Back to Basics – Part 1: Alignment

Sometimes, bowlers (and coaches) can make practice more complicated than it needs to be. With that in mind, I wanted to share a “back to basics” approach for focusing on the areas of your game that can sometimes get neglected in favor of more exciting elements, like the release and rev rate. These are foundational elements that can easily become the source of bad habits, but they aren’t often the first ones you’ll think to practice or adjust.

I’ll also suggest a simple, bowler-friendly drill or activity you can do to work on each one. For the first installment of this series, we’ll focus on alignment in the stance.

Alignment

Alignment can mean two things:

• Physical alignment: how your body is positioned in the stance.
• Tactical alignment: how your body is positioned on the lane, relative to your target line.

Both are extremely important, and they’re very easy to mess up. It’s important to note that they can influence each other. Poor physical alignment can cause missed shots, resulting in an adjustment to your tactical alignment. And vise versa. It’s a sort of chicken-and-egg conundrum. For that reason, you want to address both. Let’s review.

Physical alignment

Physical alignment refers to how your body is positioned relative to your intended ball path. While many bowlers and coaches focus on posture (knee bend, spine tilt) or the position of the ball itself, your alignment is just as important.

In the stance, the goal is to position yourself perpendicular to your ball path. The shoulders, hips, and knees should be aligned so that the front of your body is pointed in the direction you want to throw the ball. As an example, let’s say you are throwing a ball directly up the boards, with a launch angle of zero degrees. In this ...