On the Shelf.....

The Black/Silver color scheme of this ball is relatively basic for Storm. It will not give you that WOW factor on the shelf, but I personally like the color. They also have a different fragrance, Ginger Verbena, for this one as well. Yeah, I know, scented bowling balls, but hey it matters to some customers.

On the lanes.....

Alright, for everyone thinking about the reaction of this ball, you will have to free your mind, since when you see the price point and the word "Tropical". The first thought in everyone’s mind will be that it’s a dry lane ball. Not with this combination of core and cover stock! This ball was tested on both AMF HPL, Brunswick Pro Anvilane, and wood surface with Guardian heads. All three centers had house patterns, but the characteristics of the pattern calls for playing 3 different parts of the lane. The Tropical Heat Hybrid is quite a change from the other Tropical line bowling balls. It clears the front part of the lane with ease, as the Tropical Storm bowling balls did, but this ball has a lot of backend reaction. The combination of the Fast/Furious core, coupled with the Hybrid cover, gives this Tropical Heat a serious good look out on the lanes.

 In Conclusion....

The industry is changing to give better equipment for those bowlers looking for a great reacting bowling ball without spending a lot of money and Storm has listened to the bowlers. I believe everyone will have a place for the new Tropical Heat. Strokers may have to tweak the cover because of how clean this ball is in the front part of the lane. Tweeners will enjoy the backend reaction, and Crankers may also have to watch the surface as well, to make sure that it doesn’t have "too much over/under". Storm has stepped up their game to make this ‘entry level’ bowling ball one that will be used on most house conditions, and some of the shorter sport/challenge patterns.

Color: Black/Silver
Stock: Reactor Hybrid Reactive
Weight Block: Turbine
RG: 2.55
Differential: .038

Review Ball 15 lbs.
Layout: Pin 4.5" X 40 degrees pin above ring finger

GLC's "Out of 5 Stars" Ratings......

Length: 4.25  Back End 4.75  Shelf Appeal 3.75

On the Shelf.....

The new Burst is a great looking color combination. The Color of the dark red and silver with black make this bowling ball very rich looking on the shelf. An expensive looking bowling ball without an expensive looking price tag.

I tested the Burst at Bowling IQ on the Brunswick Anvil lane synthetic surface on your THS condition. This bowling ball is definitely cleaner through the front part of the lane than the Resurgence with a much more defined back end motion. I was very surprised to see the Burst make its move in the backend. It was strong, but very predictable. When I increased my rev rate I found a lot of success with the bowling ball from the inside. When I weakened my release, it gave me the straighter angle to the pocket with a strong but manageable back end reaction. Using my normal release, caused me to have a little over/under reaction, so I adjusted the surface and it blended the Burst out much better.

In Conclusion....

The new Burst will suit bowler’s styles from the Stroker to the Cranker. Strokers will love the ease it gets through the front part without the over reaction on the outside dry part of the lane. The Burst will give the Stroker just enough "pop" in the backend to get the corners out. Crankers will like the new Burst straight out of the box finish. It will give them ease through the front, and with the Cranker’s high rev rate, give them back end reaction without too much snap. Tweener’s will have to tweak the cover, or take just a little bit of the factory polish off to smooth it out. Tweeners can use it out of the box if they want to attack those medium to lighter patterns without sacrificing back end reaction. This tester will personally have this ball for more of the longer oil patterns where you need length with some, but not too much, snap at the backend. All in all, the new Burst will be a great bowling ball for the price and give your competition something to think about. Burst out into the new bowling season with Columbia!

Color: Red Red Pearl/Black/Silver pearl
Stock: New Era
Weight Block: Resurgence Core
RG: 2.46
Differential: .040

Review Ball 15 lbs.
Layout: Pin 4" from axis point, with center of gravity 5.5" from axis point

GLC's "Out of 5 Stars" Ratings......

Length: 4.00  Back End 4.00  Shelf Appeal 4.75

On the Shelf.....

The new 920T has a very rich cherry color. Sticking with the trends of bowling balls this year, it’s subtle yet simple. This tester doesn’t like the flashy colors and this ball suits me very well.

On the lanes.....

I tested the new 920T on QAMF HPL Synthetic lane surface at Bowling IQ. We had the PBA Shark Pattern oiled on the lanes. I brought out the 920A to do a comparison between the two bowling balls. At first glance, I thought my eyes were deceiving me. The new 920T had a very strong backend reaction. I actually saw more backend reaction with the 920T than I did with the 920A. Both pieces had the exact same surface and drill pattern for a more accurate test. When I asked a couple of other on-lookers about what they saw, they agreed. The new 920T had some real get up and go at the back end. Compared to the 930T, I saw more down lane recovery with more pop on the back end. With the new 920T, I definitely got a lot more "bowling breaks" with pin carry than with the other test balls. On the shark pattern, if you leak it too far outside you will not get recovery down lane. Instead of the typical washout leave you would see, the 920T came back stronger than expected which was great to see out on the lanes.

In Conclusion....

The new 920T is a great complement to the 930T. It gives you a cleaner read through the front part of the lane than the 930T with more backend ball reaction. In this tester’s hand, it had more back end than the 920A. Most bowling styles will have this ball fit in their arsenal. Crankers will like the power and explosive carry the 920T has, while the Tweeners and Strokers will have a ball to go to when the heads get a little dry and they start to see some carry down. The 920T will be great when you need to clear the fronts while still maintaining power and movement in the back end. I look forward to Track’s new lineup this year simply because I feel they have some great equipment and have covered themselves with bowling balls to combat most, if not all, the patterns a bowler will see. If you haven’t given Track a try lately, I suggest you do this year.

Color: Cherry Cover
Stock: Intermix Hybrid Technology
Weight Block: Modified Leggo
RG: 2.57 Differential: .057

Review Ball 15 lbs.
Layout: 50 degree by 3 1/2 by 30 degrees (pin aboe ring finger mass bias 1" left of thumb)

GLC's "Out of 5 Stars" Ratings......

Length: 4.25  Back End 4.50  Shelf Appeal 4.25

This week I wanted to talk about a bowler’s push away at their initial start and set up position. I have started doing a lot of coaching the last few weeks so I thought it might be a good idea to actually talk about some common minor adjustments from the teachings of the past to some of the new teachings in the sport of bowling today. Today’s conversation will be about a bowler who pushes the bowling ball straight out in front of them to more of a rounded smoother swing.

Bowlers where always taught in the past to push your bowling out toward the lanes and stretch the arm out and straight. Let’s think about that for a second. If you push the bowling ball out straight in front of you what happens to your arm swing? You have excessive muscling with your bowling arm to do this task. So haven’t bowlers been taught recently to be smoother and less muscle in there swing? If that’s the case, then by stretching the arm out with the heavy bowling ball already causes an inconsistency in the statement. What bowlers really need to think more about in there push away is a more rounded compact push away.

Here is a way of helping you eliminate the long push away to a more compact push away. If you are holding the bowling ball about waist high in your set up, and you push the bowling ball out all the way you end up locking your elbow in this position before starting the ball into the back swing. One thing you can try is to only make your push away about 6 10 inches out in front of you. By creating a smaller distance from your body to the push away you will automatically not lock your elbow in this first position and you automatically created a more compact swing. Look at the two charts below. One is the old school teachings and the other is the push away that we are discussing.

If the push away is longer, it causes you to hold the heavy bowling ball out further from your body thereby creating extra muscling in your entire game. Getting the push away closer to your body eliminates your muscle to over work thereby creating a more fluid freer swing When you have a freer arm swing you can repeat shot making more consistently. Isn’t that what we as bowlers want to do? Become more consistent. What happens when we become more consistent? Scores and averages go up and isn’t that why we love this game? We love to score big.

So in conclusion let’s recap this week’s tip. Shorter push away from your body equals less force and creates less muscle. Try this out during your practice sessions this summer and let me know how you did.

T.J. Yeip is the Manager of GLC Bowling and the Lead Technical Advisor. He is an IBPSIA Advanced Certified Member and former PBA member. He is a USBC Certified Coach. You can email your questions to him personally at thomas.yeip@glcbowling.com

I do not have to write anymore about my Nationals this year, considering that it is over. Although I do see that the scores out there continue to be shot. This week I wanted to keep things small and just write about how to sharpen your skills for bowling over the summer months.

One great way to sharpen your skills this summer is to actually go out and practice on a variety of tougher conditions. You can do this by bowling in a Kegel Lane Pattern league, or a PBA Experience league, or if you do not want to be committed to bowling every week in the summer you can still get your skills on at Bowling IQ. Bowling IQ is offering a summer Instructional PBA Invitational day. For only $15.00 you get to bowl for two hours, and have a coach to assist you while you are bowling. Where can you go and get a certified USBC coach work with you AND two hours of bowling for that price? Only one answer: Bowling IQ. I will list the times and details below. More...

After the team event did not go so good I tried to come in with a different mindset. I watched the team event prior to my doubles singles event to see what type of bowlers were on the lanes ahead of us and how they were playing the shot to see if I need to make a strategy change. Being left handed I shouldn’t see much difference from the team event to the doubles/singles portion. I watched the pair to find that there were three left hand bowlers on the pair ahead of me, and not one of them was playing the same. I was thinking, oh great this should be fun. I had a left hander throwing the ball straight up second arrow with no revs, one that played between 3-4^th arrow, and a two handed delivery lefty playing between the second and third arrow. Can you just imagine what the conditions will be when I get there? I checked into the locker room, waited my turn to go out, and headed out to the lanes. Just as I expected, anything outside of the 7 board was completely out of bounds, and between the 2^nd and 3^rd arrow was hooking in the heads. I saw my ball reaction and was not happy. I went through all the equipment I had to try and figure something out. After I did, I couldn’t carry. I had two times in games 1 and 2 that I was on a double and left an 8 pin, a 7 pin, not to mention the 7 pins that I left throughout all the games. I was burned. I couldn’t wait to move to my singles pair. When I moved to the singles pair, I moved left with the ball I started with in team event. I threw two bad shots at the start but finished strong with a 212. More...

The time has come. I have been writing about it for the last month and a half and it is finally here! I leave for the 2010 USBC Open Championships Saturday! I have put a lot of time in practice since the middle of February at Bowling IQ Training Center on the pattern. My team mates and I have held practice sessions there every week since February. Are we going to take over the team lead? I wouldn’t hold your breath on that. You can be as prepared as you want it still comes down to execution. We have the Game Plan. We have the equipment. We have the notes that I keep on when and what moves should be made. We have all the knowledge we have gained during the training sessions, but that doesn’t help you execute. I do feel more confident in my teammates this year then in prior years, simply because we really worked together in practice. I have 9 guys who I would be proud to bowl with every year because they have shown the commitment it takes to work as a team.  With all the training and preparation we have done, I will keep all of you aware of what we are doing. I will be blogging from Reno this year. I will be packing up the laptop to give you all the reports as to how I see the lanes, how we bowled, what our scores were. I will be excited to share with you exactly how well we were able to replicate the lane conditions at Bowling IQ that we experienced in the stadium. All I can really say is that as of right now, I want to get on the lanes and knock some pins down. I wrote in the past about how I get excited every year for the USBC Open Championships, but this year is special. We as a whole group of guys have never put this much time and practice into an Open Championship as we have done this year. I am very proud of the commitment my team mates have shown me and I wish us all the luck that we can get. So I will make this short and sweet this week, since I have a lot of small things to finish up before I get on the plane Saturday. If anyone is interested we will be bowling Team Event Sunday Night at 8:30 P.M. PST on lanes 15-16. I will start my blog after team event and get it posted as soon as I can. I look forward to all your comments and questions, during this event. I hope everyone has a great weekend and log on to the site to check the progress during my bowling. Don’t forget to check out our face book page along with Bowling IQ’s face book page. I will post the blog on Face book in both Bowling IQ and GLC Bowling.

T.J. Yeip is the Manager of GLC Bowling and the Lead Technical Advisor. He is an IBPSIA Advanced Certified Member and former PBA member. He is a USBC Certified Bronze Level coach.  You can email your questions to him personally at thomas.yeip@glcbowling.com

“If you would attain to what you are not yet, you must always be displeased by what you are.  For where you are pleased with yourself there you have remained.  Keep adding, keep walking, keep advancing.”  ~Saint Augustine

Week in and week out I help readers out with their bowling game. I provide tips and articles for you to improve your game. These are minor changes in your bowling game to help you become a more effective efficient bowler. So with change, come a learning period, a transformation, and finally retention. So why do I see so many people who have either gotten a few tips, or a full blown lesson, to help improve there game go back and do all the things that they were doing before? The only answer I have for that is bowlers are afraid of change. More...

Ok so the last couple posts I wrote were about my upcoming trip to Reno NV to bowl the USBC Open Championships. Which I am still excited about it. This week I need to get back to giving all you bowlers out there some small tips that will create a big difference out on the lanes.

Small as it may seem, minor adjustments can make a big impact on your bowling. It can make a difference in your swing, release, or even your overall scores. Below I will talk about some small things that may be hindering bowlers, and some techniques to get you back on track.  More...

I have posted a few times on the site about the USBC Nationals and some of the experiences that I have encountered along the way. This week I wanted to talk about this year’s USBC Nationals and what I have been doing to prepare for the tournament. More...