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.

Watch for the latest article to be posted on the Bowling site at BellaOnline.com. It is scheduled to be posted at 10:00 AM, July 25, 2008.

A Bowling Muse
I would like to introduce a person who deserves a lot of credit for giving me ideas for my articles – my brother Myron, who lives in Mesa, and he is one of my bowling muses. He is the epitome of many a bowler who quit within the last twenty-five years and is now coming back to the sport.

http://www.bellaonline.com/content/article_edit.asp?id=25975

Please visit Bowling.bellaonline.com for even more great content about Bowling.

To participate in free, fun online discussions, this site has a community forum all about Bowling located here -

http://forums.bellaonline.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=postlist&Board=145

I hope to hear from you sometime soon, either in the forum or in response to this email message. I thrive on your feedback!

Have fun passing this message along to family and friends, because we all love free knowledge!

Clyde Higa, Bowling Editor
http://Bowling.bellaonline.com

One of hundreds of sites at BellaOnline.com

BellaOnline is looking for writers! Here are a few of the topics that are available for you to write for : Art History | ASP | Atheist / Agnostic | Baseball | Biology | Child Loss | Chinese Culture | Cleaning | ClipArt | Comedy Movies | Computer Careers | Computer Networks |  and more! http://www.bellaonline.com/misc/joinus/

**************************************************************
BELLAONLINE ADVERTISING SPONSOR
**************************************************************
The Beautiful Game
Do you love playing, watching or coaching soccer? Read about the world of soccer each week on the BellaOnline Soccer Website, and sign up for the newsletter for news, views and reviews on the beautiful game.

http://soccer.bellaonline.com

**************************************************************

You are currently subscribed using: mel15@melvinream.com

You are currently subscribed to a BellaOnline newsletter, sponsored by
http://www.BellaOnline.com

**************************************************************
Enter our Sweepstakes! We have many gorgeous prizes that we are
giving away, including beautiful handmade Italian pottery from
ItalianPottery.com, jewelry from BellaQuartz.com and
much more! Be sure to enter daily! Open to US and UK residents.

http://www.bellaonline.com/misc/sweeps/

************************************************************** 

How often have you come back to the seats after an errant shot and said to yourself: “What was I thinking??!!” If you are like most competitors you’ve had some version of this thought far too often. It is, however, a really great question to ask! In fact, it’s funny that we would ever let ourselves throw a shot without having answered it up front.

Just about everyone agrees that if you were to target an essential mental game attribute that could serve virtually any bowler, concentration would be one of the leading contenders. This quality is so critical that lack of concentration is the favorite whipping boy for everything from missed spares, to nervousness when the lights go on, to anything else that might go wrong for bowlers in competition.

Even though most people know that concentration is crucial, few people can define it, and even fewer athletes know how to teach it to anyone else. For many bowlers rounding up and controlling their attention and concentration is like herding cats, out of control!
What Is Concentration?

Simply put, concentration is the ability to place your attention on anything you choose, and to hold it there for as long as you want. Most of our minds resemble a television viewer with an out of control remote channel changer. We are so used to hopping around with our attention it is sort of funny. We read while we eat. We watch television while we work out at the gym, and some people even bring their music players to the bowling center. We seem to have a really difficult time keeping our attention on just one thing for any period of time.

But bowling is different right? I mean all you have to do is hold your mind on one thing for four to five seconds and then the shot is over! It is probably true that if you take a bowler that already has a good solid physical game, and simply get him/her to maintain peak concentration for five seconds per shot, you would raise their average and tournament results measurably. Five seconds max!! What is really startling is how few bowlers actually do this.

Where Is Your Head?

So how come we trip so much over this important basic athletic concept? For starters, we don’t train our concentration properly, so it fails us routinely when the tournament lights come on. Most bowlers have some kind of swing thought when they are standing on the approach. We coach everything from keeping your eyes on the target, to free arm swing, to hand release position.

Here is the problem with this sort of thinking. The key thoughts that bowlers need to focus on change from day to day, sometimes game to game. What’s more, in the short time from the push away, to the height of the back swing, back down to the delivery point, most bowlers add and subtract other thoughts as they go. The mind works amazingly quickly, and is capable of going through dozens of useful (and interfering) bowling thoughts.

A bowler develops his/her list of key swing thoughts, adds to it, then automatically goes through all kinds of thoughts in the infinity of time after the push-away. Unconsciously competitors learn that with various swing thoughts they are putting their faith and trust into these thoughts. The problem is that they don’t really know if any given thought will hold up for one entire shot cycle, much less for a game, or for tomorrow. Bowlers keep jumping around from thought to thought to thought. This is not what we mean by concentration!

A simple concentration exercise is when spare shooting ask your self to state what you are aiming at, and to report whether or not you hit what you are looking at. That’s it. The exercise is eye opening. The overwhelming majority of players, at virtually all levels of skill, jerk their eyes and head around. They look down the lane as soon as they release the ball, and have to make a good guess at which board they actually hit at the arrows.

It doesn’t really matter which thing I ask players to keep their attention on. Whether it is arm-swing, hand position, or balance at the line, just about everyone’s mind skitters around and touches another idea during actual execution.

The Challenge of Staying Present

Here is a typical sequence of thought focus:
1) Key shot delivery thought.
2) Shift to other physical and performance concerns between push-away, height of the back-swing, and down to delivery.
3) Anticipation at the point of release.
4) Evaluation of how the release felt.
5) Evaluation of the shot.

Notice in all of this that evaluation is part of most bowlers’ shot cycle. We train this way, judging each release, shot, and result as good or bad. This might actually work in practice. But is it any surprise that when competition starts we don’t trust our own powers of competition? You are already waiting to judge what you do as good or bad before the ball is even off of your hand! Practice bowling has so many different variables from competition play that the pattern of mental hop scotch can never lead to a sense of confidence, much less concentration when the heat is on.

Gluing Your Mind Back Together
Merely having an open mind is nothing. The object of opening the mind, as of opening the mouth, is to shut it again on something solid. — G.K. Chesterton

When there is room for your mind to move around you are wide open to fear, doubt, and indecision. If you want to have an all-world game there is a kind of concentration that bowling demands, different from so many other sports, that will have your game elevate based on this alone.

The task is to pick one thing to think about through the entirety of the shot cycle. Here is the exercise:
1) Set up in your starting position with ball in hand.
2) Notice the position of the ball in relation to the target, i.e. where the front of the ball is positioned in your hand.
3) Push away and go through your shot cycle while maintaining your attention to the ball position only. The task is to release the ball in exactly the same position, and in exactly the same relation to the lane, as when you started. Your mind maintains awareness of the ball position in your hand. No thoughts about anything else!
4) You are tasked with maintaining your concentration on just this one thing throughout the 540 degrees of swing (push away, backswing, forward, and follow through)
5) Notice how you did without judging yourself to be good or bad.
6) Pick the next thing to do this with, e.g. totally watching your target throughout the whole shot until the ball passes over it, attention to free swing from the shoulder, or any other physical focus.

Importantly, as you do this you will notice that the rest of your bowling works just fine. You will execute, stay upright, and deliver good shots even when your attention is on just one thing. Your awareness will work for you automatically, just as it does when you are eating, holding a conversation, or running on a treadmill.

This exercise will serve you in three key ways. It will help you really learn about any aspect of the game you really want to either improve on or make sure you execute. It will also teach you to bowl without allowing mental interference no matter what the circumstances. Finally, you will have the fun of being free to bowl that comes with clearing out the clutter.

How Safe Is Your Parachute?
Don’t be afraid to take a big step if one is indicated. You can’t cross a chasm in two small jumps. — David Lloyd George

There is one challenge to total concentration that remains. If you choose to really focus for the full five seconds of your shot cycle, you are going to have to give up all the thoughts, plans, and judgments that have run you during the eternity of each swing. Do not underestimate how difficult this is to do. You may not have cared for all this interference, but it has been your constant companion.

You’d be surprised at what a security blanket all those confounding thoughts have been. They increase anxiety and interfere with the purity of shot-making. But in the end most bowlers are control freaks, they hate to give up the mental chatter of all the stuff they believe they must think about.

Your parachute will catch you if you let go of over-control. You will stay upright, your timing will be what it usually is, the ball will come off your hand, and etc.

Train For Life

It flies in the face of our culture to attend to just one thing at a given moment in time, no music, no gum, no attending to other thoughts. One of the reasons to be a bowler is that it allows you to be great, for just a moment, for ten frames every game. This is a vastly different frame of mind than most people have throughout most of their time on the job and at home. The ability to concentrate fully on one thing for a whole shot is a spectacular tool to have in one’s war chest.

To clear your mind, focus on one thing only. This move allows for greatness, and is critical for world class bowling. This is especially true as the stakes in competition go up. You can extend this skill beyond bowling to virtually any other area of life. You then have a crack at being all-world in relationships, work, and any other sport you may play as well. In short, your bowling mental game training will teach you to be a winner everywhere!

Spares are the foundation of this sport. The old saying goes, “Strike for show,
spare for dough.” In today’s high-powered era, however, spares are sometimes
not given the attention they require. It’s great to have eight or nine strikes in
a game, but when the other frames are missed spares, that 250 game becomes
200-210 in a hurry. Here are some things to think about concerning spares.
First of all, take your time. Yes, it’s frustrating leaving a corner pin on a good shot,
or making a bad shot and having to shoot the spare, but just going up and throwing
the spare shot without lining up is a good way to throw away pins. Take a deep breath,
think about where you want to line up for the spare, and take your shot.
That extra couple seconds between strike and spare shots can make the difference
between making your spare and missing it.
Next, when leaving single pin spares, it’s best to not hook the ball into the pin.
The more boards you cover, the more of a chance the ball has to reacting erratically
(especially with today’s equipment). It is advisable to learn how to throw a straight
ball at spares. Next time you’re practicing and leave a spare to shoot at, try breaking
the wrist back and relaxing your wrist at the point of release.
This will create a minimum of rotation, allowing the ball to go straighter down the lane.
Many players also invest in plastic bowling balls, since plastic balls generally go a lot
straighter than reactive bowling balls. Spares are the key to success in the long term.
Make the most of your spare game, you’ll be glad you did.