Bowling with Leverage
by David A. Leverage
David A. Leverage is a Former exempt PBA Player, Silver level certified coach,
an ASU Bowling Alumni member, A 6 time PBA titleist, has (40) 300 games
and owns 2 Phoenix area Pro Shops.
The importance of a long and loose armswing
During all of the lessons that I give each week, the one thing I see on a very frequent basis is that many bowlers do not possess a loose long armswing. Instead what I tend to see a lot of, is people tend to control the ball too much in the swing. In the short oil days of the 80"s, people would really "muscle" the ball and hit up on the ball. This causes many problems in today's game. The problem with a swing that you are controlling, is that it's very very difficult to repeat that same swing over and over in the exact same way. Thus it makes it hard to repeat shot after shot on a consistent basis. This is why on a given night you may shoot 165 205 135. Has this ever happened to you? Well if you have a controlled armswing I can almost be certain this has in fact happened to you on one or more occasions.
So now that we have identified the problem, how do we fix it? The key is to create a pendullum armswing. Imagine for a minute that your arm was a string and at the end of this string was a bowling ball. If you were to hold that bowling ball out in front of you and simply let it drop, what would happen? Gravity would kick in and the ball would fall and swing behind you and would continue back towards the pins much like the armswing would. The key here is to simply push the ball out and let it swing "freely" and "loosely" and let Gravity do its thing. Gravity if you may recall, makes an object fall at a rate of 9.8 meters per second. They key here is that gravity is the SAME each and every time. Whereas your controlled armswing is going to travel at different rates each and everytime.
On the good nights your swing will be pretty close, but on your bad nights there will be a large discrepency between shots or a discrepency from game to game thus making you a very inconsistent bowler from game to game or from week to week. The next time you are watching the PBA Tour on ESPN, note how the players all push the ball straight out and let the ball drop into their collective armswings and simply let the ball swing freely on each and every shot. People like Michael Fagan, Mika Koivuniemi, Patrick Allen, Walter Ray Williams, Pete Weber and many others all possess very nice long and loose arswings. This is why you see these guys on television on a consistent basis. This is also why you see Chris Barnes have trouble on television as well. He is by far the best bowler in the world right now. However when the tv lights and cameras are on, his swing is not as loose and his marginal shots do not strike like they do during the week when his swing is a little looser. So see.... it can happen to just about anybody.
If you control your armswing you will have less control over your scores!
One shot at a time...One thought at a time
Whenever you practice something in order to get better it is important to not overload the brain with too many things to think about. The next time you try to change something about your game, just do one thing and one thing only. For instance if your follow through is what you are trying to get better at, do not try tpo add something else to work on at the same time. In my many years of coaching experience, I have found that when a bowler focuses on one thing at a time their success is muc much greater in accomplishing the change. If you are thinking about multiple things on the approach you will be a mental basketcase and you will most likely become "robotic" in your approach as well. You will become too mechanical which will in turn slow your progress. So remember one shot at a time...one thought at a time.
Thank you to all of the people who have been emailing in real questions and ideas for upcoming articles. We always appreciate any and all input as we are always aspiring to help and educate bowlers so they can knock down more pins. As always you may email me at: daveleverage@yahoo.com.
"TEXT the Coach" As a new feature if you are having a problem and need a quick answer to that problem, send me a text message during your next practice session, league session, or tournament and I will do my best to reply in a timely manner. Text to 6025505788.