People say great bowlers must have versatility and I agree. They have special abilities to manipulate the ball’s motion to strike more than others.
This article will reveal the secret of manipulating the ball motion for two-handed bowlers. Keep reading!
Before utilizing this technique, you need to choose the right ball with cover stock matching the oil pattern. Otherwise, it won’t work.
What is axis rotation & axis tilt?
Axis rotation is the amount of side rotation imparted onto the ball. A bowling ball rolling end-over-end is as close to 0 degree of axis rotation.
The smaller the axis rotation imparted, the smaller the hook potential.
The larger the axis rotation, the greater the hook potential.
And of course, you cannot make a ball hook without axis rotation.
When you impart a certain degree of axis rotation to the bowling ball, you have moved it away from its stable position, which is the 0 degree of axis rotation.
The oil rings or tracks visible when you first pick up the bowling ball from the ball return, identify that it is trying to change its axis rotation in an attempt to return to its stable position and rotate around the ball’s centre of gravity.
Axis tilt is commonly referred to as spin.
If your ball track is further away from your fingers and thumb holes, you have more axis tilt than someone whose track is closer to them.
More axis tilt helps your ball stay in the skid phase longer, making it easier to clear the front part of the lane.
You will feel that the bowling ball is leaning more to the right or left with lefties while moving down the lane.
Now, we’ll call axis rotation r and axis tilt t for short.
After releasing the ball, you have seeded a certain amount of rotation and tilt axis to the ball.
The faster the ball loses its axis rotation and tilt the sooner it will hook.
The bowling ball doesn’t lose much axis rotation and axis tilt during the skid phase, thanks to the help of the oil on the front and middle part of the lane.
Most of the time, the ball loses most of its axis rotation and axis tilt when it reaches the friction area or the backend.
The more axis rotation and tilt the bowling ball can save during the skid phase, the more energy it can save to give the most carry when hitting the pocket.
So again, as the ball travels down the lane, the axis rotation and tilt reduce over time and get closer to 0 before hitting the pocket.
However, r and t should still be larger than 0 at the collision point to have optimal carries.
These are the non-optimal cases:
If t=0 and r>0 before hitting the pocket, the ball might be light hitting.
If t>0 and r=0, the ball might miss the pocket to the 3-pin or wash out and leave a split.
If r=t=0 before hitting the pocket, the ball will roll out and lose all the hook potential.
How to manipulate the ball axis rotation?
What is the effect of more or less axis rotation?
More axis rotation means more skid before the hook with an aggressive backend or bigger hook.
It’s often used when you want to delay the hook.
Less axis rotation means less skid before the hook or hooks earlier with a less aggressive backend or smaller hook.
It’s often used when you want to make the ball hook sooner.
How to Increase and Decrease axis rotation?
The more your palm leans to the left side, the more axis rotation it creates and vice versa.
You can reverse this system to the right if you are a lefty.
So when looking at bowlers’ hand position follow-through, you can guess their tactics for manipulating the ball motion.
What is the effect of more or less axis tilt?
More axis tilt means more skid before the hook with an aggressive backend or more sudden change of direction.
With more axis tilt, the bowling ball will save more energy before reaching the backend. This is due to less friction caused by contact with the lane thru smaller diameter ball tracks during the skid phase.
It’s often used when you want to delay the hook.
Less tilt means less skid before the hook or hook earlier with a less aggressive backend.
It’s often used when you want to make the ball hook sooner.
How to increase and decrease axis tilt?
Axis tilt is one of the most difficult areas to change in your game. You can consider your axis tilt part of your bowling DNA. But we still have a small trick to manipulate it.
Turning the wrist to the left side before cupping it will increase the axis tilt and vice versa.
You can adjust the axis rotation and tilt or both to create desired ball motion.
Now it’s time you hit the lanes and test my tips. If it helps improve your game, don’t forget to come back and give me some comments; also, like or share this video with your friends if they want to improve.
See you in the next video on how to improvise the arm swing for two-handed bowlers. Until then, enjoy bowling!