EJ Tackett on adjusting and dealing with transition | Neil Stremmel's Bowling Breakdown

Welcome VBA LBC League bowlers I'm Neil Strummel your director of rules and equipment and I am here with EJ Tackett. EJ thank you for coming out we have we have a question for you that has has come through from one of our a couple of our bowlers league bowlers out there and it's about if you have a time where you're you don't have a good look you don't you don't match up well you're struggling a little bit due to the pattern or the environment and what do you do to kind of work your way through that how do you deal with that? Yeah that's a kind of a loaded question you know every week that we bowl I feel like no matter how good I'm bowling you always get in this situation there's always a time sometimes it lasts a game sometimes it's a few shots sometimes it's a whole block there's a lot of different ways that you can work through it me personally I'm always trying to pay attention to you know what kind of pattern are we bowling on what the lane surface is because those are all going to influence the decisions that I make if I get in a pickle a lot of times dumbing it down and going back to basics is always a good place to go like okay let's take a step back maybe let's pick out a ball that I have a lot of confidence in it always gives me a good read of what's happening on the lane so then I have a better idea of which direction do I need to go with bowling balls do I need a bigger core a smaller core more cover less cover do I need my ball to pick up earlier get further down the lane a lot of times for me that's a venom shock you know that's where I fall back to let me throw the shock it may not be the right ball but it's gonna definitely tell me what I need to do in which direction I need to go so that's kind of where I'm going to work through stuff like that is just get a better understanding of what my ball is doing on the lane so I know what direction that I need to go ball wise and then if I think if I can get in a in a ball that that's close then it's going to be like okay well what physically can I do to get this group of bowling balls to do the right thing on the line all right so that makes sense let me let me maybe say it a different way or a shorter way like so go to your go your shot go to your go-to ball your most comfortable ball the ball you've had a lot of success with I know and go to that and then see what you see and then because you know that ball so well you can you can make those adjustments off of that go to a different ball go to a different surface different drilling and then and then keep keep going from there yeah absolutely I mean every time the ball goes down the lane the balls giving you information that you have to receive and dissect and be able to move forward from so going to that favorite ball in your bag is going to give you the best information because you've thrown this ball a ton you know exactly what it does and its tendencies so when you throw it down the lane it gives you a better indication of where you need to go and bowling balls you need to throw and such like that okay yeah because you'd throw it and you'd be like okay well normally I see the ball do this and I'm seeing it it's coming in too early okay so now I know I need something smoother to push through that or maybe it's the other way around and you need something to to grab earlier etc so that gives you that information the best or I don't know it's a disaster and you're like I need to be in a completely different zone yeah okay yeah that makes sense to me so great information great information for the league bowlers out there I want to maybe try to go through that we have a pattern that's been you know this was used yesterday it was put out yesterday I don't know how much you're gonna struggle on it but let's just talk about that process either way sound good all right I appreciate it let's go do it all right so so we're seeing in that in that part of the lane which is kind of a place where you would normally want to start not working out and you know topography on this lane I know can be a little little very tricky tricky very tricky on this lane and also I know this has been beat up a bit so here we are what are we gonna do you gotta deal with it you gotta you gotta you want to score you want to do your best absolutely so you know my ball went very high there I left the three pin but my ball hooked very early very close to me and I'm using a ball that really shouldn't do that so that just tells me that lane is really beat up right there yeah so I'm definitely gonna have to move everything left try to get my ball into some fresher oil so we can get a little bit further down lane before it tries to make its hook okay that makes complete sense let's let's see how we can do that and figure that out just like that you're too good all right this thing is too good ever all right you're way better than I am how's that and there's there is a thing such as that all right so I saw you moved about five with your feet is that about right it was about it was about three or four okay and then actually you weren't that much different at the arrows but the angle was was notably different and just a little bit here caught a lot more oil is that yeah absolutely so you're moving left is getting my ball into oil in the front part of the lane but you still have to use that angle into where the lane has been beat up because the ball has to overcome more of that so it needs to see that friction sooner so if you just move left you're basically just throwing it in oil and getting closer to that flat part of the middle of the lane so you won't have very much miss room left and you wouldn't have very much miss room right and it seems counterintuitive but actually getting it further right earlier helps the ball what we say slow down stop going right start making its hook and roll off of that most of the time as a professional we're not looking for you know that hockey hockey stick look we're looking for the ball to round off and then continue through the pens it's 99% of the time that's the kind of ball motion that we're looking for it's rare you know it does happen where we have to get it really far down lane and it's gonna hook dead left but majority of the time we're looking for that nice round shape all right and then the other thing I'm hearing is as you did that by not fully moving in you're gonna have a little more room to miss some more room for error and still find the pocket find success yeah absolutely so I you know the the thing about bowling is everyone's good shots are really good but how good are your bad shots yeah find a place on the lane where your bad shots still get nine and that's gonna open up doors for you to be way more successful I think everybody looks at it a little bit different well I I look at it differently than most people anyway but I'm just trying to get that part of the lane where if I when I do miss because I'm not perfect no one is when I do miss is my ball getting nine or six yeah if I can get to the place where my balls getting nine one on this I feel like I'm gonna be hard to beat all right and then every once in a while that nine falls and you know you put it in the middle of two and two and you got a five bagger and yes went from 220 to 250 all right very good very good all right hey I appreciate that I appreciate your time that was a good look and a good understanding of how you see it and the way you think I hope that that helps the league bowlers out there I hope the league bowlers can reach some of that information and and learn from that so go out there practice utilize this plan of attack and continue to support our sport thank you very much