Reverse or Forward pitch in thumb hole

by **tina** » Sun Aug 19, 2007 9:51 pm

Any thoughts on reverse or forward pitch in thumb holes? Me and my husband had a coaching session in July and the coach gave us some interesting articles written by Bill Taylor. Everything he wrote makes sense to me. I have noticed that I grip my ball tight because I feel like I am going to drop it. The coach we had our session with said we both have reverse pitch in our thumb holes. Winter leagues are getting ready to start and I want change my ball before we start.

Best of luck to everyone for the up coming season

by **oldvalefty** » Mon Aug 20, 2007 4:34 am

Hello Tina..

What part of Virginia do you live in?

Yes, the thumb hole is one of the keys to making good repeatable deliveries. Seek out a good pro shop and have the operator check out your span and get his/her recommendations for a good grip.

Good luck..

Lee R

by **Jim H** » Wed Aug 22, 2007 1:59 pm

Bill Taylor actually did write the book on how to measure a hand and drill a bowling ball. BT has been a leader in trying to understand the intricacies of bowling for the best part of 60 years, and for many of those 60 years he has written articles and a few books about the subject.

You did not mention how old the articles were that BT wrote. Even the venerable Mr. Taylor has modified some of his thinking over the last 60 years, I would have to agree with oldvalefty that you should seek the advice of a good pro shop operator, You won't go far wrong by looking for someone who is qualified by the IBPSIA.

The IBPSIA course includes much from Bill Taylor as well as Ron Hoppe and a few other luminaries of the game.

by **tina** » Wed Aug 22, 2007 9:13 pm

The articles that I actually read came from BTM issue July, Sept, and Oct of 2002. We took our balls to our pro shop guy this week. He told us the for me as a woman that I will be able to deal with the forward pitch better and actually drilled my with about 1/16 forward pitch. He said since I had a smaller span it would be easier for me. He took my husbands ball to 0 pitch. His reason for this was that y husband has a very long span and he felt that he should start with 0 and work his way up to forward pitch. We haven't had a chance to throw them yet but are planning on going this weekend to try them. Our winter league starts next week so I am hoping that this with help improve our games. I know that I could be a much better bowler then I am now. I carry right around a 170 average. I a fairly consistant with my release but I struggle reading the lanes as they change so that is what I need to work on. And what I mean by that is be able to move when some the other bowlers roll through my shot. Sorry about the rambling. Thanks for the feedback.

by **cristobal** » Fri Aug 24, 2007 3:55 pm

The one thing that really helped me when I went from reverse to forward pitch in the thumb is relaxing the hand. If you squeeze in the slightest with forward pitch you will hang in the ball. You are always suppose to relax your hand no matter the pitch but forward will force the issue. I still prefer reverse but when I start grabbing my shots I pull out the forward pitch ball during practice to get the relaxed hand thing going once again. Good Luck!

by cb » Sat Aug 25, 2007 11:28 pm

I am a female and have a 4 5/8 span with 5/8 forward pitch in the thumb. I realize this is unusual, but it works well for me. At a seminar I took in Vegas just before the coaching summit, there was a discussion of pitches. I was used as an example of how charts don't always work.

About 5 years ago I started on the forward pitch. The coach I was working with slowly moved me to 1/4 forward.

Just over a year ago, after working with Ron Clifton, I moved to 1/2 forward. This year, after my annual session with Ron, I went to 5/8 forward.

Forward pitch will help you stay in the ball longer. I was dropping the ball before we went to the forward. Best of luck on your adventure with forward pitch

by **oldvalefty** » Sun Aug 26, 2007 8:24 am

Interesting cb.

Is your hand exceptionally dry or a very short thumb?

That's the good part of finding a coach/pro shop operator that is truly interested in an individual and work until a solution is resolved.

Good luck with your bowling.....

Lee R

by **Jim H** » Mon Aug 27, 2007 9:06 am

CB raised some interesting points. It is true the charts don’t always work, but the charts are meant to provide a starting point for finding the thumb pitch, they are not meant to provide the final thumb forward/reverse pitch.

The charts come from research initially done by Bill Taylor. He discovered that a four inch span usually works best with zero thumb forward/reverse. He also discovered that spans that were longer than 4 inches should be given more reverse, while spans less than 4 inches should be given more forward pitch. Taylor then went on to say that the length of the thumb is also a factor and he gave adjustments for long as well as short thumbs. Dry thumbs and moist thumbs also had adjustments. If you think about it the way Taylor did you will understand that a thumb that is moist or dry will produce different amounts of friction in the thumb hole which will impact the thumbs ability to leave the thumb hole. The same goes with the length of the thumb, short thumbs will take less time to leave the thumb hole than long thumbs. As the thumb forward/reverse pitch is a controlling factor in the length of time it take the thumb to leave the thumb hole all these things need to be considered.

Bill Taylor went even further. He suggested further pitch adjustments depending on the type of material the ball was made of. Most bowlers today use some type of thumb slug or solid for the thumb hole. The materials generally used for thumb slugs are urethane or vinyl. These two materials produce different amounts of friction that the thumb must react with and consequently the ball driller may make adjustments to the pitch that came from the chart depending on the type of thumb slug used. Some ball drillers even take the color of the slug into account, they believe that the dye added to the urethane or vinyl will change the friction properties of the thumb slug.

There are other adjustments the driller may make or at least consider for any individual bowler. For example the flexibility of the thumb will certainly be a major consideration, in the case of someone who has very little flexibility (the thumb cannot bend backwards) it makes no sense giving the bowler reverse pitch, no matter what the chart says.

A driller may also make changes to the thumb pitch in conjunction with the finger pitches in order to modily the amount of hand revs the bowler generates during the release. Other changes to pitches could have an impact on the axis tilt or axis rotation.

Watching the bowler is certainly a very important part of the assessment involved in determining how to drill the ball. CB said that she was dropping the ball when the ball had reverse pitch, adding more forward pitch made her thumb stay in the thumb hole longer. She was also taking coaching. I think that the combination of coaching and going to a knowledgeable ball driller has helped.

by **rowdy** » Tue Aug 28, 2007 1:11 am

I must say Ron changes the pitches from revers to forwards in a lot of people... He convinced me to do so, and this was after a few emails and never meeting him in person. I took mine from 9/16th revers to 1/2 forwards. I did this to QUIT (cold turkey wasn't working) musceling the bal thru the swing. Working backwards from that I had to have a death grip on the ball... The first time I started working 1 step drills trying to relax the grip preassure the ball fell off... 1/4 of the way into the back swing. So after many trials 1/2 forward was where it was comfortable and my swing has freed itself up imensly (although I still believe that I have too much muscel in the swing.) But I can tell you 1 thing is certain, I am more acurate without the muscel i used to have, can last the 12 game block tourneys I bowl in instead of only going 5 or 6 before my are was worn out, and my rev's increased to the point I find myself having to back off of less than lanes slathered in mayonaise.
Shawn

by **tina** » Fri Sep 21, 2007 11:23 pm

Hey everyone. Been away for a while. Started the new season a few weeks ago. Started with a book average of 171. After taking the summer off my average dropped some but as of this past week I will be back up to 169. The forward pitch seems to be working however I think I am still dropping my ball occasionally. My bad week when my average dropped I wasn't feeling well so I think that had a lot to do with not bowling well. I did roll a 207 this past Wed. At least I didn't have to wait till mid-season. Hope that is a good sign.

Good Luck to everyone this bowling season. Roll Big