If you are a beginner in bowling, your primary focus should be on stabilizing your head. For this, consider using a towel ball. The type of towel ball does not matter. Place it on your head and practice your throw. If you bow your head, the towel ball will fall. This can help you practice keeping your head steady during the swing.
Understanding the Importance of Head Stabilization in Bowling
The reason the towel ball falls from your head is because of the force that’s momentarily exerted during the throw. This is akin to your head dropping, which signifies a loss of balance. This is a very basic posture exercise, as a shaking head can lead to a bad habit. It’s best to correct such habits as early as possible or not form them at all. Simply keeping your head steady can greatly improve your bowling accuracy and reduce the habit of using unnecessary force.
Bowling Ball Maintenance: How to Wipe Your Ball
While you have the towel ball, let’s learn about how to wipe a bowling ball. It may seem like there’s no particular trick to this, but many people are always curious because no one ever teaches them. There’s also a trick to holding the towel ball. Your thumb, which grips the bowling ball, should never be greasy. If your thumb is greasy, the bowling ball will slip, which implies faster bowling timing. It’s also difficult to wipe off the oil during a game, so it’s important to develop a careful habit from the moment you start wiping the ball.
Therefore, when holding the towel ball, your thumb should be out and careful not to touch the towel ball. Hold the oily part on the towel ball with your left hand and wipe the bowling ball by rotating it with your right hand. Once again, your thumb should absolutely not be greasy, and not just this, thumb care is especially important. If foreign substances stick to your thumb, it becomes very difficult to maintain consistent bowling timing.
Blowing into the Bowling Ball
In relation to bowling throws, you often see players blowing wind or breath into the bowling ball in videos. The breath is used to temporarily fill the thumb hole of the bowling ball with moisture. Doing so increases the humidity inside the hole, causing the thumb to be released late during the throw. On the contrary, blowing wind reduces the humidity, causing the thumb to be released relatively early. This technique can be applied according to different situations during a throw.
Pay Attention to the Grip
Even if your thumb is big, there’s no problem with gripping. If you grip properly, even with a big thumb, you can release the bowling ball smoothly. How is the best way to grip a bowling ball? For beginners and bowlers who struggle to release their thumb, it’s recommended to hold with the thumb extended. However, as your skill builds up, it’s problematic to keep gripping with your thumb. The timing of releasing the thumb requires the ability to adjust according to your physical condition and situation.
Your thumb should primarily be hooked on the ball. It’s easy to understand if you think of a claw machine. Like a claw machine, your thumb should be securely hooked on the ball. If you grip too hard, your grip might loosen during the release action.
Developing a Good Bowling Grip
Bowlers, often referred to as power bowlers, who rely on rotation usually grip the ball quite firmly. If the strength is 100, they use 70 to 80% of that force, and when the ball reaches from the hips to the ankle during the downswing, more force is applied to the grip. At this point, the grip becomes more solid.
When gripping, the base part of your thumb is important. It’s hard to consider it a good grip if you bend your thumb back and extend it straight. You need to grip the ball with the base of your thumb. If we consider the base of the thumb as 1, the side of the thumb as 2, and the front part of the first joint of the thumb as 3, 3 should be slightly bent. But don’t bend your thumb too much. You should feel that you’re using all three parts, pressing them all into the hole for a proper grip. This kind of grip helps you not to wobble and improves your accuracy.
If you lose grip on the ball during the backswing, or feel anxious as if you’re going to lose it, it means you’re not holding the ball properly. As you bowl more and your thumb grip strength increases, your thumb timing will naturally become consistent. You should not help the ball to escape from your hand. The ball should be continuously held, and maintaining the grip until it’s impossible to hold any more is important. You should have the thought of ‘not letting the ball go’. At this time, you should apply force below your elbow. The force should not be transmitted as far as your shoulder. The motion of professional players shaking their shoulder while holding the ball can be seen as a preliminary action to remove force from the shoulder.
In the release motion, you release the ball while gripping your fingers. If the strength is 100, consider the ball escaping from your hand when the kinetic energy exceeds 100. This can help maintain a consistent timing. But if you just keep your thumb in, you won’t know when your thumb will be released. If you help the ball escape, there’s no way the sensation of release will be consistent.
Releasing the Thumb Naturally
Some bowlers make a “pop!” sound when releasing. The reason this sound is made when fingers are pulled out from the bowling ball is due to the pressure difference when releasing the thumb. It’s like the sound made when you put your finger in a bottle opening and pull it out quickly. The same applies to a bowling ball. If you pull out the middle and ring fingers quickly, a sound is made. This is due to the instantaneous pressure difference, and if you attach a tape to the middle and ring fingers, the sound is not easily made because it doesn’t fit well. In reality, making this sound has no relation to bowling. It’s just the sound made when fingers fill the hole and are quickly pulled out.
There are quite a few bowlers who struggle with releasing the thumb or continually experience thumb trouble. How can we release the thumb well? Most of the weight of the bowling ball is felt through the thumb, but more than anything, the angle of the thumb is important.
The direction of the thumb going towards the middle and ring fingers is called ‘forward’, and the direction going towards the body (back) is called ‘reverse’. If there’s too much forward, it’s hard to release the thumb and if there’s severe reverse, the thumb loosens and the ball is released too early. Even if the thumb is relatively long, it tends not to release well. It’s important to drill the ball taking into account the length and flexibility of the thumb, the moisture of the hand, etc.
Moreover, there are cases where the thumb doesn’t release well due to posture. If your shoulder is behind your knee, it’s hard to release the thumb. In other words, the shoulder should be a bit ahead of the knee. Just by correcting your posture slightly, the thumb can release well. If you have thumb trouble, it’s good to check your posture again depending on where the trouble is.