Wrist Spin Bowling (part Five)

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Finally got my pine tar!

Brilliant stuff.

No problems gripping the balls now.

However, I went a bit overboard, and put WAY too much on the towel that I was using to apply the stuff.
So my balls are a little on the sticky side :D
 
boogiespinner said:
Thanks to much practice I have ripped the skin off a finger - interestingly the index finger, not the ring finger. The ring finger is pristine.
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Its probably because of the pine tar. Its horrible stuff, you should try to keep it off your fingers where possible. Its really just to help people grip baseball bats when its wet.
 
SLA said:
Its probably because of the pine tar. Its horrible stuff, you should try to keep it off your fingers where possible. Its really just to help people grip baseball bats when its wet.
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They use it all over ships too. Probably why sailors are called 'tars'.

It doesn't seem to be corrosive as it's just one isolated spot on my index finger.

I think it's more to do with my using the index finger fiercely in ripping the ball and hundreds of deliveries. The sensation I was getting is one of yanking the ball down with the index finger when it is at the high point of the action.
 
boogiespinner said:
They use it all over ships too. Probably why sailors are called 'tars'.

It doesn't seem to be corrosive as it's just one isolated spot on my index finger.

I think it's more to do with my using the index finger fiercely in ripping the ball and hundreds of deliveries. The sensation I was getting is one of yanking the ball down with the index finger when it is at the high point of the action.
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Its not corrosive, its just horribly sticky and that by itself will tear the skin on your fingers.
 
The inside of my spinning finger is the only part of my hand that comes under any regular pressure. I have some hard skin on the inside of the end knuckle of that finger. If I bowl lots with a new ball, I risk removing that hard skin.
 
I am getting a bit fed up with well-meaning people coming up to me while I am practising to tell me I need a higher arm, as if it's a piece of cake to bowl legspin.
 
boogiespinner said:
I am getting a bit fed up with well-meaning people coming up to me while I am practising to tell me I need a higher arm, as if it's a piece of cake to bowl legspin.
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Sadly, people just love to give advice, even when they have no qualifications and no idea what they're talking about. 90% of the time they do more harm than good.

Ignore them - the only person you should be listening to is a professional coach who takes the time you watch you in a variety of situations before intervening.
 
Amen to that SLA, although I would like to qualify it a little, in that the coach doesn't have to be 'professional' in terms of someone doing it as a full time career (there are good and bad in both the professional and amateur ranks, particularly in something as specialist as leg-spin) but most definately has to be doing the second part and I would also add gives their advice in a way that promotes a discussion rather than dictates 'their way'
 
TonyM said:
... although I would like to qualify it a little, in that the coach doesn't have to be 'professional' in terms of someone doing it as a full time career (there are good and bad in both the professional and amateur ranks, particularly in something as specialist as leg-spin) ...
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Makes no difference Tony. Even the highly qualified, full time professionals are dismissed as not knowing what they are talking about in the recreational areana... and if that 'professional' happens to be female... no chance!

Although, I do find that when I charge a King's ransom, I strangely get attention!! :D
 
TonyM said:
Amen to that SLA, although I would like to qualify it a little, in that the coach doesn't have to be 'professional' in terms of someone doing it as a full time career (there are good and bad in both the professional and amateur ranks, particularly in something as specialist as leg-spin) but most definately has to be doing the second part and I would also add gives their advice in a way that promotes a discussion rather than dictates 'their way'
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Yes, by professional I meant professional qualifications, experience and attitude rather than a full time coach.

I do a mixture of paid and voluntary work, and there is no difference in terms of the advice or methods used.

My personal bete noir is the coach (whether qualified or not) who starts trying to make dramatic technical changes without even first ascertaining what the player has been working on with other coaches!
 
boogiespinner said:
Well I am generally open to suggestions from anyone, even professional coaches.

I should post a video sometime.
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Posting videos is ok but really you need someone to watch you week in, week out; in matches, in nets, doing drills, to talk to you, to look at your stats and how you get your wickets and where you give away your runs. Only then will they have sufficient information to be able to provide you with a long term improvement plan. Any idiot can watch a video and make suggestions based on what they personally think a leg-spinner "should look like", 90% of the time if you listen to them it will do more harm than good.
 
boogiespinner said:
How many deliveries would you personally need to watch SLA before you could detect a technical flaw?
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Depends. In most cases, it is obvious from just one ball. But that's not the point. Everyone has technical flaws, the difficult thing is identifying which ones require attention and what to do about it. Pull too hard at the wrong thread and the whole action will fall apart.
 
SLA said:
Depends. In most cases, it is obvious from just one ball. But that's not the point. Everyone has technical flaws, the difficult thing is identifying which ones require attention and what to do about it. Pull too hard at the wrong thread and the whole action will fall apart.
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Absolutely!

For instance:
As a biomechanist, measuring the angles would only give us part of the picture. They tells us what is wrong but not why it is wrong.
As a soft tissue specialist, we can see which muscles are dysfunctioning to prevent the correct angles and can treat issues intrinsic to those muscles.
As an S&C we can programme (in isolation as well as movement) to strengthen under performing muscles once the intrinsic issues have been dealt with.
As a coach... etc.

Seeing that an action is not right does not inform the cause. If a bowler's bfc is incorrect, telling them to land it differently does no good unless you assess the reason. The number of [what looks like] wrongly positioned bfc I see do not have anything to do with the foot but the hip. By just saying, 'you need to change....' without addressing this cause just leads to other issues and often injury. Other joints and muscles must compensate, leading to other issues, which are caused by this 'small' change only. This then leads to other issues and so on... without even addressing the original cause.

However, most grassroots coaches do not have these skills but none-the-less can make a huge difference but they need to know what issues are natural to that bowler. No two are alike! Two bowlers could present with the same incorrect action but would have different causes. A good coach can often 'detect a technical flaw' on the first ball... but knowing 'why' is a different matter. You cannot assess the whole picture without knowing the bowler or 'seeing' their movements.
 
I think it's also possible though that the reason for a technical flaw is simply that the person is doing it wrong.

I had someone video my bowling a couple of nights ago, and indeed I was shocked to see that my action was almost pure roundarm. I'm going to work on a vertical one, if it is topspin only for a while so be it.
 
Not been on here much of late, working on a new on-line venture. I'm potentially moving from blogging to having a proper website. I've secured the domain name www.wristspinbowling.com and I'm currently using Weebly to create the look of the website here http://wristspinbowling.weebly.com/ I'm hoping to get proper website up and running by Sept 1st and hopefully have world domination of all things Wrist spin!!!!:)
 
someblokecalleddave said:
Not been on here much of late, working on a new on-line venture. I'm potentially moving from blogging to having a proper website. I've secured the domain name www.wristspinbowling.com and I'm currently using Weebly to create the look of the website here http://wristspinbowling.weebly.com/ I'm hoping to get proper website up and running by Sept 1st and hopefully have world domination of all things Wrist spin!!!!:)
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excellent!

I'm still yet to be convinced that the 'orthodox back-spinner' exists though.
 
boogiespinner said:
excellent!

I'm still yet to be convinced that the 'orthodox back-spinner' exists though.
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If you mean a ball held cross seam but then bowled in an orthodox fashion like a seam bowler with straight backspin, then that is what I would call an "orthodox back-spinner". That is obviously incredibly common, if uninteresting.

If you mean a ball held cross seam and then bowled with a mixture of sidespin and backspin with the seam scrambled, that is also a very common delivery for both off break and leg break bowlers, both amateur and professional. Nowadays it is called a "slider" and is a very useful and easy variation. Many amateur spin bowlers bowl it by accident when trying to bowl a stock ball.

If you mean a ball bowled with backspin out of the side of the hand with the seam vertical as described in Philpott's daft book and occasionally repeated by the super troll Warne, then no, I don't believe such a delivery actually exists outside of his imagination. Its certainly never been captured on camera, and in 20 years of spin bowling I have never met anyone who bowled it.

The moral of the story, don't believe everything you read in books or in interviews!
 
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