Using The Mind To Bowl Better

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big kev said:
I just didn't realise that I needed my runup to help me bowl how I wanted. So I just forgot that my runup would affect my delivery a lot, because it was part of it. So now once I've realised this, I will be working on my runup, not just my delivery.
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Yeah its integral, I've been working on my run up now for best part of 14 months and only just recently because of the combination of run up and the explosion through the crease I now get far more drift and dip and its in part due to a better and more consistent and smoother run up.
 
big kev said:
Something I have just realised in the middle of a game is that my runup wasn't preparing myself to bowl the ball I wanted to bowl. I realised that my runup had to be part of my delivery, and that I had to think about it, to focus on all that I wanted to do. So while I wanted to bowl a full ball, if my runup was rushed and tense I would drop it short.
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Got to be sorted out at training sessions but sounds like a rythmn problem?

Sometimes counting out loud the run up steps in training and developing a metronomic memory of your optimum pace can stop you from rushing.
Another one of those things you need to think about then forget about. Until it becomes a problem again.
 
someblokecalleddave said:
Running the action through in your head is a well known and advised approach 'Visualising', you don't have to even be there, when I was younger I used to use the technique with my surfing to great affect and still use it in my bowling and it helps. I think any if not all coaches would say that it is a beneficial approach to training. With regards knowing whether it's going to come out right, I think we can all vouch for that being a reality that we've all experienced, as the ball comes off the fingers you can feel that it's all come together and I personally say to myself - 'That's gonna spin alright'. If you record your action in slow mo - do so from in front, from behind and from the side and load them all up on youtube or silicon coach and people will give you feedback.
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Hey guys, has anyone found that some days, you can easily visualise how you want to bowl, and so you kind of know how to bowl how you want, but other days you have no idea, just a vague memory, and then you bowl very bad? I think that's where my confidence comes from, knowing that I know how to bowl a good ball. A lot of it is down to things outside my control, though, like sometimes I feel I am distracted of asleep a split second before I bowl, which is really weird. Dave, how exactly do you visualise yourself bowling? Do you visualise the point of release or do you visualise the whole runup? Today, I could only manage to visualise the release point. Something which helps my accuracy is imagining where I want to bowl as a bin, and I want to get the ball in the bin. It is probably helpful to me because I usually aim to throw stuff in bins.

However, after visualising my delivery, I still need to translate that visualisation into what I am doing, which is very hard. Is it normal to find that I can visualise my delivery, but I cannot bowl the intended ball? Or maybe I need to work on my visualisation? Because it is very hard to say what exactly you are doing when you are bowling the ball, like, how does my brain actually control my body?
 
I'm working with the run up and the action through the crease. I normally do it when I'm usually in bed, I just go through the process and just kind of see and feel how it should be - in my head. I visualise walking and in and then in the bound making sure that my right foot lands at right angles or there-abouts so that I'm side on. The other thing I work on is reaching out with the leading arm and today I've seen Benaud in a video that's been linked saying about how important that the bowling arm comes down in the follow through and sweeps past the hip. As well as visualising it I try it without a ball and groove the action, so that it starts to embed and become natural feeling so that when I come to bowl its more natural. Kev I don't know how far you are in your wrist spin journey as such, but 6 years in for me I know there's still work to do and things to hone and improve. Video-ing yourself and seeing what you do is a massively helpful tool as you then get to see the reality and start to be able to break down what it is that you are doing be it right or wrong. I think over the years I've focused a lot of attention on what the hand, wrists and figures do when I'm beginning to see that the whole body is as or more important that the finer details with regards the hands and fingers.
 
someblokecalleddave said:
I'm working with the run up and the action through the crease. I normally do it when I'm usually in bed, I just go through the process and just kind of see and feel how it should be - in my head. I visualise walking and in and then in the bound making sure that my right foot lands at right angles or there-abouts so that I'm side on. The other thing I work on is reaching out with the leading arm and today I've seen Benaud in a video that's been linked saying about how important that the bowling arm comes down in the follow through and sweeps past the hip. As well as visualising it I try it without a ball and groove the action, so that it starts to embed and become natural feeling so that when I come to bowl its more natural. Kev I don't know how far you are in your wrist spin journey as such, but 6 years in for me I know there's still work to do and things to hone and improve. Video-ing yourself and seeing what you do is a massively helpful tool as you then get to see the reality and start to be able to break down what it is that you are doing be it right or wrong. I think over the years I've focused a lot of attention on what the hand, wrists and figures do when I'm beginning to see that the whole body is as or more important that the finer details with regards the hands and fingers.
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Thanks, I'll get my coach to video me soon. Today I worked on building momentum, I used to walk in slowly to the crease, but today I ran in with a lot more momentum, because our coach said it would make the ball dip. Just wondering, does anyone know how we control our bodies? What actually happens when say you move your finger? How does your intention actually turn into reality?
 
big kev said:
Today I worked on building momentum, I used to walk in slowly to the crease, but today I ran in with a lot more momentum, because our coach said it would make the ball dip.
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Coach might have been misunderstood by you big fella because you need topspin/overspin to get dip and drop. Head wind can help but you need to loop the ball up out of your hand higher than all other bowling types for the full effect. To come down it has to go up.

Unless he could link the faster run in and increase in your topspin somehow. I mean he might be right in a way. Though my son walks in and gets loads of drop from his topspinning legbreaks.
 
big kev said:
Thanks, I'll get my coach to video me soon. Today I worked on building momentum, I used to walk in slowly to the crease, but today I ran in with a lot more momentum, because our coach said it would make the ball dip. Just wondering, does anyone know how we control our bodies? What actually happens when say you move your finger? How does your intention actually turn into reality?
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That's complex, I've looked into that a bit and got bogged down in nuerons and stuff, but as an introduction have a search around for fine motor skills, I've had a quick look and found this, but I'm sure this has been edited down and reduced massively http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motor_skill#Fine_motor_skills and also this - http://www.brianmac.co.uk/tech.htm if you search motor skills + sport you'll probably find more useful information. Another area to lookin into is cognition http://blog.80percentmental.com/2009/04/cognitive-benefits-of-being-sports-fan.html
This here mentions that choking phenomenon you spoke about a few days ago http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Procedural_memory
 
Yesterday after school I went to the nets to bowl, and I discovered how I can bowl with more accuracy. I imagined that the pitch was part of me, like an arm or something, and I needed to bowl to a spot on the pitch. This helped me visualize from all angles. Before I felt like I was something small and separate bowling in a big pitch. Now I feel more comfortable bowling
 
big kev said:
Yesterday after school I went to the nets to bowl, and I discovered how I can bowl with more accuracy. I imagined that the pitch was part of me, like an arm or something, and I needed to bowl to a spot on the pitch. This helped me visualize from all angles. Before I felt like I was something small and separate bowling in a big pitch. Now I feel more comfortable bowling
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Nice work Kev, sounds like the visualisation is working for you, keep at it and build on what you've learned. Is your coach a spin bowler?
 
Just wondering, once you are good at bowling, are you automatically able to visualise yourself bowling? Or does it take practice?
 
big kev said:
Just wondering, once you are good at bowling, are you automatically able to visualise yourself bowling? Or does it take practice?
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"Good at bowling" that's a difficult one to quantify. I think if you did get to the point where others were saying that you were good at bowling and were clamouring for you to play in the first XI and you were coming away with five-fers and a good strike rate, you'd probably got past having to visualise every ball, unless of course it became just a part of what you do anyway? I think you'd probably get to a stage where your action - from the point where you turn round and face the batsman right up to the point where you finish your follow through, would come naturally and you'd not have to think about it. Your thought process at that point would be more concerned with the planning aspects. You'd have reached the point by then where you'd be thinking things like right - I've seen this bloke driving - he's not tempted so far on those six leg breaks, next over I'm going to take mid off and cover out and offer him that space to drive through to try and induce the edge. That kind of stuff.

Visualising can happen any-time, I don't do it on the field, I generally do it at other times - in bed even!
 
big kev said:
Just wondering, once you are good at bowling, are you automatically able to visualise yourself bowling? Or does it take practice?
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I can always visualise myself bowling certain balls, yeah, because I get constant reinforcement from the nets etc. Like my stock ball spinning away from a right hander, I can imagine exactly what it feels like when it comes out right, how it's flight looks, where it pitches, the confused look on the batsman's face as his offstump rocks back etc. :D

Non-stock balls I have a harder time visualising, and I sometimes struggle to visualise bowling to left-handers because we never seem to have any in the nets for me to practice at.
As a rule, I never run up to bowl without visualising exactly what I want to bowl at the start of my run-up. It only takes a split second. Just running up and lobbing the ball up and seeing what happens is a waste of a chance to probe for a specific weakness.
 
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