First coaching session

I had my first coaching session with Ray today. During most of the early part of the session, he had me bowl while filming me on his camcorder from different angles. He also put a piece of yellow tape on the ball just under my finger holes to help determine whether my fingers stayed under the ball.

When we viewed the “before” video, we determined that my timing was good, which was one area I was worried about in making the transition from a four-step delivery to a six-step delivery. Most of my problems were of the leverage variety. The tape showed that my left arm was going well outside of my body and my fingers were coming on top of the ball, the combination of which led to dropping the ball behind the foul line.

Ray had me shoot about 12 shots concentrating on bringing my left arm in, and about 12 more doing the oft-mentioned towel drill, where you concentrate on getting the ball to clear a towel placed in front of the foul line. While Ray was watching me go through the drills, he stopped me and had me try on a wrist brace, which also seemed to help. In filming the “after” video, I had 7 out of 12 strikes; I wasn’t crossing over as much, and I was also carrying my light hits, which had also been a problem. All-in-all, I shall consider this first coaching session “very productive.” I may or may not go back to Ray in about a month, but my summer practices will definitely focus on the two problems that we isolated.