Bowling "Skill Drill" Games?

[RickJensen]

Does anyone have any ideas for fun games to use when coaching? I'm the assistant coach of our High School Traveling Team and am looking for some different games that are both fun and develop the bowlers' skills. For instance, we do play low-ball occasionally (lowest score wins, must hit a pin on each ball) as the corner-pins tend to be what they need the most work on. Other than that, we will usually just shoot a game of shooting at the 6-10 or 4-7 on first ball then pick up your spare. Anyone have any other ideas? Thanks in advance!

[idlehourlegend]

Something like the one step drill is always a good thing to do.

[Steve1591]

We've done this "game" where ye partner two people up, one of the two shoots first for 5 frames trying to leave something hard for the 2nd to pick, then the 2nd person tries to pick that spare, if the 2nd person missed the spare, the one who left it gets the point, but if he made the spare, he gets the point. After the 5 frames they switch the order...whoever has the highest amount of points at the end of 10 (5 and 5) wins and the loser does 10 push ups..

Helps with learning to pick your spares

[PinSlayer]

Originally Posted by Steve1591

We've done this "game" where ye partner two people up, one of the two shoots first for 5 frames trying to leave something hard for the 2nd to pick, then the 2nd person tries to pick that spare, if the 2nd person missed the spare, the one who left it gets the point, but if he made the spare, he gets the point. After the 5 frames they switch the order...whoever has the highest amount of points at the end of 10 (5 and 5) wins and the loser does 10 push ups..

Helps with learning to pick your spares

LOL I just had a thought. I should do this when I take my son bowling. He is 11 but has not bowled much since I have not bowled in so long. I can let him roll the first ball and I try to pick it up. I am doing OK on spares making about 80% of them but still miss a few easy ones.

[slap]

My preferred skill drill is the arrows/dots game.

It's kind of like a game of horse. You start with the first arrow. The bowler can start anywhere on the approach but the ball must cross the target arrow. The bowler has to throw two strikes in a row with the ball crossing the first arrow. Then you move on to the second arrow. Two strikes in a row, then move to the third arrow etc etc

The bowler must use the same ball for the drill. You can work in spare practice during the drill. Whenever a bowler fails to strike they should cover the spare. To make the game drill "harder" if a bowler opens two frames in a row, the have to start over at the first arrow.

The game can also be played from the dots. Instead of a target arrow, the bowler must start with their sliding foot on the first dot. In this version they can use any target on the lane. After two strikes in a row, the move to the next dot.

From a coaching standpoint this drill is great for several reasons. First it will challenge all styles of bowlers. Your straighter players will find the outside arrows easy but they will struggle inside. It will be the opposite for your heavy handed, high rev players. This drill will teach each player how they need to adjust to play different areas of the lane. They will have to adjust their ball speed, loft and hand positions.

[VmsTopGun]

Shoot the 7 or 10 on the first ball. If a single pin is hit then score it as a strike and next ball is practice for a pocket hit. Else on the second shot, a very good pocket hit is required for the spare. I used this game during practice early this year with my son and one of his league team mates. The fathers were getting tired of watching so many singe pin spares being missed.

If you place a ball on the foul line with its equator even with the left gutter then place a pin next to it and then place another ball next to the pin, the combined width of all three will cover slightly more than half the width of the lane. missing a single pin spare is a big miss...

[RickJensen]

We used to shoot at just the 10 or 7, but then we found at our first match that we were having trouble chopping the 10 off the 6-10 and other similar things. So we changed it now to shooting at the 6-10 and 4-7. Another game that the kids seem to like is picking up each other's spares, where the bowler will throw their strike ball then the person after them will pick up their leave and then throw their first ball. The problem with this is that they tend to shoot for strikes on the first ball, so its not really much more spare practice than just bowling regular. Most of the kids on the team open bowl a couple times a week anyways, so I'm really trying to focus a lot more on spares as they get plenty of practice on their strike shots as it is.

[slap]

Originally Posted by RickJensen

We used to shoot at just the 10 or 7, but then we found at our first match that we were having trouble chopping the 10 off the 6-10 and other similar things. So we changed it now to shooting at the 6-10 and 4-7. Another game that the kids seem to like is picking up each other's spares, where the bowler will throw their strike ball then the person after them will pick up their leave and then throw their first ball. The problem with this is that they tend to shoot for strikes on the first ball, so its not really much more spare practice than just bowling regular. Most of the kids on the team open bowl a couple times a week anyways, so I'm really trying to focus a lot more on spares as they get plenty of practice on their strike shots as it is.

If your kids are like mine, strike ball practice consists of throwing their favorite line over and over again. This is generally useless practice. It "might" teach them to repeat shots but doesn't teach them how to adjust and play different parts of the lane.

I'm not sure if your program has a budget, but I can highly recommend the Athlete Develop Drills and DVD from usbc coaching. It's work the $50. (If any of your coaching staff is usbc certified, they should know that we get discount from the usbc store.)

[Granat]

Originally Posted by Steve1591

We've done this "game" where ye partner two people up, one of the two shoots first for 5 frames trying to leave something hard for the 2nd to pick, then the 2nd person tries to pick that spare, if the 2nd person missed the spare, the one who left it gets the point, but if he made the spare, he gets the point. After the 5 frames they switch the order...whoever has the highest amount of points at the end of 10 (5 and 5) wins and the loser does 10 push ups..

Helps with learning to pick your spares

I llike the idea of this. I assume that if the first bowler happens to jag a strike it's an automatic point for bowler 2?

Graeme

[mmcfarland300]

I like to use just the back row of pins 7 8 9 10 and hit each one twice without hitting any others at the end of each practice.