Some folks have asked me some details about the Bill Taylor clinic that we had last weekend. So away we go....
Friday night: Bill arrives a few minutes after the scheduled 6pm start of the session. Turns out the cab driver took him to the wrong hotel, so he lost about an hour. He walks in the room and starts up right way as if someone flipped up the "on" switch. Gregarious, insightful, full of great bowling war stories, all while performing body "piece" measurement, as well as measing equipment layout and carefully measuring each person's hand for proper fitting. Three hours, non-stop, it seemed like 45 minutes 'cause it went by so fast!
Now, this may not sound like a big deal, but considering the circumsances, I was impressed. First Bill flew from LA via Phoenix to Detroit and arrived just a few hours before the clinic (which was spent doing the hotel shuffle). To pull this off, he got up at 2:45 am! also, Bill is 79 years old... but let me tell ya, he's got more energy than men half his age. He doesn't look has age either.
One thing that struch me about bill is that he's not a big guy. He's 5' 5" at most, slender, about 145 pounds. However, he's very fit. His grip is quite firm, and he's pround of his arm wrestling exploits as a young man.
Moving on to saturday, we started with some group demonstration: the proper stance (tall, relaxed, right foot slightly forward od the left, kinda tucked into the left foot). The ball should be held to shoulder height, with the right arm at a 90* angle to the body to promote a repeatable pendelum swing).
Bill promotes a 4 step approach, with the push away in time with the first step. The heigth of the pushaway should be appropriate to your body measurements (and when each person worked 1 on 1 with Bill, he worked them to find the right push-away height for their body type).
Bill also promotes a long and low slide, which occurs on the 3rd step (the decent) which promotes the slide on the 4th step.
Each person had a turn to work with Bill for 30 to 60 minutes each day. we went from 9 am to almost 6pm on Saturday, and 10 am until 3 pm on Sunday (Our Sunday group was smaller, only 8 people.)
It was very cool to get very focused individualized instruction from a legend like Bill. I found his insightful and perceptive, and never insulting or condensending. He made some HUGE improvements in a few guys in just the first day... their games looked pretty rough, and by saturday pm their approach was much smoother.
Bill wanted me to slow down my feet, walk taller, and not bend over at the line. I wasn't catching on... so Bill asked me a few questions:
"Pat, What's your mother's name?"
"Um,,, well, it;s Teresa."
"And how old is Teresa?"
"Well Bill, she's 82."
"Ok then. When you drive her around, do you drive differently?"
"Yeah, maybe a little slower."
"You see, your natural instinct is to be aggressive. whn you drive, you're an aggressive driver. And when you bowl, you're the same way. There's no race to the line. You've got all night! Nobody is timing you. DO you understand?"
"Yes."
"OK then, now I want you to do something. I want you to call your bowling ball Teresa. That's to remind you to slow down when you go to the line because you're bringing Teresa with you."
Guys, I thought this was just way out-of-the-box thinking to bring home a concept... although I guess Bill didn't like my driving too. Geez, I took it easy. It's not my fault that Lincoln put a 280 hp V-8 into my LS coupled to a nice 5 spped auto trans!
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pjr300
live from the Bowling Capital of the World
