Oh, those precious minutes of practice before league! There are so many things you need to do with it. Sometimes it’s long enough and sometimes it’s not. You’ve got to get your drink, fight for your table, shuffle the cards, greet everybody, and oh yeah, find the shot.

I am, of course, assuming here that you are being treated like the athlete you are and bowling in a place which recognizes that bowling is a sport and therefore you have adequate time to warm up your body and prepare for competition. This truly is not the time to do all those things in the first paragraph. That should have happened long before you hear the call, “Greetings and welcome to the members of the Splits Happen League. Your lanes are coming on for your practice session.”

Before that announcement, you have checked all of your balls to be sure they fit and placed the ones you intend to try first on the rack. The others are close by so when you need to go to them in practice, they are available and not in a bag far away (like in the trunk or the garage). You have your shoes on and have checked the approaches properly, your towel is in place, your drinking water is ready. You have stretched your body and allowed one of those well-fitting balls to swing your arm several times.

Let’s talk about that ‘checked all of your balls to be sure they fit’ comment. Just like you are wise enough to know that you must go with whatever game you brought with you tonight, you also should know that whatever adjustments you have made to the fit by taking tape out or adding tape must be done to ALL your equipment, not just the ones on the rack. What if those balls on the rack fit you but not the lane? You cannot afford to watch other people warm up while you have to make a ball (that you left in your bag because you didn’t think you’d need it) fit your hand.

I can hear some of you saying you wouldn’t take that time. You’re thinking “Oh, my thumb will swell/shrink in a minute and then I can throw it better”. In the meantime, you are getting bad reads because you are compensating for a ball that doesn’t fit by not putting your thumb or fingers all the way in or squeezing to hold on. Either way, you can’t throw the ball like you will when it fits, therefore whatever information you obtain is tainted. You have cleared your mind of work clutter and traffic trash from the day. You have decided to make the best shots you can make and take your chances. You wait patiently by the monitor, as physically and mentally ready as you can be.

IT’S PRACTICE TIME
There are several things you need to find out as quickly as possible. Use your practice time wisely. Even if you don’t have time to try everything on the list before the arrows come up, be sure that you try them early in the competition to see what the lane really wants you to do. It is not in your best scoring interest to assume that searching for the right match-up ends when practice does.

1. Choose the line.
2. Choose the ball.
3. Try different axis rotations.
4. If one of them works, try another. It might be even better!
5. Lay the ball down early.
6. Try a little loft. Either laying the ball down early or lofting it will be the most effective to a) get to the pocket or b) carry. There is a distinction there. Getting to the pocket and pinging back row is comforting (”Well, I am in the pocket every time”) and frustrating (”but I just can’t carry”). Change something, particularly if other people are carrying. The best way to know if the lane wants early laydown or a little loft is to try both. What’s going to happen, you might not carry?
7. If you have found a shot, move. Try to find another one. I don’t mean a two board move. I mean go to a totally different area of the lane. If you can play down 8, can you swing 15? That’s like having a savings account. You’ll have somewhere to go if the shot you thought you found goes away or is not scoring well.

How do you decide which shot to use? There are several considerations:

Which one will carry best?
Pay attention to your how your strikes fall. Does this house carry better light? If so, you’ll want to be a little left of perfect. If high hits carry and your most common error is to pull it, don’t move. That would mean when you make your most common error, you have a good chance of striking. If you hit flush do you leave back row? Then don’t hit flush. Line up to hit the pocket at the highest carry percentage for that house.

Which one will last the longest?
It depends on how many people are playing there, what type of equipment they are using, and something you might not be able to know, what type of oil is being used. You can know, however, that temperature affects the behavior of oil dramatically. If it’s cold the oil won’t move as much or as quickly as it does when it’s hot. Don’t judge the temperature of the center by how hot you are while you’re bowling. A more accurate assessment of what temperature the oil is responding to is if the hundreds of fans watching you bowl are in parkas.

Which one will everyone else play?
That would depend on what type of bowler they are. If you are crossing with crankers, they’ll choose a different line than a tweener. Just pay attention during practice and prepare some options. Sometimes in practice you can’t tell where someone intends to play. If you have made a decision based on what you have seen in practice and they change lines, you could be surprised instead of prepared.

Who’s on the pair with you?
If the folks on your pair are cranker types, they’ll be swinging the ball a lot or a little and probably playing inside. If you want to play inside, you’ll be in there with them and the shot might change very quickly and a lot. If you choose to play outside of them, when you get ready to move, you might have to make a big move left and go around them. Keep in mind that men usually break the lane down diagonally and women generally break the lane down north and south.

If you are playing with straighties or tweeners and have something inside, you might want to start there and then stay ahead of them moving in on top of you. If you have to play where they are playing, be aware of quick or drastic lane transition. If folks are playing all over the lane, stay alert.

Please note your comfort zone was not a consideration about where to play.

If you only have time in your abbreviated practice session to try forward roll, don’t bowl defensively. “Well, I sort of found a shot with forward roll. What if it’s worse with side roll? Better not change anything.” Use the early frames to try all the options. Experimenting to find a better line is worth the low count or open you might encounter. Remember, you can’t start over but you can start right here and make a new beginning. You do not want to drive home wondering what would have happened if…

Any reference or strategy for getting lined up would have to include what I consider the biggest secret in bowling: body alignment. There are some who feel that the armswing is the key to consistency. I’d have to agree that an erratic armswing will cause erratic ball reaction. However, if you have a sweet swing and poor body alignment, that great swing won’t matter much. If you have good body alignment, however, it will help cover up some of the less-than-great execution we all contend with from time to time. Here’s how to build proper body alignment:

• The distance between the sternum (which is in line with the inside of the sliding foot) and the shoulder (the ball) is a distance you can estimate in boards. Let’s say that for you this distance is about seven boards. Choose the arbitrary target of the 2nd arrow.

• Place the inside edge of your left sole on the 17th board. If you are a broader shouldered person than this, you can use the 18th or even the 19th board. Line up with the inside edge of your sliding foot since that’s the part of your body the ball is beside at delivery. If you line up with the center of your foot, you are giving up a board or two of information (the distance from the middle to the inside edge) - not a good idea. For the purposes of this chapter, we’ll assume you line up with the inside of your slide foot. This inside edge will cover the starting board, in this case, 17. The heel splits the board so that the foot is parallel with the boards.

• The placement of the left heel is important since the sole of the foot is wider than the heel. If the heel covers the right edge of the board, the body is now slightly closed and you’ll probably throw the ball to the left. If the inside edge of the heel is on the left edge of the board (which would put the heel on 18), your intention is to throw to the right. These subtle adjustments with the heel are an advanced technique you can use later but which should not be used for the purposes of this exercise. The graphic is a foot position that indicates you intend to throw the ball down-the-boards (in the same direction as the boards).

• Move the entire left foot so that the inside edge of the sole is halfway between the 17th and 18th board. This is the 17 1/2 board. Very slightly move the entire foot back to the right so that the foot is halfway between the 17 board and 17 1/2 board. This is 17 1/4.

• This is how precise you must be in where you stand so that you do not have to be so precise on the lane. You can never be sloppy or indifferent about where you stand. This is not to encourage nor promote the use of 1/4 board moves but merely to point out that pretty close isn’t good enough when it comes to a starting position.

You can never be sloppy or indifferent about how you line up.

• Once the starting position has been determined, always slide your left foot into that position. This check of the sliding sole is because you want to know now if you have stepped in anything or if there is any impediment on the bottom of the shoe. Finding out at the foul line is a very bad idea indeed. This also becomes part of a calming pre-shot routine. Building these habits now will really pay off in the future.

• Vanishing Point is a physical phenomenon.This means that if, for example, you are looking at railroad tracks (two parallel lines), they will appear to converge in the distance. In bowling, this translates to the appearance that the lane is narrower at the pin deck than it is at the foul line. This means that the farther down the lane you look, the more inside your target appears to be.

Here’s what I mean. Make sure your feet are on 17 in the same attitude you would have them if you were really ready to bowl. Look at the 10th board at the arrows. Without moving your eyes, decide where the 2nd arrow meets your upper body. (Not where you know it is; where you feel it is.) It will most likely feel like it aligns with your body about halfway between the sternum and the bowling shoulder.

Now look at the 2nd dot at the foul line (that same 10th board) and feel where that intersects your body. It will be further toward your shoulder. Now look straight down beside your right foot at the 10th board. It’s outside your shoulder. What a revelation! Most people are quite shocked by this. When I show this to people on the lanes, their jaw usually drops. They look back and forth from the arrow to beside their foot, they follow the 10th board with their eyes to be sure I’m not making it up. They felt like they were standing on top of the target and cannot believe it is actually outside their shoulder.

• There are many different perceptions and optical illusions we sometimes have to deal with in bowling. Look how small the arrows look from where you’re standing; yet you know they are 6″ long. To really see this, go to the foul line. Put your sliding foot on the 20th board and your trailing leg behind and about 45° left of your body as in a good finish position. Be sure this placement clears the hip out of the way of your bowling arm. This won’t work (and neither will your bowling) if your trailing leg is straight behind you or tucked up underneath you. Look at the 2nd arrow, swinging your arm back and forth several times. You’ll find the arrow is outside of your shoulder and you’ll feel like in order to hit it, you would have to throw the ball out to the right. If you assume the same position on the 17th board, you’ll feel the 2nd arrow is right in line with your shoulder (the ball.) Now remember, if you are broad-shouldered, 20 might work for you and in order to feel the difference at the foul line that I am referencing here, you would have to take a look from 23.

Even if you feel you’re standing on top of your target in the stance, you’ll be perfectly lined up by the time you get to the foul line. This means that you have to deny your perception in the stance and accept the reality at the foul line. You’ll get used to it and since it is so critical to body alignment, you’ll love your accuracy once you do.