We're going to enjoy it.
One way through this battle.
Let's go.
Florida.
Let's go Florida.
Come on.
Come on翻 también.
Hi, I'm Don Johnson.
I've been involved in this game for 37 years.
I first saw bowling on TV when I was 14 years old, and I said, boy, there's something I
want to be as a pro bowler, because I'm originally from Indiana, and it's high school basketball
and high school football.
I said bowling is something you don't have to be big and strong to do.
So I made up my mind at 14, that's what I wanted to be as a pro bowler.
When I turned 18 years old, I still only averaged 165, which means I had a lot of work to do
to be a pro bowler.
At that time, I set my life up in what I call the 3Ds, desire at 14 to be a pro bowler,
determination at 18 because I needed to work on my game, and now I'm in the third stage
of my career, which is called dedication.
This film is to help you enjoy the game as much as I have.
What we're basically going to do in this film is to try to help your accuracy.
For us to get our scores higher, we've got to hit the pocket more and make more spares.
The toughest thing about this film is trying to convince the subconscious brain when we
have to make a change, that the old way is wrong, the new way is right.
Everybody has what we call assets, and everybody has liabilities.
First of all, nobody does everything right.
Second is, the pro bowlers you see on TV, their assets overcome their liabilities.
What we're going to try to do is pick out maybe one or two of your liabilities and try
to transfer it into the asset column.
Now I've studied this game for many, many years.
Like I say, I've been involved in the game for 30 years, and we've tried to figure out
the best way for you to make these changes and try to get in what we call the common
denominators.
In other words, the pro bowlers are real, real accurate.
Why are they accurate?
We're going to try to discuss those things here.
Okay?
If we're ready to go, let's start.
The first thing we want to do is to have a good setup.
Now we call this the stance.
Let's just go through some checkpoints.
We'd like to have our feet facing our target fairly square towards the pins.
We'd like to have our knees flexed.
We'd like to have our hips fairly square and our shoulders square.
Now in pro bowlers, too, you see bowlers with open shoulders.
Those are the bowlers that have this in-out swing.
You also see a few bowlers that toe the shoulder in, kind of closed shoulders.
These are the ones that have that loop or tuck swing.
We'll cover that a little later.
Basically, we want to have them square for a good square setup.
As far as distance of the ball from the body, if we hold this way out here, the ball's very,
very heavy, therefore the arm tenses up.
So let's try to get it fairly close to our body, therefore our arm will be more relaxed.
Now a lot of people ask, how high should I hold it?
I mean, we see several bowlers, Wayne Webb holds it straight down, Marshall Holman holds
it here, and then you'll see some other bowlers hold it up.
Basically, we want to try to do this versus your tempo.
Slow tempo bowlers usually hold it higher.
Slow tempo bowlers usually hold it lower.
Again, this is general rule.
First thing we don't want you to think is we're trying to make you a robot.
If we hold it high, we would like to push out and slightly down, or the roller coaster
push.
If we hold it low, we want to push it out and up a little bit, which we'll cover a little
later.
Basically, we want it close to the body, and again, the height again depends on you.
Now one of the biggest common faults I think a lot of amateurs do is when they hold the
ball in the center of the body.
Now that's the most comfortable place to hold it, and that's where it feels the lightest.
I tell people if your chin was your shoulder and was going to throw it between the legs,
that would be the proper place to hold it.
Basically, what we want to do is move the ball onto our bowling side.
For example, the right-handed bowler wants to move it over here in line with the bowling
shoulder.
Now, you'll see Mark Roth have the elbow in the ball outside the shoulder.
He has what we call an in-out swing.
For those of you who want to go down and in, let's move it in line with the shoulder, or
at least on the right-hand side of our body.
For example, if the right edge of the ball is in line with the shoulder, at least it's
on the right-hand side of the body.
We don't have to swing it around the hip.
Another common fault a lot of amateurs do is they really start with a dropped shoulder.
Now on Pro Bowlers Tour, they see this also where the elbow is tucked way in, and they
drop the shoulder.
For example, Bob Hanley, he starts in this position.
Do you understand, a lot of Pro Bowlers start bowling when they're four, five, six, seven
years old, and develop some of these habits at an early age.
Point is, if we do the same thing wrong every time, exactly the same, we can get by with
it.
The reason he tucks the elbow in is because he has that big hook, and that allows for
that big hook.
He projects the ball left to right.
So the elbow basically wants to be in line with the shoulder if we're going to be a stroker,
and if you want to be a cranker, we can move it in a little bit.
Point is, we don't want to over-exaggerate this dropped shoulder.
And again, a lot of this has to do with our body construction.
For example, if we're big-chested or big hips, we want to drop a little bit at stance, because
that's the only way the ball can get under our shoulder at release.
Okay, now that we know what a good setup is, let's talk about a very important subject
for a lot of us out there, and that's called timing.
Let's first of all define what timing is.
My definition of timing is the ability to get the ball at the top of the swing one step
before the slide, so that our sliding leg, our body, and our bowling arm can all come
forward at the same time.
This is what we call good timing.
I think the biggest secret to this timing is the start.
Now we've heard things where if you don't start right, you can't finish right.
We've heard that in a lot of sports, it has a lot to do with bowling.
Notice that I've moved the ball before I've taken the first step, allowing that arm to
be straight on the first step.
Full view here for sure shows the ball being moved first.
As we start down, we take the step.
Now that momentum will allow this ball to get in what we call the pro zone on two.
If we're in this position on two, we have a very good chance to be at the top of the
swing on three, and I want you to notice the arm arc between three and what we call entering
the slide.
By having that arm arc, we're able to come through together with the ball.
This gives us very good balance at finishing position.
What we want to do is get the ball extended out on the first step.
Now a lot of people call this the push away.
It's placing the ball into the swing.
We'd like to have it in this area on the first step, so that it can come back in this area
on the second step with a four-step approach.
This will allow the ball to get at the top of the swing one step before the slide so
the left leg body and the bowling arm can now all come forward at the same time.
Let me try to demonstrate what this would look like.
Take the ball, don't push the ball out.
Now this allows me to have a good balance in finishing position.
If I had been there ahead of that ball and had to pull the ball through, it causes a
lot of problems.
Now when we talk about timing, you've heard the term, if you don't start right, you can't
finish right.
The start is actually this push away.
Now a lot of us out there have what is called the incomplete push.
Let's look and see what this incomplete push looks like.
Notice its stance.
The foot is moving before the ball.
By that foot moving first, you'll notice the bent arm on the first step.
This is called an incomplete push.
Now you'll notice the ball continuing to go up after the first step.
Therefore on the second step, we're a long ways from that pro zone.
By being there on two, it is very difficult to get at the top of the swing on three.
Therefore you see this ball continuing to go up.
When that continues to go up, we end up there ahead of the ball, making us pull the ball
through.
In this case, causing her to come up on her toe.
This is called rearing up.
One is we've got to move the ball before the feet.
If we move at the same time, we might have an incomplete push.
The object of the push is so the weight can swing from the bowling shoulder to generate
a back swing.
This is how we get ball speed.
A lot of us have that incomplete push because we take the step before we move the bowling
ball.
The most common fault is taking that step before you move the ball.
There's a lot of other faults which we're going to talk about.
Point is if we move this ball first, push it possibly out and up a little bit, and as
it starts down, take the step.
Now this momentum coming down on one will allow us to get into what we call the pro
zone.
Ninety percent of the professional bowlers are in this area on the second step on a four
step approach, the third step on a five step approach.
So what we've got to do is get that ball moving.
Now some of us out there might be moving the ball at the same time, but you're possibly
stopping it.
Possibly the ball's too heavy or an improper ball fit.
The secret of bowling is not throwing a heavy ball.
Sometimes when we get older, that ball feels heavier.
I know that my ball feels heavier than it did ten years ago.
There's another thing that can keep this push from being completed.
If we put our left hand in front of the bowling ball and we push it out, you notice the left
arm goes straight and the right arm will not.
For example, if I held this ball in the center of my body and put my hand on both sides and
push straight out, my hands are the same length, my arms are the same length.
If I held this on the right hand side of her body and pushed this out, you notice my right
arm is longer than the left.
Therefore if this left hand stays on the ball too long, it will not allow this push way
to be completed.
Another thing is if you held the ball underneath and you lift the ball up, this can also cause
an incomplete push.
If you had it on top, all of a sudden it's not helping support the weight of this ball.
Therefore the arm is tense and therefore the arm does not get complete.
So the left hand has several reasons why we can't get it complete.
We have two purposes for the opposite bowling hand.
One to help support the weight at stance, the other is to get the push started.
Notice the opposite hand comes off the ball to allow that push to be complete.
What is a step?
A step is getting the foot under the body weight.
So therefore if we lean before we push, I have to take the step too soon.
Here's a little tip for those of you who are leaning causing this incomplete push.
If you'll flex your knees and put the weight back on your heels, and again put your rear
end back and your back tilted forward, I can wait all the time in the world to get this
push complete.
So here I don't have to take a step because my weight's back on my heels.
If we come up here on my toes, I must take the step too soon.
So a big key is to get that weight on the heels, get the ball moving as it starts down,
take the step.
What if I had a real short first step?
If I move the ball and feet at the same time and I took a real short first step, I still
don't have a chance to complete the push.
What we want to do is talk about the feet real briefly here because we're going to talk
about arm and feet coordinated together.
What we want to do on the size of the steps, the first step is the shortest, second step
a little bit longer, third step a little bit longer, fourth step longest of all.
Speed of steps, slow, faster, faster, fastest.
The object is to build the momentum as we're going to the approach.
Now let's just take a look at the footwork here.
Short, longer, longer, longest.
Okay and you notice the speed of the steps.
Slow, faster, faster, fastest.
The key is to build the momentum.
If we build the momentum, we'll get some ball speed.
If we didn't need to have ball speed, I'd teach you to stand at the foul line and roll
the ball.
The object of this approach is for us to go.
Now I know a lot of people say, well, my friend runs to the foul line.
Well if you got that ball moving, hey, Marshall Holman and Mark Roth go pretty fast to that
foul line and they're pretty good bowlers, aren't they?
So what we got to do is get some momentum.
Another thing that causes an incomplete push sometimes is following with the shoulders.
If I push the ball out and the shoulder goes forward, I have that incomplete push.
The object on that is we're going to visualize the arm as a wishbone.
We're going to push it out and keep the shoulder back.
See how I've separated the arm and shoulder?
See the difference?
I followed with the shoulder.
The object of the push is not to push it out as far as you can, it's to separate the ball
from the shoulder.
That's the big key.
Okay, now if we've worked on this push and we've got this push complete, that does not
necessarily mean we're going to still be in time.
I know several people that have this completely pushed out on one and they only go maybe 20,
30 degrees between one and two.
This would be called a muscled swing.
My definition of a muscled swing is using physical strength from not allowing the ball
to get into the swing.
Notice I've moved my ball before my feet, fairly good position on one, but by my left
hand staying on the ball, I'm way short of the pro zone on that second step.
By being there on two, you're going to notice my ball continue to go up after the third
step.
Therefore, I end up there ahead of the ball, which made me rotate the shoulders.
Now we're going to show you in split screen the correct way and the wrong way.
Bottom right correct, top left wrong.
Look at the difference in these pictures.
My good friend Freddie Borden once told me to have a nice, loose swing.
Let's take that word loose.
If you squeeze that word together and pop out one of the O's, the word now becomes lose.
Let's have a nice, loose swing and our scores will go up.
So the push away again is to generate the weight to swing from the bowling shoulder
to give us ball speed.
Now if we have this complete and we are still late on the second step, now let's define
that.
This again is the zone we'd like to be in on the second step with a four step approach,
the third step on a five step approach.
We'd like to get in this zone and I've nicknamed this zone the pro zone.
The pro zone because 90% of the pros are in this area.
Now we're not trying to make you all pros.
The point is if the pros are here, there must be a good reason for it.
So we want to get that ball into that area.
So if we have this straight and you hold the weight from coming down, we can't let it get
into that area.
So the object is to get your left hand off the ball as soon as possible so the weight
can free fall.
Let it swing from the shoulder.
Now this little technique of pushing out and up and as it starts down, take your step.
That momentum will force it into that pro zone.
Now one thing I want to explain and again we're probably going to tell you this several
times in this film.
Most people when they try this, their subconscious brain says oh my goodness that feels terrible
or that feels horrible or that feels weird and some other words I can't tell you that
have been told to me.
The point is we're going to change that word to different.
It's going to feel different.
If it felt the same, it wouldn't be any better.
So the object is to let it get into this zone.
Now if we are in this zone, now the ball will have a chance to get at the top of the swing
one step before the slide.
If we hold it from coming down, it cannot get into that zone.
Now for those of you who just can't get this push, you just can't get it complete, there's
another way for you to get into this zone and I've done this with a lot of my students
really helped.
First of all we'd like to try to do it with the arm, if we can we got to do it with the
feet.
Here's the technique I want you to possibly try.
If you still have the incomplete on one, if you'll keep your left heel for the right handed
bowlers on the floor longer, it will delay this step and that ball can still get into
this zone.
So try to keep your left heel on the floor longer, therefore it can still get into that
pro zone.
Some of you out there might want to try that trick.
Once we got the push complete and we got that ball into the pro zone, hopefully we're going
to have the ball at the top of the swing one step before the slide so everything's coming
through together.
Now the reason we want everything to come through together is because if you're there
ahead of the bowling ball and we're pulling that ball through, it can make us lean forward
during release.
This leaning forward was caused by what we call chain reaction.
Notice the incomplete push on one, laid on two, which we automatically know is going
to give us late timing.
She is there ahead of the ball forcing her to lean forward.
Or it can cause us to rotate the shoulders.
These things that really hurt our accuracy.
Now I want to explain one thing about sports.
For those of you out there play golf, and if you don't play golf, I'm going to tell
you one about baseball that I know all of you would know.
In golf, the object of golf is to have a firm left side.
You watch them pro golfers on TV, you don't see them doing this.
That's called the sway in golf.
Baseball, everybody watches the World Series or most of you do.
You'll see the player lean in, but when that bat hits the ball, this does not move.
Same thing in bowling.
We want a stationary shoulder during release.
If everything comes through together, we're hopefully going to have this stationary shoulder.
If you're there ahead of the ball and we've got to pull this ball through, again we get
rotation or we lean forward.
We're going to try to show you a couple little tips to try to get you into this position.
Again, if you've been out of time and you lean or you rotate, that subconscious wants
you to do that all the time.
Once we get into time, there's some certain things that we're going to have to do to try
to correct this problem.
One little tip is the bottom half of the body.
If we go into the slide and take the top of our right toe and roll onto the top, it'll
allow this top to be on the floor, the knee comes in towards this heel, keep a fairly
straight line from the back through the thigh, we will not rotate or lean forward with the
shoulder.
Now I'm going to show you this in slow motion.
I'm going to take my approach and I want you to watch the right foot.
We take and we push it out, roll onto the top of the toe.
See how I rolled onto the top of the toe, brought the knee cap in towards the heel,
fairly straight line from back through thigh, therefore we can keep a stationary shoulder
during release.
Now I'll do it in regular motion here and hopefully you can see the difference.
We want to keep the right knee in towards the heel.
Now we can have balance and we rotate.
First of all, I'll give you a couple of mental thoughts how to keep that shoulder in a stationary
position during release.
Some of us out there who wear bifocals, the reason you lean forward is you can't see your
spot through the bottom part of your glasses, it makes you lean forward with your head.
What we would like for you to think possibly is to get a pair of bowling glasses.
I don't really think you can be a very good bowler bowling in bifocals because it makes
us lean forward causing a movement of the shoulder.
One little mental thought possibly is to look at your spot through the bridge of your nose
in peripheral vision instead of the top of your eyebrows.
Another one possibly is to put a baseball cap on, pull the bill down to the eyebrows
and if you lean forward you can't see your spot so it makes you keep your chin up.
Another one possibly is think there's a high jump bar across here, if you lean forward
you're going to knock it over.
Now I'm going to use the assistance here of Jerelyn Edwards who works for me at the professional
bowling camps and I'm going to show you a little technique we use at the camps.
Jerelyn, she's going to throw the ball and what I'm going to do is have my hand under
her chin, my fingers under her chin and I'm going to keep her from leaning forward.
Now I want you to watch the back and the shoulders during the release.
See how she kept in a stationary position, see the shoulders now behind the knee where
we can get some leverage.
I'm going to show you one more demonstration when you talk about leverage.
First of all this is how this all started.
In the old days a lot of you saw in the bowling center it says please do not loft the ball.
So therefore a lot of people said well for me not to loft the ball I better lean forward
so I can lay the ball onto the foul line, on the lane.
Look that's as high as I can follow through with my back leaning forward.
Now I want you to notice that I can lay it on the lane here, have my hand close to foul
line, now watch.
I'm going to get in this position, now you'll notice I can follow through.
Now to relay this, leverage, basically this is helping your leverage and your accuracy.
If I lean forward right now and try to pick up this chair, I'll be honest with you I can't
pick it up, if I get into a leverage position, shoulder behind my knee, that chair is light.
I can actually pick that chair up.
Now a lot of you might want to try this at home.
Leverage is a big secret to the game of bowling.
Another reason why we want to be in time is if you're there ahead of the bowling ball
and you have to pull this through, it can cause us to rotate the shoulders.
Now notice how my right shoulder went in front of the left.
One of the most accurate bowlers in the history of pro bowling is Earl Anthony and I want
a lot of you to stop and think where his opposite bowling arm was.
He kept his opposite bowling arm stationary during release like this.
Therefore he did not rotate the shoulders.
A little trick you might want to try, and it's really helped a lot of people, is to
possibly think that we're going to push against an invisible glass shield with the palm of
the opposite bowling hand during release.
Notice I did not rotate my shoulders as much.
This will really help our accuracy.
The theory on pushing forward with this opposite bowling hand is it helps prevent the left
shoulder from pulling back.
Therefore we have a lot better chance of being square shoulders during the release.
Please key in on that opposite bowling hand.
Notice it stayed fairly stationary and notice how square the shoulders are.
Here we're going to show a split screen of the correct way and the wrong way.
Bottom right we see square shoulders.
Top left, them shoulders are closed.
Now we're going to talk a little bit about the five step approach.
We've been talking about four steps.
On five steps we want the push to be completed on the second step.
So we can be in the pro zone on three, therefore we can be at the top of the swing on four.
Now I'm going to demonstrate a couple examples.
One holding it low, we see the complete push on two, therefore we have fairly good timing.
The next one is if you hold it high.
We're going to try to move the ball at the same time as the first step so that push can
be complete.
We get this push complete, our scores can go up.
Okay now when we talk about accuracy, we're going to give you some big keys.
The first key to accuracy is ball position at stance.
The second key to accuracy is shoulder position at stance.
We have these shoulders closed or open.
The third key is the direction of this push away.
In other words, if we push it straight, it has a chance to come straight back.
If we push this ball to the right, now the ball tends to get behind the back.
If you push the ball to the left, the ball would tend to go wide.
Now there's certain types of swings that will allow for these types of push aways.
We're just explaining them right now.
The other big key I think is the direction the ball comes back into the backswing.
If this ball comes behind the back early, this is the position for an in out swing,
but if we square those shoulders at the top, it's what we call pops the ball out, pops
the swing wide, and this can cause us to pull a shot.
What actually happens in this type of swing is we have the ball over here in line with
the shoulder possibly, but as it passes the hip, the shoulder opens and the ball gets
behind the back.
As we get near the top, we square the shoulders early, which pops the ball out.
Let me show you what that would look like from back view.
We have it here as it passes the hip, the shoulders open, as we get near the top, we
square the shoulders and the ball pops out.
Now usually the follow through goes left.
So the big correction here is a little secret I think Pete Weber's got at the best of anyone
on Pro Bowlers Tour.
What he does with his opposite bowling arm.
Now we've already talked about Earl Anthony keeping his opposite bowling arm stationary
throughout the release area.
This keeps him from rotating the shoulders.
Pete Weber and many other players do this when they project the ball left to right and
you see it on Pro Bowlers Tour, the ball way out there on those outside boards and it just
comes screaming back.
What he does is on the downswing, he opens the shoulders more.
This keeps his ball from being popped out.
Therefore it's kind of like a tuck swing.
In other words a tuck swing or a loop swing is the opposite of a pop out and a reverse
loop.
So basically wherever we have the ball here, if we was to open the shoulders more on the
down, it lets the ball tuck in.
So it comes back and then we open the shoulders.
Now the ball's going to be close to the ankle and we're going to have a real good trust
on that follow through.
So if we have the problem of the ball popping out, let's concentrate on keeping the shoulders
square or longer.
Let the ball come back and then at the top we're going to open the shoulders.
Try this tip.
I think it's going to help you.
Okay, the sidearm swing.
This first of all explains what it is, what causes it and how to cure it.
The main cause for a sidearm swing is people hold the ball in the center of their body.
Now if our chin was our shoulder and we was going to throw it between the legs, this would
be the proper place to hold it.
They hold it in the center of the body, so therefore they have to push the ball to the
right.
Now when they push the ball to the right, it opens their shoulders.
We'll show you side view.
If I take and push this to the right, my shoulders open.
Now when the ball passes the hip, by the shoulders going open, the ball gets way behind the back,
usually behind the left shoulder.
Now I'm going to show you from back view what that would look like.
Ball in center of the body.
I push it to the right and the ball comes way behind my back.
Now I'm trapped.
Now there's only one other place the ball could go.
I got to wrap it back the other way.
And when I wrap it back the other way, it gets away from the ankle and usually the follow
through goes left.
Now the problem with the sidearm swing, if you could let go of the ball exactly at the
same time every time, you could get by with the sidearm swing.
But if I release the ball early, my arm is going to the right, the ball will go to the
right.
And if I hang on to the ball and follow through left and let go of the ball late, the ball
now goes nose or Brooklyn.
So therefore, let's look at the corrections for the sidearm swing.
Number one correction would be move the ball in line with their bowling shoulder.
Number two correction, we don't want to push it to the right.
We want to push it straight.
So the toughest correction is keeping the ball from coming way behind the back.
So here's something some of you people out there with sidearm swings might want to try
to help you.
When the ball is pushed straight out and comes back, if you will bring both arms back at
the same time, now I can't wrap the ball behind my back.
Now let me demonstrate.
If I take this and move it in line with my shoulder, push it out and bring both arms
back, you'll notice now my ball cannot get behind my back.
Notice the difference.
If my arm shoulders open, the ball gets way behind the back.
So therefore, in fact, I'll tell you the truth, this is how I would teach bowling if the lane
was wide enough is to push it out with both hands swing, both arms back and both arms
through.
The main reason why we don't teach it that way is the lane is only 39 boards wide and
if we want to throw a hook, it's very difficult to get some head projection.
So therefore, this basic of bringing both arms back will minimize the ball coming from
behind the back, will not allow this shoulder open as much.
Bring both arms back and both arms through.
Now most people that sidearm it automatically try to wrap it around to get it around their
hip and their leg.
So that would be our next correction.
If you bring both arms back and bring both arms through, remember the sidearm is we pull
the left arm back.
See the difference?
If you bring both arms through, this will keep our shoulders fairly square, which will
help our accuracy.
Now we're going to look at another bad swing called the out and swing.
You notice we did not see the ball at stance.
The ball was held in the center of the body.
As it passes the hip by keeping those square shoulders, the ball now gets wide of the bowling
shoulder.
Despite it being wide, we're also going to see a long waist from the ankle, which can
cause this follow through to go left.
The out and swing, we start again the same place as the sidearm, ball in center of the
body.
But this time instead of pushing it to the right, we push it out straight.
Now all of a sudden our body's in the way of the ball.
So what actually happens is the ball goes wide of the hip.
Now here's the big difference between an out in and a sidearm.
The out in, the shoulders stay square, therefore the ball does not go behind the back.
It goes out.
Now the problem is with the shoulders in this position, if the weight of the ball now swings
from the shoulder, it is now going from out to in and the follow through goes to the left.
On this type of swing to correct, what we're actually going to do is number one correction,
we're going to move the ball again in line with the bowling shoulder.
This time if we push straight out and let the weight swing straight back, straight through,
we can now have a straight swing.
For those of you who want to develop a little more hook, what we will do is push it straight
out as it comes by the hip, we're now going to open the shoulder a little bit.
This will keep that ball from going way out here.
This will give us this type of effect, possibly a little bit of tuck so we can follow through
this way.
So the corrections again, let's talk about them again.
Move that ball in line with the shoulder.
As the ball passes the hip, we're now going to open the shoulder a little bit.
As the ball comes through, square shoulders, straight follow through.
Let's get rid of that follow through to the left.
Now one of the most important things I think to accuracy is where is the ball at the bottom
of the swing.
In other words, what we want to try to do is get that ball close to the ankle and possibly
have this ball under the shoulder or slightly inside the shoulder.
If this ball is wide of the shoulder at release or at the bottom of the swing, it usually
causes bad accuracy.
I'd say the main reason most people have the ball a long ways from the ankle is on the
last step they tend to step to the left, step out of the shot.
What we want to do to get the ball close to the ankle is think of a couple things.
First of all, if I thought that my sliding foot come under my bowling shoulder, therefore
my knee mentally would be thinking in the center of my body.
This will give us good balance.
What is balance?
Balance is weight distributed between two points.
For example, if I spread my feet here, I have my weight between my two feet.
If I was to get the side view position like we showed you earlier, we see that we have
this balance.
Balance from back view or front view would be the same thing.
If I want to bring this foot into the center of my body or the knee in the center of my
body, I can now have balance.
So that's one reason why people have a long ways from the ankle is on the last step they
do not bring the knee in.
Another thing that can cause the ball to be a long ways from the ankle is that dreaded
sidearm swing we talked about earlier.
If this ball gets behind the back, it now has to clear the hip and this causes the ball
to be wide at the bottom of the swing.
And remember we told you on this sidearm swing, if we release the ball early, the ball misses
a head pin on the right.
If we hang on to the ball too long, it misses the head pin on the left or goes nose or Brooklyn.
These are big keys to accuracy.
Another thing that can cause the ball to be a long ways from the ankle is if we have a
raised bowling shoulder at the top of the swing.
Now our weight is to the left of our, next to the last step, which makes a slide to the
left again causing the ball to be a long ways from the ankle.
There's many, many reasons for this.
We've got to try to find out how to cure your ball being away from the ankle so the accuracy
can go up.
Now a lot has to do with body construction.
The perfect bowler, if you had to build a robot, would be a bowler with very wide shoulders
and very narrow hips.
In fact, 20 years ago when accuracy was a premium on Pro Bowlers Tour, 15 of the top
20 money winners were underweight.
I used to be one of those.
Not anymore.
The point is whatever our body construction, that's what we're going to do.
When we talk about if you happen to be real wide here in the chest area or possibly the
hips, we actually, as we come in, if we bring the foot in and drop the shoulder a little
bit, this will allow the hip to get out of the way.
If we have level shoulders as we're coming into the release, we can't get that ball under
our shoulder or inside the shoulder.
So if we're a little wide in this area, we might try a little trick that we're going
to do on the next to last step.
On the next to last step, a lot of you have the ball a long waist or ankle pasta because
you're stepping to the right.
And again, if you step to the right on the next to last step, our body weight is the
left of this foot, which makes us now step to left on the last step.
So some of you might want to try this little trick on the next to last step.
Act like we're going to bring this foot over into maybe what we're going to think a tight
rope.
Maybe we're going to walk on a tight rope.
And we got to bring our right foot in front of our left.
So now our sliding foot can come in so the ball can be under the shoulder.
This actually lets this leg get out of the way.
Now we're going to show you a little trick a lot of the pros do, and that's curling this
knee in.
And we're going to demonstrate this for you right now.
When we talk about curling the right knee, remember earlier in the tape when we talked
about dragging the top of the right toe forward during the slide?
This allows that right knee to bend.
Well, if we are able to get in that position, we can do now what's called curling the knee
in.
Once you notice the ball at the top of the swing and as it starts down, it looks like
I'm going to hit my right leg with the ball.
But what actually happens here by curling the knee to the left, it allows this ball
to pass.
Now we're going to see the ball is going to be nice and close to the ankle, which really
is going to help our accuracy plus our leverage.
Okay, the first swing we want to talk about is the straight swing, and a lot of you out
there will probably want to try to get this type of swing.
Let's first of all talk about the setup.
We want square shoulders.
We want to have the ball in line with the bowling shoulder.
The direction of the push away will be straight.
The ball will come straight back, and as we get near the top, if you want to open the
shoulders slightly to get a backswing, we want the ball in line with the bowling shoulder.
And we're going to have them shoulders in a stationary position.
The ball will be under the bowling shoulder at release, and we're going to have the good
straight follow through with extension.
That's called the straight swing.
And this is probably the simplest of all the swings, and it's a very, very accurate swing.
Here's an example of a straight swing in slow motion.
Again, a key to raising our scores is to increase our accuracy, and basically that's what we're
doing with this film, is trying to get you some accuracy points that can improve your
score.
Now, let's talk about another type of swing.
In other words, if you want to throw more of a hook, we really don't want a straight
swing.
We want to have a swing that will project out to allow for a hook.
Well, let's take a swing like Marshall Holman has.
He has what we call an in-out swing.
You notice Marshall Holman does not have square shoulders at stance.
He starts with open shoulders, okay?
So he's going to have the ball slightly to the right with open shoulders.
Now, this type of swing will have a push that's slightly to the right, and it will continue
on that line, which will be slightly inside the bowling shoulder in the backswing.
And therefore, as it comes down, it's going to be slightly inside the shoulder at release,
and the follow-through will come up.
This is called the in-out swing.
Here's the in-out swing in slow motion.
Now, probably the most common swing on Pro Bowlers Tour is what we call the tuck swing.
Now, the tuck swing is the same setup as a straight swing.
We start with square shoulders, ball in line with shoulder, and we're going to push the
ball out straight.
It's going to come back straight, but at the top of the swing, we are now going to open
the shoulders.
When we open the shoulders, it will bring the ball in, what we call tuck the swing in.
Therefore, the downswing will feed in-out.
This will allow for a hook.
Here's the tuck swing.
Notice the head projection.
Now, another swing that you might see on Pro Bowlers Tour is called the loop swing.
Now, the loop swing and the tuck swing, I call them cousins because they're very, very
similar.
The only difference between a loop swing and a tuck swing is a loop swing will come slightly
outside an imaginary straight line and will open, and it will again tuck in, therefore
feeding in-out.
The stance is a little bit different.
Stance we're going to close the shoulders slightly, and we're going to have the ball
slightly inside the bowling shoulder at stance, possibly push slightly left, and the ball
will come slightly out, and then we're going to open the shoulders, and the ball's going
to tuck in, and we're going to feed the ball to allow for our hook.
Here is the loop swing.
Notice the difference between the loop and the tuck.
Now these are the good swings.
Now let me tell you something how I developed my bowling game, and again, we're not trying
to make you a robot.
I saw this bowler, and I liked what he did, so I picked, say, his knee bend, and I saw
another bowler, and I said, boy, I really like his follow through, and the other guy
is, boy, I really like the way he lets go of the ball.
What we want to do is build your own game.
We don't want to copy somebody's game because you know what?
Nobody does everything right.
Now that's very important that everybody understand that out there.
Nobody does everything right.
Now the man upstairs might do everything right.
I don't know if he bowls or not, but if he bowled, he would definitely do everything
right.
What we do is we list the person's assets and their liabilities.
The pro bowlers you see on television a lot, their assets actually overcome some of their
liabilities, and we can't do everything perfect, okay?
We're human beings, so what we want to try to do is develop our own game by picking maybe
one or two of these things out of this film and implementing it into your game.
Now some of you who are watching this obviously on your Betamax or VHS player possibly might
have a camera.
Go to your lanes, set up your camera so you can see what kind of swing you have, see what
kind of timing you have.
This will be very, very important for those of you who have that equipment.
Okay, here's another important subject on accuracy, and this is the follow-through.
Basically we'd like to have the follow-through go the same direction as the downswing.
Now let's talk about a couple of different good follow-throughs, and then we're going
to talk about some bad follow-throughs.
If we're going to be a stroker, the key to a follow-through is what I call extension.
If we have the arm extend out, up, and through your spot.
Now over-extension would mean trying to reach to your spot.
Now again, that's when them shoulders rotate and we can lose our accuracy.
To get this extension, if we bring this part of our arm up first, this will follow.
The key is to extend out, up, and through your spot.
If we try to reach to our spot, that is now called over-extension, and this is when we
get those rotation of shoulders.
This makes us actually push the ball down the lane instead of lift it.
Out, up, and through, not to.
Okay now a lot of the crankers have what we call the urethane follow-through.
They have the elbow in and they bend their arm in this manner.
Those are the ones that really crank that ball.
They accelerate with their hand and fingers and get that big lift on the ball.
So let's pick one of those two types of follow-throughs out.
Now I'm going to tell you the worst follow-through in the game of bowling.
It's what we call the flying elbow, the chicken wing, and when we do it on tour we call it
a lot worse than that.
What actually happens if you release the ball early and fly the elbow, the ball can actually
go wide of your spot and miss the head pin.
If you hang on to the ball and fly the elbow, the ball now goes in the nose in Brooklyn.
In other words, it gives us bad accuracy.
So this reach through that spot.
Now what is flying the elbow is actually arm turning the bowling ball.
See this?
I've arm turned the ball.
The elbow goes wide of the shoulder, the hand goes left of the shoulder.
What we want to try to do in bowling is to keep a square forearm.
If we keep a square forearm, then we can wrist turn the ball.
If my forearm is square, I can't fly the elbow.
If I roll the forearm, there it is.
And again, this is really hurting a lot of people's accuracy out there.
So this is one thing we really want to concentrate.
If we get some more accuracy, our scores got to go up.
Now another couple of follow-throughs that are bad is called the veer.
We do not want this arm to go straight sideways.
What actually happens on the veer is if the ball is still in her hand and this arm starts
to go sideways, it makes our lay down point further to the right and you can actually
hit your spot and go in the nose or Brooklyn.
So let's reach out, up, and through that spot.
Another bad follow-through is what we call follow-through left.
If we rotate those shoulders, the whole arm goes to the left, therefore we can usually
tend to pull the ball, especially if your hand is still in the bowling ball.
So basically what we'd like to do is if we're going to throw some hook, let's try to get
the arm slightly to the right of the bowling shoulder.
Again, a lot of this is going to depend on her downswing, which follow-through we pick.
Let's talk about some balance, front view and back view.
A good finishing position, let's start with the foot.
We would like to have the foot straight ahead towards our target, towards the pins.
On Pro Bowler's Tour you'll see some of these players get their foot turned sideways.
It's actually fairly straight coming in and they have so much leverage and so much lift
that it turns their whole body sideways.
Then also on Pro Bowler's Tour you'll see what we call the stroker, what we call the
post position.
For example, Nelson Burton Jr., Mike Durbin, they turn the foot the other way a little
bit.
Basically we'd like to have the foot straight ahead.
Good knee bend, hips, shoulders and for some of you to have a tendency of really dropping
the shoulder.
If we severely drop the shoulder it makes us fall off balance to the right or if we
lean to the right so much it can make us hop to the right.
What we want to do for those of you who have that problem is just take the opposite hand
and use it as a counter balance.
On the downswing when the ball's coming down what we want to do is push down real hard
with the left hand and it will minimize some of this shoulder drop.
Big asset in bowling is to have a stationary shoulder during the release.
Like I say everybody drops it a little bit.
Let's talk about side view balance a little bit.
We want the weight distributed between two points.
We want a good knee bend, we'd like to try to get the foot on the floor and try to get
the knee down so our weight can be between these two points.
A fairly straight line from the back through the thigh and remember that little trick we
talked about the left hand, push slightly forward so therefore we keep our shoulder
square and a nice good follow through.
When you get in this good finishing position our score should go up.
This wrist, a lot of people ask me what am I supposed to do with this wrist?
This is a cupped wrist position and you'll see a lot of the big crankers on Pro Bowlers
Tour with this position.
First of all we've got to be pretty strong to be a cranker.
So a lot of us out here, let's try to get a firm wrist.
This is a straight wrist.
Now the collapsed wrist, again you might see some bowlers do it on a hooking lane, again
an advanced variable, basically we want a firm wrist.
What about a grip of the ball?
A lot of times people will squeeze the bowling ball at stance.
We want to act like we're holding a bird.
If you squeeze that bird you're going to kill it.
So if you don't grip the bird at all it's going to fly away.
Now a lot of people ask me how heavy of a ball should I use?
We got a couple general rules that we use at Charles Knights Bowl in Las Vegas where
I'm the host pro.
One is possibly 10 percent of your weight, for example if we had 120 pounds we should
be throwing a 12 pound ball.
Another one is we extend the arm out, place the ball in the iron, and if we can hold it
extended the ball is too light.
So we keep going up a pound and when you can't hold it anymore that's the weight we want
to use.
So try a couple of those things if you think your ball is too heavy.
When we talk about ball fit this is a very important subject.
For example some of you might have this incomplete push or this muscle swing because the holes
are not the right size or the span is too long or too short.
I'm going to show you a little demonstration that we do at Charles Knights Bowl and I'm
going to use the aid of Ray who works for our bowling camps and we want to show you
a little technique that we use to determine if the size of the thumb hole is proper.
Now what Ray is going to do is stick his hand in the ball and we're going to collapse his
wrist.
Now we're going to have Ray open up the hand and if this thumb hole is proper fit this
ball should stay on his hand.
Okay Ray open up your hand.
Okay now he's got his hand open the ball will not come up.
All I'm going to do is push on the back of the hand and watch the ball come right out
of his hand.
All we did was firm up the wrist and when we talk about lift what is lift is time differential
between when the thumb comes out and the fingers comes out.
If we come in with a collapsed wrist the thumb and fingers are the same distance from the
shoulder.
If we come in and have a firm wrist the ball falls off of the thumb onto the fingers but
if we have a real big thumb hole that makes us squeeze the bowling ball all of a sudden
now we hang up in the ball and we don't get lift we end up with loft.
So try this little technique and if your thumb hole is too big all we do is add tape to the
back of the thumb hole.
Now let's define the back of the thumb hole.
The back of the thumb hole does not mean going towards your fingers.
If you'll notice your thumb is angled slightly to the right side of your fingers for the
right handed bowlers to the left side for the left handed bowlers.
So what we do is add tape in the back of the thumb hole to fill that hole front to back.
If you'll look at your thumb you'll notice most of your thumbs are not round they're
more oval.
So we're going to make the hole oval shaped by tightening up the back of the thumb hole.
On Pro Bowlers Tour you see a lot of those bowlers taking tape out putting tape in.
Our thumb expands and it shrinks and the more we get this tight the more we can flex that
hand.
Now that we've seen all these tips the key is let's pick one of them and work on it.
Once we get it where it becomes automatic then we can try something else.
One thing we have to do before these things can help us and that's practice.
Now practice does not mean bowling your three games in league.
We have a term that we use you bowl best when you think less.
So we can't be concentrating on these things in your league.
Do that in your practice sessions okay.
Once we get one down where it's automatic then we go to something else.
The main thing is to enjoy yourself and have a good time okay.
For those of you who still have some questions maybe we haven't answered here yet you want
to drop me a line I'll be more than happy to answer you.
Hopefully some of you might want to take some bowling lessons come to one of our bowling
camps or possibly even our advanced bowling school.
For this information I will give you my address try to stay in touch hopefully our scores
are going to go up.
Thank you.