When your ball comes back, don’t reach onto the ball return to get it until the folks on either side of you have started their approach. They can see that movement peripherally and it can be very distracting.

Now we’re going to make a MENTAL trip to the office supply store. Go to the section that has Avery labels. You will find a package of 2″ circular labels in your favorite color – neon pink, purple, bright red, whatever it might be. Buy the package and put it in your ball bag. Anytime you have difficulty seeing your target, when the glare of synthetics is too much, or there’s no dark board in the pines, just pull one of these labels out and mentally put it wherever you’re looking. Laser that dot. You’ll be amazed how well you can see it!

If you’re one of those folks who bend your elbow too early in the follow through or would like to project the ball further down the lane on certain conditions, try this. Hold your arm down by your side. You’ll see a crease on the inside of your elbow where the elbow bends. Think of leading the shot (your hand and ball) with this part of your elbow. You cannot biomechanically do this, of course, unless your elbow bends the opposite way of everyone else’s! What’s important is that you think lead with your elbow. Just feel like you are trying to have this crease of your elbow leading your hand toward the target. It will be very difficult to bend your elbow if the crease is going toward the target!

Once you’ve found your strike line, don’t line up for your perfect strike shot. You’re not perfect, why line up like you are? Try moving one board left with your feet. Yes, I really mean it. Line up left of perfect. That way you’ll have room to be a little light and maybe even miss slightly right. Either way you’re probably still in the hole and if you don’t carry, have most likely left yourself a makeable spare.

When does the ball begin its motion? At the same time as your first step? Just before? Just after? If you get to the foul line leveraged and in balance and can deliver the ball the way you want, it doesn’t matter how you start. What matters is that you KNOW how you start since that is what enables you to have such a good finish. Things that are wrong at the foul line seldom go wrong at the foul line. Something in your delivery process causes it to be wrong at the foul line. Start at the beginning to fix it. This is true regardless of where it FEELS like it went wrong. Something wrong in the middle of your approach is usually compensating for whatever was wrong in the beginning. Get a bad start and you spend the rest of the approach trying to make up for it.

Please keep this in mind your entire bowling life. Every shot you have ever thrown is in your head. Every shot you have ever seen anyone else throw is in your head. Every shot you have ever seen on television is in your head. Those thousands and thousands of shots are quite an inventory. They are a wealth of information for you. With all of that experience in your head, how can you ever doubt a move that you decide to make?

Your game is constantly evolving. It will not stay the same and it won’t always be sharp. Just when you think you don’t have another 134 game left in you, out it comes. Peak performance levels are cyclical. That’s what causes slumps. Bowling great doesn’t last forever and neither does a slump.

It’s almost impossible to hit your target if you’re not looking at it. Additionally, if you’re not looking at it and you hit it, how will you know? Since you shouldn’t make an adjustment unless you’ve thrown the ball pretty much like you wanted to and hit what you wanted to hit, you’ll also not make a good adjustment. There may be something that will screw you up worse than adjusting off a bad shot, but I can’t think what it might be.Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur. Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum.

If it’s difficult for you to watch your target until the ball rolls over it, try this. Think of your eyesight as a laser beam. Laser your target. Make it smoke! That beam to the target will really help you stay focused. You’ll be surprised how much easier it is to hit when you’re looking at it! It has probably happened to you that you are looking at your target and on the way to the foul line it just seems to blur out and you don’t know if you hit it or not. Lasering will reduce this phenomenon. It will also help eliminate the tendency to pull your eyes off the target as soon as you let the ball go. Don’t laser the second arrow. Laser the right edge of the base of it. Looking this precisely will also help you to be more accurate because you are more focused.

Your first step is the most important one you take. Don’t ignore it or take it for granted. Learn exactly what you do with this first step. When you get in trouble or don’t feel quite right, start here with your fix-it methodology. Perhaps you slide it and you’ve started being a little more heel-toe than normal. Maybe you are normally heel-toe but you’ve inexplicably started being much more heel-toe. Maybe you’ve unconsciously shortened it or lengthened it. Whatever the case, if you know what it does and what it feels like when it’s right, you’ll be able to fix it when it’s wrong.