All of us have had to deal with this from time to time. It's when you throw the ball down the lane and you don't get the reaction you expected. Perhaps you leave a washout. You turn in amazement walking back on the approach embarrassed to have had such a horrible reaction. You say to yourself, I'll move outside. You make an attempt at the spare but miss. Disappointment. You move outside and aghast, you take 3 pins off the corner. Your eyes open wide as you point the ball toward the pocket and again open. The game seems to be flying by now and all you do is get bad reaction after bad reaction. You're numb. Your hands get clammy. Your heart races. You're now bowling scared. In the blink of an eye, you've shot a very low score.


Anyone remember the movie, The Replacements? Shane Falco played a quarterback on a football team and at a meeting, the coach asked the players what they feared most? The best answer came from Shane:


"You're playing and you think everything is going fine. Then one thing goes wrong. And then another. And another. You try to fight back, but the harder you fight, the deeper you sink. Until you can't move... you can't breathe... because you're in over your head. Like quicksand."


As far as I can see, adjustment skills aren't practiced very much. Most people don't know how to practice them, or even what changes they could or should do. What we're talking about is the spice of bowling. To most, spice is merely salt and pepper if we make a comparison to cooking; salt would be your equipment and pepper would be the alignment. Move your feet or change balls. Too much salt and it tastes bad. Too much pepper, same thing. But seasoning to a chef is a endless combination of spices. 


I remember a scene in an animated movie, "Ratatouille." One character was trying to teach the other about what things taste like together. The scene basically says that you eat two fairly ordinary foods together, they meld into a new tasty bite. That's the same as when you make adjustments. Most people change one thing and usually it's very small. You change the ball and stand in the same spot or keep the same ball in your hands and move a board or two. What happens is basically nothing. It's a pinch of salt into a gallon of sauce. If your reaction was horrible, do you think that another ball or a couple boards is going to give you a huge motion change? Sometimes. But lane conditions are constantly changing and you may not be changing fast enough. You need to be decisive, perhaps substantial. That takes focus, trust, confidence, and experience.


Since house conditions are usually consistent, they limit the changes you have to make to your game. Bowlers bring one or two balls to league, stand about the same place. look at the same target and throw it their usual way. Not much moving needed to find the area which provides your strikes. So like miniature golf, you've got error built into your game from those predictable lane conditions. It's when that shot breaks down and your ball reaction changes, that you must change as well. But what do you change? On challenge or sport conditions, this happens very early. Sometimes that bad feeling we talked about is there during practice. Maybe that's why more people aren't especially interested in tougher condition leagues because it quickly shows your short comings; your ability to adapt.


What I would like to do is write a series of articles which I call the What, Where and How's of bowling. They encapsulate the equipment, alignment and physical game characteristics that make changes to your ball motion. Everything you do to alter your ball reaction is in one of these three categories. As you read them, I want you to think about what you could do when you encounter your own quicksand. Practice those adjustments that interest you so they can open up new doors in your game. Think of it as a wake up call to complex moves so you can avoid those monster low scores.

It should go without saying that proper spare shooting techniques, that were covered in a previous article, should be mastered to the best of your abilities. After all, you're here because your scores are low and you probably just missed two or three make able spares along the way.


The What


Bowling balls are basically divided into 4 categories from each of these characteristics:

Dull or Shiny and Arc or Snap.

Category 1 - Dull and Arc. This can be a Vital Sign, Pure Physics, Plague, 715T, or Prodigy. The surface has texture so the ball wants to skid less, roll earlier and react smoother in the backends.

Category 2 - Dull and Snap. This can be the Mission 2.0, Virtual Gravity, 920A or Swagga. These are duller balls designed to clear the front but have the power to make a strong move down the lane.


Category 3 - Shiny and Snap. This includes the Trap, Anarchy, 607A, Game On, Reign, Freeze or Vibe. These products want to skid longer saving most of their energy for down the lane and want to change directions quickly to enhance the angle toward the pocket.

Category 4 - Shiny and Arc. These would include the 300C, Game Plan, Burst, 2Fast or Curve Ball. These products clear the front part well but tend to be smoother down the lane.

By no means is this a complete list. There are dozens of excellent balls on the market. It's also important to mention that surface changes can move these products from one category to another. A shiny Mission 2.0 moves from the dull/snap to the shiny/snap category while taking a 607A and lightly sanding the surface will get it to skid less and move to the dull/snap category.

To have a balanced bag, a bowler should strive to have all their bases covered and limit multiple pieces built for the same category. It's so common these days for a bowler to want products that go long and want to flip strong but when conditions don't call for this motion, they're in trouble. In that bowling bag should also be a plastic ball. What are you going to shoot spares with?

Anyone a Jim Cramer fan? He's the investment guy on CNBC and on Wednesday he has a segment called, "Are you diversified?"  Well, are you?  I've included to the left and on the main page an image. Through that you can email me the top bowling balls in your bag and I'll make a recommendation on what you might change or what kind of piece you're missing.

So in terms of equipment, we need diversity to tackle different parts of the lane, hook at different distances and match up to changes in the lane conditions; that's balance and a big piece toward staying out of bowling's quicksand.

My next article will be on alignment and how you might attack lanes differently.

The most neglected faucet of the bowling game these days is spare shooting. High performance balls, synthetic lane surfaces and the daily strip/oil machine has playing conditions so consistent that people are far more focused on throwing strikes than shooting spares.

I run a Kegel league and on the tough, torturous conditions, spares win games. You basically need to keep the ball in play and make spares. I'm also an assistant coach of an NCAA college team, Sacred Heart University. We constantly work on each player's spare game because making the nationals is all about closing boxes on challenging lane conditions.  Those of you who have made it to the national tournament also know how common it is to miss easy make-able spares.


It seems that most people now-a-days hook at everything except a 10 pin. If you can't predict when, where and how much a ball is going to hook, you shouldn't use your strike ball to make spares. Lots of us gamble at making spares with this method submitting to the trend of making most spares today and missing a few too many tomorrow. It should never be a bad day to make spares.

Truth be told, there's little art to spare shooting; it's mostly science. The old 3-6-9 revisited. Most of us have heard of this system but do we truly commit to this tried and true method, to convert 90% or more of our spares?

I use plastic for close to every spare I shoot at. If you don't own one, I would strongly consider this golf equivalent of the putter. It's low friction and ultra weak core allows this system to work on virtually every lane condition. Those who feel that lugging an extra ball around is a waste of a spot in a bowling bag, will probably find their average a tad lower at the end of the year.

Most people need to mellow out on the second shots. Lane conditions have bowlers so torqued up on speed, turn and hit for their first ball that accuracy has long been traded off for power. Spare shooting is based on accuracy so being relaxed and releasing the ball smoothly with forward roll is essential. We also need the ball to rotate from front to back like a basketball rolling down the court. Side spin makes the ball change direction so we want none of that. Speed isn't a premium either. Balance, letting the ball roll of your hand and accurately hitting the target; that's the proper technique.

Now that you have the right flavor for releasing the ball with the most accuracy, now it's time for alignment. If you stand lets say 35 and hit the 20 board for a 10 pin, the first thing we need to know is if your ball hits the belly of the 10 pin or covers the 6-10 pocket. This is key to having the highest margin of error. To have an accurate spare chart, we need to know where the ball ends up down in the pin deck. If you left a 5 pin, you would want to hit the center of the pin, wouldn't you? Of course. If you left a 3-6, you would want the ball to be in the 3-6 pocket. So every spare is either into the belly of a pin or flush in a pocket.

If you hit the belly of the 10 pin for your spare, we need to add some boards so that the ball hits the nearest pocket. There are 6 pockets to shoot for listed below. You need to add 1.5 boards to move your ball from the belly of the 10 pin to the 6-10 pocket. Then each additional pocket is 3 boards to the right with your feet.

The chart below will give you the math for the system. 1 target/6 standing spots. This is easy stuff.

Basic Spare Chart:

Spare  Stand  Look   Feet

  10        35      20

6-10      33.5    20   1.5R

3-6       30.5     20   4.5R

1-3       27.5     20   7.5R

1-2       24.5     20   10.5R

2-4       21.5     20   13.5R

4-7       18.5     20   16.5R

  7         17       20    18R

You can create a second path for the 7 pin and move 3 boards left for each pin or pocket but I basically use one target and rotate my feet about it. 18 boards from 10 to 7 pin. So I would stand between 17 and 35 for every possible spare I could leave.

So to sum up, spares are about relaxing your physical game. Speed, revs, finger pressure, axis rotation and lift aren't what's necessary here. Think about taking 20% of your power off your first ball and funneling it into hitting your target. If you don't use a plastic ball for your spares, I would suggest you buy one; and with practice, anyone can have a great deal of confidence in closing boxes. Spare shooting is mostly science.

The hottest topic in the coaching end of the sport is whether it's the right approach teaching junior bowlers this kind of game. If you don't know the term, it's the flavor Jason Belmonte and Osku Palermaa from Europe use to effect tremendous revolutions to their equipment. It's importance is the angle of entry into the pocket the higher revs create, increasing strikes by decreasing deflection.

According to David Garber, Director of Coaching at the USBC, this should be taught to bowlers well before the age of 10 and in their very first bowling ball. The technique is to use the non gripping hand as your thumb and holding the ball in a position where your gripping hand can stay way under the ball. At the release point, that opposite hand come off at the last second allowing the gripping hand to lift from a point MUCH farther from the bottom than we can using just one hand. Most of us who bowl realize that the ability to keep your wrist cocked, letting go of the thumb smoothly and lifting is the reason why some can attain ferocious revolutions while others simply can't and this all happens in less than a second. Timing like this is in other sports too: baseball pitchers who throw from 88 to 100 mph, PGA golfers who drive from 260 to now almost 400 yards, hockey players with their slap shot, tennis serve, etc... all in less than a second. Incredible timing and talent.

In the near timeless tradition, bowling utilizes a 3 finger grip comprised of the thumb and two middle fingers. Aided by an experienced bowling pro shop who's job it is to measure, fit and drill bowling equipment based on the bowler's hand, flexibility and body style, the bowler must meld their muscle, gravity and centrifugal force to perform an approach culminating in releasing that ball. Span, pitch, thumb size and bevel along with grip pressure and timing allows some bowlers to attain high rev rates while others create less.

Now technology has come a long way in 20 years to give us a way around needing proper timing and talent: aluminum bats, graphite drivers and hockey sticks, skis, tennis rackets and running shoes just to name a few. The way this sport evens out the playing field is to allow the lower rev player products that significantly enhances their ball motion. Surface textures, denser cores, advanced layouts as well as proper coaching can prepare a bowler for nearly any playing condition.

I'll be the first to admit, from rubber house balls in the 70s to the soon to be released Mission 2.0, bowling has gotten easier for the average player to score higher. But how about the lower average player? I give a conventional plastic ball to juniors and people who average under 120. Should I give then an entry reactive and teach them two finger?

I wouldn't want to think that the years I've put into this sport will be unnecessary in the future by never drilling a thumb hole again. That it could be even easier to stand left and throw right on these already way too easy house patterns. If I start tooling the juniors down this path, ten years from now, will they still stand left and throw right? Will high performance balls go away because they can't keep them on the lane? Will proprietors have to flood the lanes and those with the traditional game won't be able to keep up? Will my shop close because anyone who buys a drill press can put two holes in a ball and glue grips?

Anybody remember Adam Sandler's Happy Gilmore and his newly invented hockey golf swing? It was a movie spoof but in a later movie, 50 First Dates, his assistant had a bunch of young kids.  In this one particular golf scene, all 5 of them lined up their tee shots on a par 3 and simultaneously all hit 10 feet from the flag with that run up and hockey slap shot. Isn't that what's happening in real life? Aren't the young influenced by what they see? Tiger Woods ripped drives 15 years ago and now everyone coming out of college makes him seem like a short hitter.

We don't know the long term effects of this style. Your spine needs to be nearly parallel to the ground at release and your back leg has to be high in the air. Higher revs also demand speed control. A tad slow and it's over hooking while too hard or weak with the lift and it's a washout.

Do you know about the Bolivian team in South America that's entirely two finger?  http://english.ntdtv.com/ntdtv_en/254/8130.html

Bowlers are aware and intrigued by this style but the choice over what we teach the future generations are being influenced by the need for instant results. Two handed is a way for the juniors to create ball reaction, to perhaps compete with the ultimate bowling killer, soccer. That sport has already siphoned tens of thousands of future bowlers out of the junior program each Saturday across the country.

Maybe that's why the USBC is so hot and heavy to make this the standard.