Fixing The Most Common Bowling Problems

What would your idea of “fast feet” be? I can tell you, this is one of the biggest problems of a
bowler! Fast feet occurs when your feet are ahead of the swing during or at the end of the
approach. The bowler only feels a little off balance or he/she may be turned sideways at the end of
the approach. The “fast feet” phenomenon may also concern other areas of the bowler's game,
such as dropping the shoulder, inconsistent releases, lack of follow through and inability to stay
down with the shot and maintain balance at the foul line in the post-position.

How can you solve this problem? Here are common causes and solutions for fast feet problems:

The Problem: Poor ball placement

The ball placement is essential to timing. Fast feet is related to poor placement of the key step (the
first step in a four-step delivery and the second step in a five step delivery). Another important
issue is pushing the ball in an upward direction from a waist high position.

The Solution: This might be translated as a simple movement that slowly places the ball toward
the target downwards. When the heel of your step touches the floor, you try to time your ball
placement. Here’s a tip for you: think to yourself during the key step to step and only after that,
place the ball!

The Problem: Shoulders too far forward

This causes extra bend at the waist level and not enough bend at the knees level, therefore the
ball reaches the lane too early allowing loss of leverage and an unbalanced feeling in the
approach.

The Solution: Shoulders should be erect and knees slightly flexed. As you begin your approach,
the knees should gradually deepen their bend upon sliding without causing any strain. At the end
of the approach, your waist should be slightly bent forward. As a general rule, the deeper the knee
bend when sliding, the less the waist needs to bend.

The Problem: Key step too long

This means that all your steps are too long and so the swing will float through the approach
resulting in no power. Usually, five step approaches must watch the length of a second step.
The Solution: Try taking a normal walking step and the rest of the steps will fall into place. At a
five step, the first step is for momentum and usually shorter than your normal key step.

The Problem: Walking on toes

In this situation you will have too much speed in the approach and your shoulders wil be too far
forward. This also causes loss of leverage.

The Solution: Here you must place the heel first and toes last in each step. This way the
approach is smoother and you can slow down the entire approach. Since the approach builds
momentum from the back to front movement of your feet, the leverage will increase.

The Problem: Muscled armswing

You must apply this correctly, otherwise becomes detrimental to timing, leverage and overall
consistency of the armswing and it may also cause injury and pain in the wrist, arm and shoulder.
The Solution: When swinging the ball, it should come from the shoulder with a minimal amount of
muscling. Practice on relaxing the armswing. For example, imagine your arm is like a wet noodle.
Let the noodle swing freely from your shoulder, allowing the weight of the ball to direct the swing
throughout the approach.

Go back to "The Ultimate Bowling Guide".