In our league here in DaNang, Vietnam, I am the only person that bowls with a profound curve. I developed this when I was a teenager initially as a gag but over the years it became the only way that I can bowl. In some ways it is actually a detriment because my rolls are very dependent on the lanes being oiled properly and we can't really depend on that being the case here in Vietnam where the standard of bowling alleys is a lot less than in the west or ever other Asian countries.
Above you can probably see the little circles in the oil where people's bowling balls have hit the oil pattern and taken some of the oil with it. For someone like me, this oil needs to be fresh and thankfully the lanes that we go to oil all the lanes the morning that we arrive there because we always book the entire bowling alley for our group. If left to their own devices the bowling alley might only oil the lanes every other day or a couple times a week because if you don't bowl with a curve, and few people do, the oil matters a lot less to you than it will to me. In fact, it probably wouldn't matter to you at all.
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There are a number of ways to bowl effectively with a curve and the above diagram is the way that I used to do it. This is all fine and dandy if there is the correct amount of oil on the lane but you cannot count on this place to actually do that. I also have a lot more than just a little bit of spin on my ball so if the oil isn't there, I am going to slide all the way across the lane into the left side of the pins unless I seriously "flirt with the gutter" on the right hand side. A gutter ball for someone at my ability is incredibly embarrassing and thankfully, rare.
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When you bowl (or I should say, when I bowl) from the right hand side, you need to also push the ball quite a lot in order to make sure that you don't activate too much spin. This is problematic because it is very difficult to throw the ball with the same velocity every single time and then there is also arm fatigue to factor in as well.
Therefore I have started to bowl using the left-most example that is shown above starting all the way over on the left, going across the lane to the right and then at the last several meters before the ball gets to the pins, the ball curves sharply in towards the pins. While this doesn't always work out for me, it has a much better opportunity for a strike than someone who bowls "straight."
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The idea in bowling it to hit the 1/2 or 1/3 area and this is more likely to result in all the pins falling down. If you bowl straight, even if you do hit is in just the right place, physics dictates that you are likely going to end up with a pin or two standing. More often than not, this will be the 5 pin since the "explosion" of the pins is going to ricochet away from the initial point of contact and the 5-pin is the most protected by the pins around it. This is more important to understand if you realize that the above graphic is misleading because the pins are not actually that close together, they are 12 inches (just over 30 cm) apart from their neighbors.
When you come in at an angle like I do, provided I make contact with the 1 pin there are two opportunities for me to get a strike. One, which is a standard strike is where you hit the pocket or space between the 1 and 3 pin. The other chance I get is if i either hit the 1 head on or if I slide down the front from the 1 to 2. This is referred to as a "Brooklyn strike" and while very few professionals will rely on this, it is a nice advantage for people who bowl with a spin. You can miss the "pocket' and still have a good chance at a great result. If you bowl straight, you do not have this advantage.
Now to say that I always do better than the straight bowlers would be a lie. The straight bowlers need far less technique than I do and it is also a lot easier for them to roll it in the same place every time. In exchange for me having a different approach, I get a much larger "sweet spot."
Now as far as my results are concerned they aren't exactly stellar at this point. For one thing, since I am right-handed I need to get quite far to the left in order to launch the ball from where I want to and if the ball return machine happens to be on my left side, I won't be able to easily get over there the way that I would like do.
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This is not our ball return machine but they are all quite similar globally. As you can see they cover a lot of the area on your approach to where you toss the ball so if the machine is on my left I am going to struggle. This was evidenced the other day when while the machine was on my left, I bowled a 143, but then after changing lanes to having the machine on my right, I was able to have the space that I need on my approach and bowled a 172.
I am going to have to find a way to adapt to this because our lane assignments are random for everyone that is not already the champion. The champion gets to decide what lane they bowl on to defend their championship and since everyone in our group knows that I struggle when the machine is on the left of me, they are going to bowl against me with the machine on my left.
I will be going to the lanes a few times a week in order to try to correct this situation and may have to adjust my approach so that I come to the fault line at an angle, which isn't ideal because it can throw off your entire trajectory.
It's a work in progress but when it does work, the people attending tend to find it quite impressive, as do I.