Alright, I just wanted to give a quick update on my health and other random thoughts. For those that have been following me since 2010 when I started this journey may or may not have noticed that while the primary focus has been on ball reviews, my physical game has changed quite a bit over those years. I started the journey near my physical prime age so to speak and it’s been downhill from there as they say. I always sought to improve myself and elevate my game. With every year that went by and every Gold coach I spent time with, some injury cropped up to hinder my improvements. I started seeing coaches initially due to the injuries and looking for more efficient ways to bowl to avoid more injuries. They always brought a step up in my knowledge but my body kept taking a step back. While I had hoped all the time with coaches would be 1 step back, 2 steps forward, when all things were considered, the reality is I probably took 2 steps back, 1 step forward. Whatever I did to improve couldn’t keep up with the extent of the injuries.

I’ve had chronic bicep tears, wrist surgery, 2 torn labrums in my hips. my first hip replacement was 3 years ago. This leads me to the reason for the season so to speak, I just had my other hip replaced. So as I sit here in recuperation and contemplating, I wanted to do this personal video to catch people up. I would love to hope that this will be it for the most serious injuries and surgeries, only God knows. I was thinking back, for the last 10-15 years, I had been thinking to myself, hey bowling isn’t my livelihood, but I would love to be able to get myself well enough and good enough to get to the point where I could eventually compete on the PBA50 tour. Now that I am almost qualified, and as I sit here today, obviously it’s not easy to foresee that. But eventually things heal. I’ll be back to bowling. Whether I can get enough reps in to be good enough to actually compete or I phsychologically get to the point where I feel satisfied with a few games a week in a sport shot league, time will tell.

I have spoken in the past about my coaching experience with amazing coaches such as Lou Marquez and Ron Hoppe among others. But I did want to speak to my recent time with Joe Slowinski. Over the years, I’ve found that most coaches don’t want to “break you down to build you back up so to speak”. They seek to improve what you are doing. Small tweak here in body position, tweak there in targeting, etc. Chasing incremental changes that will help you improve…and I understand why. Most bowlers will spend time at a 2 hour clinic splitting a coach across many bowlers. Or get 1×1 lessons for 1hr, 2h, even a full day. There are opportunities to go for several days like I did with Ron Hoppe in Seattle. But ultimately, most bowlers go back home, try to work in the new thing, hope to see some incremental improvement, but are unlikely to continue with coaching. You can’t really build something new that way and coaches know that so they focus on something incremental. Now here’s why I chose to find time with Joe Slowinski when he was in town. I’ve been watching my power and physical game deteriorate for years. Rev rate gone down. Speed down. Carry down. Even while I understand more about ball motion than ever and more accurate than I’ve ever been. I rarely bowl house shots for the last 8 years or so, maybe the occasional sub now and then. But I almost always find myself struggling around 600 when I used to average 220+ on house. Carry just isn’t there. Could be a number of factors but it’s no fun. I’d bowl the same score on house and sport in the same week.

That’s a lot of background to get to the point about Joe. Joe has been focused for years on biomechanical efficiency. You can look him up. He’s written for Bowling This Month, coached several national teams internationally and has a strong track record on focusing on areas he finds critical to bowling success. What called me was the ideal of biomechanical efficiency. Given my loss of power, speed, etc. is there anything that can be done to turn that around. This time, I didn’t mind being completely torn apart and rebuilt. This was key because if you’re afraid your average will go down when you change things, you might as well not bother. It will go down as you incorporate things. It’s natural. Human beings are a conscious “single-tasker”. Meaning we multi-task when the tasks become subconscious. So for example, most bowler don’t think about which foot they will start with, when they will move the ball, The direction the ball should be moving going up or down, how much drift you have with each step. It just all happens subconsciously. So you may have 1 key to get you started and maybe your key target. That’s it. Try to think about one of those other things and see how much your targeting is affected for example.

Anyway, I was willing to be broken down. Just take in anything Joe has to help me with to learn how to efficiently transfer energy. You may notice in the last few videos in the fall, I may have subtly looked different. There were some significant changes implemented to transfer energy better. Getting away from flexion/extension which is the very traditional way of bowling, to a more modern game of abduction/adduction. This is an absolutely critical process as it relates to the modern game. What I found is things hurt less, I instantly had more speed. That translated to more carry as speed is a big factor in carry. At first I was a little disappointed not thinking the rev rate changed much, but the same amount of rotations over a shorter time frame equals guess what, higher rev rate. It’s not an overnight sensation but was a revelation. Something I could really feel good about. First thing that had me excited about bowling in a long time, even as I knew I was going to be halted with this hip replacement. We started working on some additional things to limit the overrotation of the opposite shoulder as well as driving the hips down on release. Both of these things are meant to help you roll your hand further around the circumference of the ball, thereby increasing rev rate. I love all the videos that just say “stay behind the ball”. Really? If everyone could do it, wouldn’t we? There are mechanical things that cause us to come around the ball. While I know I will always have some limitations due to wrist surgery and the other things mentioned, I can certainly improve and Joe was one of the few coaches who is willing to really hone in on things that make a biomechanical difference, even if they wreck your scores for a while. You just have to be willing to give it a shot.

I share all this because I’ve seen people say they want to get better but then are also not willing to put in this level of effort to truly retool. You can’t go from throwing it like Earl Anthony style to EJ Tackett overnight or ever, but you certainly can put in the work to learn from the modern game. Every sport has advanced. It wasn’t that long ago where it was basically Andy Roddick who can toss a 130+mph serve. Now it feels like easily half the field of professional tennis players can do that. If you want to compete with up and comers, it isn’t just being young. It’s being biomechanically efficient. Transfer as much energy as you possibly can.

OK so I’ve gone pretty far with the coaching notes but that’s one of the things I felt like musing about. In terms of my return, I imagine there will be some debut with the alligator ramp at some point, stay tuned for that! I will continue the best I can to keep up with the balls we receive, at least drilling and shooting videos with Bryan and Tyler. I may fall a little behind as I’m not quite feeling well enough to stand in front of a press to even get balls drilled but everyday things change. Right now I’m in that stage trying to ween off of the pain meds while at the same time still getting the reminder I might not be ready.

I could go on but not sure how much more you all can take. I know one thing that’s crossed my mind is how much longer to continue doing the ball reviews. Those that have been following know I’ve been around for a long while but the algorithms have pushed viewers into the arms of lots of “entertainment” and the market is now flooded with content, much of which isn’t worth the time in my opinion but it doesn’t really matter what I think. If people aren’t interested in what we do, it may be time to hang this up and focus on other things I enjoy. I still enjoy this and think I can share my knowledge with the bowling community but if 2 people watch, it’s just a lot of work for no return. I’m not fully in the headspace to figure out how to improve my videos in this crazy world run by algorithms and I’m not sure it’s where I want to put my efforts in.

That said, I will continue doing this for now. If anything, I’m excited to get back and practice all the things I learned from Joe. Use them in the videos, maybe show a little more dynamic motion from the left side. Thanks to all those who have supported us over the years and appreciate your continued support. Until next time, good luck on the lanes!