Consistent Bowling Foul Line Slide Position

Okay, coach. So we're going to talk a little bit about accuracy, maybe how the lanes force us to play. And we've got a system that you've worked with some players on that's going to help kind of get them in the right part of the lane based on what the lane's giving them. Well, yeah, what I think we find, especially with intermediate level players, not as drastic as the skill level starts to go up, but especially for the lower levels, is that regardless if people start to play farther right than they're used to or farther left than they're used to, they always tend to start to migrate back towards their comfort zone, towards the middle of the lane, whether it be shooting spares, whether it be their first balls. And what I mean by that is let's say they generally play around the second arrow, which means they're going to slide in to between 17 and 20 at the foul line.

Well, they want to move three, four, five boards right of that. So they're going to hopefully trying to slide into 12 or 13 but what ends up happening, and whether it be subconscious or whatever, the brain ends up starting to drift a little bit back to the left, and they slide in that same spot that they always slide. So what we're trying to do is just try and come up with a way that the people are aware of where they're sliding. Something as simple as putting like a blue piece of tape just past the foul line. That way, when they sort of walk to the line and take their approach, they can just look down, see where that reference point is so that they know whether they're doing what they were supposed to or what they want to, or whether they've kind of reverted back to their old habits.

So it's easy for us as players to line up at the front part of the lane and just kind of get an idea of where it's going to go, but our focus should really be at the foul line. And that's what we're gonna use when you, with this tape you're talking about to help identify not only where we started, but where we're going to land. And most importantly, when we land there, are we going to the right part of the lane that we need to as far as what the pattern is telling us to do? Yeah. Because the most important thing isn't where you start, it's where you finish at the foul line, like you mentioned.

You know, you can move three or four right in your setup position. But if you're going to drift back that same three or four boards to the left and finish where you always finish, well then, you're not gonna accomplish anything different than what you normally do. So let's take a look at the tape, see how it's used on the approach and get an idea of what we can do as players to help modify our game and make it better for us when we go to our practice session so that we can get to the right part of learning at the right time. All right. As you can see, we have the blue piece of tape just out past the foul line here.

In this case, it's going to be on the 12 board. We're trying to get our players, both Shannon and Steven. They're going to try and slide to the right of that. Correct? Yeah.

I mean, this is, you know, like we mentioned just a few seconds ago, but big issues tend to be when you're sliding closer to the gutters in either direction, you know? The more average league bowler isn't going to have to do it quite as often as a tournament player, but everybody from time to time needs to make accommodations off where they generally like to slide. So as you can see, we're having them try and slide just to the right of where that blue tape is on 12 board. And it doesn't have to be one board right of it or two boards, just making sure you're sliding right of it, which is going to put you in an uncomfortable type of position to where it may feel like you're landing the ball right in the gutter. But after some practice, you'll get used to it for just in case when those tournament conditions come around and we need to play that farther, farther outside part of the lane.

Yeah. That part of the lane is not as easy everybody to slide into. And I think a good reference point here is to always identify what part of your foot you're using in reference to that blue tape. So some players will use the inside of their foot. Some players use the center of their slide foot.

Either way, you want to identify if it's to the right of that particular target we're going to lay down. And ultimately that's going to give you a different body position, different angle to that part of the lane. Now here's an example of going to the opposite end of the extreme like you're talking about. Let's go to the left side of the lane, and what do we got going on here? Yeah.

We have the piece of tape on board 32, and what we want Steven and Shannon both to do is make sure they're sliding left of that piece of tape. Once again, like I mentioned, it doesn't have to be just strike ball. We see lots of people throwing their spare balls, and for 10 pins, generally it wants you to, you know, get to the left side of the lane so you can create as much angle as possible to give yourself as much room for error as you possibly can at right-hand side spares. But what we see lots of times is people stand all the way to the left, but then as they start the approach, they start to walk back towards the middle of the lane. So this is just a reference point so that we can be aware to when we release the ball and let go of it.

We can look down and see if we're farther left of that mark or if we've found it and caught ourselves kind of drifting back to the right. So to keep our alignment with whatever part of the lane we're trying to get our angle through the front part, into our target down the lane, these keys, these pieces of paper we're using, especially this, these extreme angles, are going to give us a better opportunity to identify whether or not we're going to be in the range of migrating to the middle, or if we're going to be out to those extremes, like we're trying to accomplish here. And those extremes are going to be harder to get to at first. But this tool right here is going to help us identify whether we're doing it or not. Yeah.

If you don't know that you're doing something, how are you ever supposed to correct it? So this is the sort of the first step of being able to recognize that, "Hey, I'm one of those people "who always tends to migrate back "to the middle of the lane "whether it be starting farther right "or starting farther left than my normal. "I always start to migrate back to my comfort zone." So this is just something to be able to recognize it so that hopefully you can get better and become a better player. So, make sure, check with your center. If you're able to use this type of system, go out there and take some tape, figure out not only where you start, but where you land.

You get those angles correct, so that you, too, can increase your accuracy.