Ball Talk – Featured Reviews
Radical Grease Monkey Pow
The Radical Grease Monkey Pow is the second release in this line. The change from the original Grease Monkey is just to the coverstock. The Pow uses a solid coverstock, finished with a 500 SiaAir pad and Royal Compound polish. The Pow provided us an earlier, smoother reaction compared to the original Grease Monkey. With the Pow, we saw an increase in total hook that was most noticeable on our... [Read More]
DV8 Rude Dude
The Rude Dude is the latest mid-price ball for DV8. This ball takes the core from the original Dude but uses a neon orange and yellow solid coverstock that is much stronger than the Dude's Class 4F formulation. This new coverstock provides a much stronger read in the midlane and back end than the original Dude. This ball provided the best reaction for our testers on our medium pattern. All... [Read More]
DV8 Ruckus Schizo
The Ruckus Schizo is the third introduction in the Schizo line from DV8. This ball utilizes the same asymmetrical Ruckus core shape from the previous two balls in this line. The difference is the Class 12 Reactive pearl coverstock. This cover comes at a polished finish, allowing it to retain large amounts of energy on medium volume patterns. The Ruckus Schizo's strong directional change was best for our testers on... [Read More]
Ebonite Energy Source
The Energy Source joins the Source and Legacy in the Upper Mid Performance price point for Ebonite. This ball takes the Mission core that was in the original Source and wraps it with the new hybrid XL4500 coverstock. In addition to the different coverstock makeup, the box finish is also different from the Source. This ball is finished at a rougher grit before the polish is applied in the last... [Read More]
Brunswick Melee Cross
The Brunswick Melee Cross uses a core design similar to the one used in the original Melee. While this core shares the same flare potential, its RG is much lower. This allows the Melee Cross to rev up quicker, and, combined with the sanded box finish, it hooks much earlier than the original. While the hook shape is much earlier, we still had just a barely better reaction on our... [Read More]
The BTM Archive – Featured Content
How the Ball Goes Through the Pins
Last time we talked about several of the things you can do to get lined up more quickly and stay lined up, using lots of the free stuff that is available to those who stay awake. You just can’t be unconscious. I wish it were that we could nonchalantly observe our shots and then just... [Read More]
El Dorado and El Diablo
The chemical composition of today’s bowling ball covers paired with flare leads to a weighty amount of oil being removed from the lane at a fast rate. In order to make proactive lane play decisions throughout a block, players must know oil depletion is the single most influential factor in lane condition transition and the... [Read More]
Bandwidth Feedback
In my last article, I discussed a practical method for coaches to decrease the amount of information they provide during coaching sessions. This method is known as learner-generated feedback. To recap, I urged coaches to consider allowing their students to dictate when they wanted feedback rather than the coach providing constant feedback. The major benefit... [Read More]
How to Read a Program Sheet – Part 2
I promised that this month we would talk about how to translate all this data into a place to play on the lane, so here goes. What part of this do you really need to know and how will it help you? Here again is the 2012 Baton Rouge program sheet we’re using. (see below)... [Read More]
Backswings and Fast Feet
It’s still a busy time here in Reno during Nationals. Thanks to all the BTM readers who have stopped by to say hello or to take a lesson with me. This edition of the Round Table features questions that are easily two of my favorites to date. The first topic of discussion addresses the height... [Read More]
Site News and Announcements
Bowling This Month is Officially Back!
I am very happy to announce today that Bowling This Month is officially back in business! After many months of hard work, we've just finished updating our website with everything necessary to launch our online subscription service. I really appreciate everyone's patience as we've worked through this transition. Now that we're back online, the majority of our focus can finally shift back where it belongs: delivering the best technical bowling content available to our loyal subscribers. While we will always keep a portion of our content open for everyone to view, the majority of our articles … [Read More]
Welcome to the New BowlingThisMonth.com
Thanks for visiting Bowling This Month's new website. We're still very hard at work building the site and we aren't quite ready to start our subscription service, but we thought now would be a good time to invite the bowling world inside to take a look around. We still need a couple weeks to finish building the rest of the content and functionality, but we didn't want to wait any longer to start sharing information about the future plans for BTM. We've added some archived content from recent issues of the print magazine and we're offering unrestricted viewing access to everyone for a … [Read More]