ability to create area often affords them recovery on missed shots. Not so with strokers.
So what's the point here? Simply to be cautious and realize that what might work for one particular style, is not always the best technique for another style of bowler. This includes the crossover step.
