Old Bowling Tips

Written By: bowlingball.com | Written On: Thursday, July 7, 2022


By: bowlingball.com, Originally Posted: 2/5/17; Updated: 7/7/2022
Since there are so many bowling tips available today offered by coaches or in magazines or online articles, be careful to avoid the old tips which no longer are relevant.
Not every bowling tip you encounter is proven effective, particularly some older ones from decades ago.
In fact, not every tip, old or new, is for every bowler. This is why many older tips still around from decades ago are effective today while many are not due to changes in equipment, lane conditions, and in instructional philosophies.
Here are examples of three old bowling tips which were popular in years past which are not widely consider to be effective tips today:
*“Reach out” - this old school teaching was to reach out as far as possible to make sure you finished your swing.
Today, reaching-up as opposed to reaching out is widely accepted as a better method to finish the swing because it avoids risking a loss of balance at the foul line.
Reaching out can cause your your head and shoulders to move well beyond the foul line so far as to pull your trailing leg off of the floor and you end up sliding on one leg with little or no body stability or balance while you are delivering your bowling ball.
*“Take very slow bowling steps” - slow steps leads to a mechanical motion and a loss of swing fluidity.
By walking too slowly and pausing between steps, any momentum you can build during your approach stalls and can result in thrusting or forcing your forward swing.
Forcing your swing can adversely affect your release technique and leads to a loss in control of your bowling ball skid distance and, ultimately, your ball reaction to the pocket.
*”Play the 2nd arrow” - using the 2nd arrow might be a good starting alignment sighting target but in today’s world of highly reactive bowling balls, the 2nd arrow may not be your best target in aligning to the pocket.
Since the lane conditions change during your competitive sessions of league and tournament bowling, oil breakdown occurs. This breakdown occurs predominantly in the front ends of the lane where the greatest amount of oil conditioner is typically applied to the lane surface and where your bowling ball passes most frequently.
Because of this, your ball will react more quickly than on fresh oil patterns which provide maximum skid distance based on the given oil pattern.
Your bowling ball will pick up on any friction changes and react differently as you continue bowling in your session.
This is when you need to be most prepared to make alignment adjustments or perhaps physical game adjustments to restore an ability to hit the pocket consistently.
The point is that the 2nd arrow is a good place to begin but just remember that your bowling shoes are not nailed to the approach floor.
Expect to make lateral alignment adjustments at any time in order to play the lane conditions most effectively.
Although there are some older tips which still have merit, it is best to use the modern methods taught today because they tend to match with modern lane surfaces and bowling ball equipment.
Another factor to consider when using any bowling tip is to experiment in practice sessions whenever you can so you can develop a trust in the tip technique you are attempting to use. Some tips require adjustments to other parts of your physical game to synchronize with the new technique. As example, a swing path change may also require a footwork directional path change. When making any changes to your game, it is always best to do so with an experienced instructor monitoring your progress.
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