I adjust my roll on a practice day of bowling and absolutely kill it

I am a two-finger bowler. This is not a good thing to be in bowling if you ever want to be good. For me though, it was something I started doing as a joke when I was 14 or 15 years old and living my innocent life with my teenage friends where we would bowl for 25 cents a game after school. Those days of affordable bowling are long gone of course and I recently found out that the whole bowling alley where I played those games doesn't exist anymore and was torn down. Shame. It was one of the only remaining "classic" lanes where you had to add up your own scores.

I'm glad we added up our own scores because when I go bowling with people these days they don't actually have any idea how strikes and spares work in the scoring system and when they say this to me I respond with a Peter Parker Boss "you serious?"

When you bowl with just two fingers, you are able to force a curve that makes you look like the pros but unlike the pros you probably aren't going to be able to control it all that well. Some days I can, other days I cannot. I will say this though, the 4 practice games I did yesterday worked out very nicely for me and I think that practice may actually be an integral part of the process... I know, imagine that, right?

My first game started out like it normally does and by that I mean it was not good. Not picking up single pin spares is inexcusable in my world, and I had already done it twice. I was on a lane by myself though, so I took this as an opportunity to see if I could adjust my stance and my release to make things better. I think you could say by my 4 strikes in a row (nearly 8!) that I kind of figured it out.

src

On any bowling alley there are always a series of arrows that are near the "launching point" where you throw the ball. To me, this is a more important thing to aim at than the pins. Since I bowl with a right-to-left curve, it is important that I never roll straight down the middle. However, I put so much spin on the ball that if I roll anywhere on the right, it is going to curve too much and sometimes just do a "drive by" on the pins and gutter on the far left side. I have a lot of spin and because of how I hold the ball and how I have become accustommed to bowling, I simply cannot bowl without a curve. Therefore I use some physics to help me out.

I release the ball between the 1st and second arrows to the left of center, and aim for the gap just left of the center arrow. Most of my spin therefore is spent on reversing the right travelling trajectory of my ball. Because there is no oil on the last 5 meters or so before the pins, the spin is still going and this is where the ball really "catches". What happens now is that my ball will crash, at an angle, into the 1/2/3 pin section which is essential to getting a strike.

src

The pins are not this close together, but just like the solar system, the pic won't work otherwise.

There are two benefits to bowling with a curve

• you can miss the 1/3 pocket and still have a chance to create a wave by hitting the 1/2. This, for a right handed bowler is called a "Brooklyn" strike

• when you bowl with a curve you are much less likely to end up with splits (tough combo of balls to knock down on 2nd ball) because: Physics.

My 2nd game was even better because at this point I had the lane figured out and I also had some nice confidence boost going on. I got a 179 and a 205. While this might not seem great to really good bowlers out there, keep in mind that my average lately has been around 130, so yeah, this is a good score for me.

I can't really make these sorts of corrections when we are bowling as a group on Thursday because no matter what lane I end up on (it is random draw) i have to wait a long time between my rolls and that can make it really difficult to make adjustments.

I think that it is very important, if you want to get better that is, to pay close attention to where your foot ends up upon release and especially where you release the ball and where it is rolling once you let go of it. I was able to track all of this because I was the only person on the lane I was using. I also didn't have anyone on either side of me so I could just roll as I saw fit anytime I wanted.

This is the big difference between practice day and league day though. You can't just bowl on your own on league day and this affects a lot of people in our group as well as a lot of the professional bowlers as well. It's a mental game that I am just going to have to figure out how to get past.

Now the next trick is how can I bowl, kind of straight (I can't bowl perfectly straight) and I think I have figured that out as well.