Sharon expressed a desire to defeat her old nemisis, the dreaded ten pin. It's something I need to work on as well so we dedicated a practice session to it. We bowled after work Saturday and started with four full games doing nothing but shooting at the ten pin.
In my opinion, Sharon's trouble with the ten-pin doesn't have much to do with lining up the shot. I think it's tied to finding a comfortable way to roll the ball straight. Once Sharon can comfortably roll the ball straight, it shouldn't be too difficult to line up a repeatable shot that will consistently hit the ten pin.
Sharon's normal shot has a lot of hand in it. Her hand and wrist turn around the ball to get the sideways rotation that generates her big hook. The big hook serves her very well on her strike shots but makes it extremely difficult to hit the ten pin. When shooting a big hook at the ten pin, a slight miss to the right of the target causes it to drop in the gutter while a slight miss to the left causes it to hook away from the ten pin to the left. There's almost no margin for error. Thus, our primary mission was to kill Sharon's hook.
Sharon has a polyester ball which is a great first step. It will skid longer and be less inclined to hook than a urethane or reactive resin ball. The trouble starts with the hand and wrist rotation I mentioned earlier. Even with a polyester ball, Sharon's ball hooks a lot because she gets a strong sideways rotation without a lot of velocity on the shot. To roll the ball straight, she will have to roll it very fast or keep her hand behind the ball.
Sharon tried keeping her hand behind the ball and she experimented with different targets and different spots on the approach in search of a comfortable, repeatable shot. It's not as easy as it might appear on the surface. Sharon is most comfortable delivering the ball the same way she shoots for a strike. Keeping her hand behind the ball presents a certain awkwardness that makes it more difficlut to hit her target. If she doesn't keep her hand behind the ball, her shot hooks even with a polyester ball.
When we started, Sharon guessed she was hitting the ten pin only about 25% of the time. Each game gave us twenty shots at the ten pin, though an accidental strike made it nineteen in one game and an accidental spare in the tenth frame made it twenty-one in another.
In our first set of twenty shots, Sharon hit 25% of her ten pins but she was going through a lot of trial and error. She tried something different in the second set and improved to 30%. A couple of adjustments in the third set bumped her up to 35%. In the last set, Sharon hit 45%.
While Sharon's success rate improved, she wasn't able to find anything with which she was comfortable. Also, she is looking for a conversion rate a lot higher than 45%. That means we have to keep working at it and trying other things until it clicks. I know with Sharon's skills, she will be over 75% once we find that missing ingredient.
I'll be practicing with Olivia and The Coach tomorrow morning. I'd like to try something like this with them, too. We get two hours of free bowling from 9:00-11:00 so we should put it to good use and not just bowl games.
In my opinion, Sharon's trouble with the ten-pin doesn't have much to do with lining up the shot. I think it's tied to finding a comfortable way to roll the ball straight. Once Sharon can comfortably roll the ball straight, it shouldn't be too difficult to line up a repeatable shot that will consistently hit the ten pin.
Sharon's normal shot has a lot of hand in it. Her hand and wrist turn around the ball to get the sideways rotation that generates her big hook. The big hook serves her very well on her strike shots but makes it extremely difficult to hit the ten pin. When shooting a big hook at the ten pin, a slight miss to the right of the target causes it to drop in the gutter while a slight miss to the left causes it to hook away from the ten pin to the left. There's almost no margin for error. Thus, our primary mission was to kill Sharon's hook.
Sharon has a polyester ball which is a great first step. It will skid longer and be less inclined to hook than a urethane or reactive resin ball. The trouble starts with the hand and wrist rotation I mentioned earlier. Even with a polyester ball, Sharon's ball hooks a lot because she gets a strong sideways rotation without a lot of velocity on the shot. To roll the ball straight, she will have to roll it very fast or keep her hand behind the ball.
Sharon tried keeping her hand behind the ball and she experimented with different targets and different spots on the approach in search of a comfortable, repeatable shot. It's not as easy as it might appear on the surface. Sharon is most comfortable delivering the ball the same way she shoots for a strike. Keeping her hand behind the ball presents a certain awkwardness that makes it more difficlut to hit her target. If she doesn't keep her hand behind the ball, her shot hooks even with a polyester ball.
When we started, Sharon guessed she was hitting the ten pin only about 25% of the time. Each game gave us twenty shots at the ten pin, though an accidental strike made it nineteen in one game and an accidental spare in the tenth frame made it twenty-one in another.
In our first set of twenty shots, Sharon hit 25% of her ten pins but she was going through a lot of trial and error. She tried something different in the second set and improved to 30%. A couple of adjustments in the third set bumped her up to 35%. In the last set, Sharon hit 45%.
While Sharon's success rate improved, she wasn't able to find anything with which she was comfortable. Also, she is looking for a conversion rate a lot higher than 45%. That means we have to keep working at it and trying other things until it clicks. I know with Sharon's skills, she will be over 75% once we find that missing ingredient.
I'll be practicing with Olivia and The Coach tomorrow morning. I'd like to try something like this with them, too. We get two hours of free bowling from 9:00-11:00 so we should put it to good use and not just bowl games.
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