I went to the lanes to bowl a few practice games this evening...still disgruntled over my very consistent but poor performance this past Monday. I was hoping to "find" something but after a couple of games things were only getting worse.
I know I've been having a problem with my release..."gripping", I think you may refer to it as "knuckling" the ball due to a loose thumb hole (yeh, a couple of posts on this board got me thinking about proper thumb hole size).
Well, one of the house "pros", he's the one who drilled my ball, walked by and watched a couple of shots.
I asked him about the thumb hole and he looked at it and he agreed it was a bit loose. We added a few pieces of tape to get it to fit snug on my thumb. He then watched a couple more shots, noting how I grip the ball and how I release it. He explained why I didn't get many revs and made some adjustments to my grip (well, they were MAJOR adjustments to be honest...my hand has gone from underneath the ball -"six o'clock" - to the "three o'clock" position and my wrist has gone from "broken" to "very rigid").
He watched me roll a couple more balls with the new grip and noticed I still wasn't releasing the ball the way I needed too. He showed me the "proper" release and explained how the ball should come off my thumb and fingers.
So, after all these changes, he watched a few more shots and I began to get the hang of the new grip and release.
All of a sudden, my down and in, low rev, end over end rolling, hit the pocket light most of the time shot turns into a reving hook that slams Brooklyn and beyond. Boy does that shot look and feel much stronger than my "old" shot!
I'm going to have to completely change the way I bowl now! Instead of playing straight down the second arrow, I've had to move left on the approach and play the ball out to the right, something I've never been able to do...and it hooks back to the pocket with very little effort on my part now...its very strange after having played the same shot since I was a kid!!! The scoring and consistency improved too as I got used to this "new" way of bowling.
This makes me wonder...I read a lot of posts on this board complaining about the lack of service they recieve at the house they bowl at. I guess I'm lucky to have a bowling center with folks who care about their bowlers/customers! How many of you have experienced something like what I experienced tonight?
Edited on 1/30/2004 11:50 PM
