Warm Up Once, Line Up Forever!,by Susie Minshew

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Warm Up Once, Line Up Forever!
by Susie Minshew | September 18, 2014 3:06 pm
Oh, those precious minutes of practice before league! There are so many
things you need to do with them. You’ve got
to get your drink, fight for your table, shuffle the cards, greet
everybody, and oh yeah, find the shot. The strategy for
this is one of my favorite subjects!
I am, of course, assuming that you are being treated like an athlete and
the center/tournament 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,
“Good evening and welcome to the members of the Up Your Average League.”
You have a lot to do before that announcement so you’ve got to get to
the center early enough to do it all. You must
check all of your equipment to be sure it fits tonight and place the
ones you intend to use first on the ball return. The
others are close by so when you need to go to them in practice, they are
available and not in the garage. You have
your shoes on and have checked the approaches properly, your towel is in
place, and your drinking water is ready. You
have dynamically warmed up instead of stretching since you know
stretching is inappropriate for cold muscles. You’ve
allowed one of those well-fitting balls to swing your arm several times.
Let’s talk about that “checked all of your equipment to be sure it fits”
comment. Just like you are wise enough to know
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 adding or removing tape must be done to ALL your
equipment, not just the ones on the return.
What if those balls on the return fit you but not the lane? You can’t
afford to watch other people warm up while you
have to adjust the fit to accommodate your big thumb or smaller than
normal fingers.
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.” That’s goofy. If your ball
doesn’t fit your hand well, you will not put your thumb
or fingers all the way in or you will squeeze to hold on or whatever it
is you do to compensate for a poor fit. You can’t
throw the ball like you will when it fits, therefore whatever
information you obtain is tainted. Take the time to do it
right. Your teammates will be glad to wait on a good shot.
Make sure 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
ball return so you can be first to loosen up,
as physically and mentally ready as you can be.
Discovery mode
I love this phrase (thanks, Steve Fuhrman!). It so perfectly describes
where we need to be mentally and physically as
we investigate what the lane wants. Use your practice time wisely. If
you don’t have time to try everything on this list
before the arrows come up, so what?
Lining up and re-lining up is a constant. In fact, you’d better be doing
it every shot. If you’re not lined up when the
arrows come up, keep working at it. You’ll have plenty of time to worry
about scoring as the event wears on but you
won’t be doing much scoring without being lined up. It’s not in your
best scoring interest to assume that
searching for the right match up ends when practice does.
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In no particular order:
1. Choose the line.
2. Choose the ball.
3. Try forward roll or close to 15 degrees or so of axis rotation. Watch
the breakpoint and how the ball goes
through the pins very carefully.
4. Increase your rotation to your version of 45 degrees. Watch the
breakpoint and how the ball goes through
the pins very carefully.
5. Give it your maximum axis rotation, your version of 90 degrees. Watch
the breakpoint and how the ball
goes through the pins very carefully. I know this sounds redundant but
each release axis will cause the ball to do
different things at different places on the lane, giving you a different
look. That’s why you’re doing it!
6. Lay the ball down early.
7. 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 pins 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?
8. If you have found A shot, move. It may not be THE shot. Try to find
more zones of the lane you can play. 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? What’s happening at the 1 arrow? Knowing that you can or cannot play
those alternative places on the lane is 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.
I have too many choices
What a nice problem to have! And it happens a lot more frequently than
you’d think. If you don’t become an explorer,
you’ll be mired in mediocrity. We’ve all been in “Where did the shot
go?” land. We had it and now we don’t. If the shot
goes away, wouldn’t it be nice to have an alternative plan you could
slide (pun intended) right into? Deciding where to
play depends on many factors. So, how do you decide which shot to use
versus which shot to “save” for later?
Which one will carry best?
Pay attention to how the pins fall. Does this house carry better with a
light hit? If so, make sure your line up 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.
Always 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, what type of oil is being
used, and the lane surface. And you’ve got to consider all of that.
Speaking of surface, is it wood or synthetic? Wood is
much softer than a synthetic surface. In fact, your ball is probably
harder than a wood surface! That means the
footprint of the ball on the lane is greater – more ball surface in
contact with the lane surface, making the ball more
st
2 / 3
responsive to the lane surface.
If they are synthetics, are they AMF or Brunswick? AMF synthetics
typically have more friction than Brunswick
synthetics. That matters when you are trying to figure out what the lane
wants. That’s why you don’t have a synthetic
arsenal and a wood lane arsenal. Roll your ball and move where it tells
you. Period.
You know 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 shot will everyone else play?
That would depend on what type of bowler they are. If you are crossing
with coast-to-coasters, they’ll choose a
different line than a stroker or power player. 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 high rev 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 will
likely 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 so they don’t move 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 around 10 with the polished ball. What if it hooks too
early with the low pin resin ball? Better not change
anything.” That’s defensive bowling. There’s no defense in bowling! Use
the early frames to try all the options. You do
not want to drive home wondering what would have happened if…

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