Axis Rotation and Tilt Defined

Can you explain the difference between axis rotation and tilt? Most bowlers find them confusing.

In this article, you’ll learn how each of them affects your ball motion so that you can become a more versatile bowler.

Rotation defined

So, what happens when the ball rotates?

There are two axis points in a bowling ball. The negative axis point goes completely through the bowling ball and the positive access point (PAP) is the one on the side of the bowling ball that the bowler can see when they release it.

Every bowler has their own unique PAP. Check out “How To Find Your PAP” to better understand how to find yours.

Think of the bowling ball like a globe. The negative and positive axis points are the anchors that make up the equator of that ball.

When your hand gets on the side of the ball it results in the ball spinning in a different direction than traveling.

The less hand you get on the side of the ball results in the ball spinning closer to the same direction as it’s traveling.

You can see some drastic differences in axis rotation as the ball travels down the lane.

A good way to imagine this in a different way is to visualize yourself driving on ice.

When a bowling ball is spinning in a different direction from where it is traveling, that would be like you turning the wheels of your car completely to the left and there is not enough friction yet for your tires to stop skidding on the ice.

So, the ball travels. But once it hits friction, now it really wants to jerk towards the direction of the spin.

Conversely, we’re driving on that same ice patch, but we’re going to barely turn the wheel just ever so slightly to the left.

Now, when you get off that ice you hardly even know that you are on the ice patch.

So instead of having that ball spin in a completely different direction than traveling, we’re now going to make its spin closer to that direction.

Where you see the difference is the shape of each shot. The more down the lane and abrupt change of direction, that’s more axis rotation. The smoother, more of an arching motion is less axis rotation.

Tilt defined

So, if we’re talking about axis rotation being that measurement along the equator of the bowling ball it would be just the horizontal axis.

Axis tilt is when we start to think about it in terms of whether it’s facing toward the South or North Pole when we think back to the globe reference.

So, the more that axis starts to go up in the air, the ball is more of a spinner-type roll.

Axis tilt doesn’t necessarily mean whether or not the PAP is pointed back towards the player or if it’s on the side, but rather axis tilt should be viewed by the PAP pointing towards the ceiling or towards that left wall for a right-handed player.