One of the world’s most highly sought-after bowling instructors provides bowlers with comprehensive coverage on the essential equipment, techniques, lane play and spare-shooting strategies, and mental training necessary for success on the lanes. With specific information for both right-handed and left-handed bowlers, this is a one-of-kind book to help you bowl better!

See your average rise and the pins fall with the second edition of Bowling: Steps to Success. Inside you’ll find progressive, detailed instruction on all aspects of the game. You’ll learn these essential skills and strategies: • Grip • Stance • Footwork • Arm swing • Approach • Timing • Release You’ll also learn the best strategies for targeting and picking up spares as well as correcting common errors and adjusting to various lane conditions. Best of all, this updated second edition features new full-color photos and diagrams, dozens of drills, self-scoring exercises for charting progress, and professional advice for improving your performance. Part of Human Kinetics’ popular Steps to Success series—with more than 2.5 million copies sold worldwide—Bowling: Steps to Success will have you landing solid strikes and converting even the most stubborn spares in no time.

On cover: Winning strategies to up your average and improve your game. Gives tips and advice for analyzing and correcting common bowling mistakes.

"Why did I leave the 10-pin on that shot?" "Why isn't my ball hitting the pocket anymore?" "Should I change balls, or move?" "How heavy should my ball be?" "What's the best bowling ball?" "How do I get more hook?" "Why do I keep missing my spares?" Bowlers are faced with endless questions, problems, and choices every time we bowl. Answers and solutions abound, but a great many of them are ineffective or just plain wrong. How do we know what to do? How do we know what to believe? In this book we examine: What doesn't work, and what bowlers have wrong. What's really happening on the lanes, and how things really work. What you need to change to get back to striking. How to properly make that change. We teach you how to figure out exactly what's wrong with your shot. We show you all of the adjustments available to you, teach you what each one actually does, and show you how and when to apply it. We give you strategies that will improve your lane play and your decision making. Finally, we teach you a mathematically sound spare system that will simplify your game and make picking up your spares an easy proposition. We give you all of the knowledge and tools you need to take your game to the next level and become the bowler you want to be.

The fast and easy way to perfect your bowling game Bowling is an inexpensive date, an affordable night out for the whole family, and a fun hangout activity for kids of all ages. Bowling For Dummies reveals the tips, tricks, and rules of play for this iconic American sport. While not every player can hope to bowl 300, you can improve your average and show off for friends, family, and bowling league teammates. Bowling For Dummies provides easy-to-understand instructions for improving your bowling game. The expert tips and advice take you through every step of the game, from selecting the right shoes to the proper way to yell, "Strike!" Packed with photos and line drawings Step-by-step instructions and illustrations included for all techniques Covers beginner through more advanced techniques Whether you're a casual bowler or on a bowling league, the practical, friendly advice in Bowling For Dummies will have you itching to hit the lanes to try out your new skills.

Updated to include a new chapter about the influence of social media and the Internet—the 20th anniversary edition of Bowling Alone remains a seminal work of social analysis, and its examination of what happened to our sense of community remains more relevant than ever in today’s fractured America. Twenty years, ago, Robert D. Putnam made a seemingly simple observation: once we bowled in leagues, usually after work; but no longer. This seemingly small phenomenon symbolized a significant social change that became the basis of the acclaimed bestseller, Bowling Alone, which The Washington Post called “a very important book” and Putnam, “the de Tocqueville of our generation.” Bowling Alone surveyed in detail Americans’ changing behavior over the decades, showing how we had become increasingly disconnected from family, friends, neighbors, and social structures, whether it’s with the PTA, church, clubs, political parties, or bowling leagues. In the revised edition of his classic work, Putnam shows how our shrinking access to the “social capital” that is the reward of communal activity and community sharing still poses a serious threat to our civic and personal health, and how these consequences have a new resonance for our divided country today. He includes critical new material on the pervasive influence of social media and the internet, which has introduced previously unthinkable opportunities for social connection—as well as unprecedented levels of alienation and isolation. At the time of its publication, Putnam’s then-groundbreaking work showed how social bonds are the most powerful predictor of life satisfaction, and how the loss of social capital is felt in critical ways, acting as a strong predictor of crime rates and other measures of neighborhood quality of life, and affecting our health in other ways. While the ways in which we connect, or become disconnected, have changed over the decades, his central argument remains as powerful and urgent as ever: mending our frayed social capital is key to preserving the very fabric of our society.

Professional Bowlers Association Hall of Fame coach John Jowdy provides guidance on mastering the skills and techniques of the game, covering reading lanes, developing a rhythmic approach, fluid motion, releasing the ball, follow-through, establishing a comfort zone, choosing equipment, and other related topics.