Questionmy question is how i fix stop drop my shoulder.
thank you for the answered.
harvey 3-31-2012
Answer
www.TrueBowlerAdjustme
Hello Harvey, dropping the shoulder is perhaps one of the most argued bowling topics that exist today. It's just as arguable as kicking the trail leg to one side to deliver the ball or delivering the ball with the trail leg in the air. When you win millions of dollars in prize money doing it, it's very hard to argue that it is not correct.
Sort of like two handed bowling, or what to do with the balance arm...do you let it hang, stick it out, or flip it over? The point is, when it is done right, it's right, whether others like it or not.
To start, I have lots of bowlers with dropped shoulders at delivery, "they" don't realize this, yet they throw strike after strike.
Recent articles have even said, it's okay to drop your shoulder, as long as you let the ball swing from your shoulder! Now, that's my point!
When the entire shoulder is swinging, windmilling, or turning, things begin to get very dicey.
First, your timing goes, the shoulder is back one time, then forward on the next pitch, then a bowler begins to lean forward, or back, the delivery hand turns a bit more than is needed, the bowler begins to question,...is it them, the pattern, or the ball?
Confusion sets in, eventually the dreaded missing spares, and the posting of less than a 150 score hits the scoreboard. Cascade of events all because the arm does not swing from, or under the shoulder joint.
Harvey, imagine you had two buckets of water. (I use to carry lots of water when I was young.) Since the shoulders form a "T" to the body much like the letter T, it is easy to feel the weight of the buckets "from" each shoulder.
If you were to swing the buckets back to front, without moving your shoulder and just your arms, this would be idea for bowling. This would be called the "pendulum swing."
Windmilling the shoulders would be trying to turn in a circle with the two buckets. This would be equal to pivoting the shoulders to the left or right. This, is "swinging the shoulders," not the ball.
The pendulum swing from the shoulder is what allows the ball to release from the same point at the line everytime you deliver the ball.
Don't swing the shoulders, it will move the shoulders forward 3 to 4 inches one delivery, or the shoulder will swing back with the hips, opened away from the foul line, another delivery.
This alone can shorten ball travel, or increase ball travel, causing who knows what chaos to your game.
So, a dropped shoulder is not as much as a problem as it is a "moving shoulder." A moving shoulder has a tendency to cause a windmill affect on a delivery. Often the bowler will pull the shot through the nose of the rack, or hit to the left of the head pin, for right handed bowlers.
The simple solution to a better swing from the shoulder, is be more "upright" in your delivery! Not necessarily fully upright either... Leveling your chin to the floor works wonders for the majority of my bowlers.
Leveling the chin to the floor also allows bowlers to increase their line of sight to their down lane targets. This often increases ball travel significantly preventing premature hooking of the bowling ball. This simple act of leveling the chin to the floor, creates support for the head and shoulders at delivery.
Using your slide toe, foot, knee, hips, back, shoulders and balance arm as stabilizing structures to your swing, has to occur first. This way, you retrain the muscles of each group to do it naturally. Over time, you will use less and less of each structure, to finally just swing the the arm and hand at delivery, "not the shoulder." Just as you would the bucket of water.
In summary Harvey, there is a comfortable spot between two positions: "Hips and shoulders." This is where the arm and hand swing can occur at the same point on each strike shot delivery.
For some bowlers, the shoulder may be parallel to the foul line, for others the shoulder position may be as much as 20,30, to 45 degrees opened away from the foul line, when they deliver the ball. When the arm swing gets to this position, the ball release and ball travel will stay consistent.
We don't have to totally parallel our hips with our shoulders, to the foul line when we deliver the ball, however closing the hips and shoulders back to the foul line is recommended for the most part.
Just remember to let the "arm swing" from the shoulder joint and don't twist the two shoulders like a windmill. If you don't move the shoulders, you will see that the opposite shoulder or the none ball side will never move. Never. This none movement of the opposite shoulder will stay that way from the start of the approach to the finish.
As you know Harvey, professionals are exempt from this Coach Oatis rule. ;-) Remember, try to be more upright with your delivery. If needed you can get a friend to slightly tug down on both wrist at the same time, to experience how the ball should feel once it begins to swing from a stabilized shoulder.-Coach
-Coach Gary Oatis
Las Vegas, NV.
www.TrueBowlerAdjustments.com (It's A Great Bowling Book!)
