Hey everybody. I've been working a lot on my game since it is summer vacation and most of my tournaments tend to come on during this time of year. I want to know what you guys personally do for your practice sessions. Is there a routine that you do? Or do you work on a particular goal for that day?

Just wondering.


Let me go first. ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS I will stretch for a good 5-10 minutes or so. Then I will spend about a game's worth of lineage working on spares (single pin spares, mostly) by throwing at a particular corner pin for the first cycle, and then another for the 2nd cycle. Then I will line myself up as quickly as possible to what is out there, although it is a house shot... I will line up in places that would be an "optimal area" for me to strike. I do not keep score for that. It may take me about 10-20 minutes of lineage for me to do this. Then I step to my right in the twig are and play around there until I find a speed/hand position/ball that will allow me to strike from that area (usually a plastic ball on house shots). Then... I will move to my left until I am playing deep inside and/or doing a fall-back shot.

This takes me about two hours to do.

So How about you?
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-Jeremy Vitug


Edited on 7/24/2004 1:14 AM

I'll usually go and practice one aspect of my game for a few games, then switch to something else.
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-Andy

When I am in need of a game tune up, I do something similar to Jeremy as far as spending a game shooting spares on first and second cycle, then I will try to spend a game lining myself up. For practice sessions where I want to work on a particular aspect of my game, I will not care about the scoring, I will then try to focus either on ball speed, different targets on the lane to play, different release positions (coming up the back, coming out the side).

When practicing I think it's equally important to try to work on parts of your game you aren't good at as well as focusing on what you are good at. If you never work on the bad stuff, you'll continue to have problems with it in leagues/ tournaments.

Matt

Remember, if you are keeping score, you're not practicing.  You can't practice if you are worried about the score.

If I'm practicing on a sport condition, which I do most of the time that I practice, I just try to hit the shot, fool around with hand positions and equipment, and figure out what's happening on the lane.
The following is what I do when practicing on a house shot:
I throw a warmup game, just to get loose. I shoot every spare I leave, but try to get lined up on the lane.
Second game might be for score - depends on how I'm feeling, and how my practice partner feels... If we're going to go for a long session, I'll toss one for score and bragging rights. We do kinda practice the mental game here, constantly challenging each other to jump ahead, etc, strikes in the clutch, pretending to announce the score, and stuff like that. Funny, but it does help.

Third game is usually a spare drill. I keep shooting until I hit it, starting with the 10, then the 6, then the 3, then the head pin, then the 2, 4, and 7.
Perfect score is 7, with 7 tries, 7 hits. Then I start over. I do this several times in that game.

Then partner and I will pick a target on the lane we're going to hit. It might be the 3 board, the 20 board, the 6th arrow - it varies. But we decide before we start the game, pull out our trusty plastic, then attempt to hit our target trajectories. Don't care what the ball does, just where it goes from arrows to breakpoint.

Then, after we've totally screwed the shot up with all the plastic play, we finish off with a game for score.

Makes for a great practice session.
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All things are difficult
before they are easy.
---- Thomas Fuller