[some background]
I'm pretty much entirely self-taught, except for occasional bits of advice, not always good or helpful, from well-meaning proper players. I've got to the stage now where it's generally coming out rather nicely, even really well in the nets, although not always yet in matches, but it's been a long and tortuous journey.... sometimes I feel like I've established how to bowl by methodically trying and eliminating all the 100000 possible wrong ways. However if I'd never bowled a decent ball, I would have given up long ago. All the coaching I've ever wanted was just to take what was going right on the days it really clicked, and be able to wrap it up and carry it around in the kit-bag. I know very clearly in my head that there's a certain 'feel' when it comes out really well, as well as the way it 'feel's for different kinds of bad ball. Unfortunately a lot of coaches when it comes to leg-spin seem to have read the music, but not really heard it played, as it were. Even those who can bowl it well are not always able easily to communicate how it is that they are doing what comes naturally.
However I've started to build confidence that if I do a few particular things right, then it is likely to work, and that the days of wondering how I'd ever managed it are largely in the past. Things still go wrong, but I now have an idea of particular things that can go wrong and how to fix them. I'd be really interested if the particular problems ring a bell with anyone, even if you disagree with the suggested solutions. I have some youtube vloggy stuff I intend to get round to posting any decade now, but this is a mini ego-trip in the meantime.
[disclaimer] I'm pretty much entirely self taught, although I've read and followed what some of the writers and coaches who know what they're talking about say. So please take all this with a grain of salt.
[legspin common problems]
Symptom (beginner): I can bowl the odd good ball, maybe even have spells of landing a few fairly regularly, but things are generally all over the place. It feels either rushed or sluggish. The ball rarely lands on the spot, being comically bad some of the time, and when I do fluke one it sits up and turns only gently, and the trajectory is often funereally slow and loopy.
Suggestion: Slow things right down. Decide on the length of your run up so it's not something you have to think about. Measure it. Stick to it. You don't need much pace in your run up, or oomph in your body action, at least to start with, but you need to be committed to every part of it and not chicken out at any point. Try and run up, get side on, and pivot right through, with your eyes and shoulder level. Aim to be balanced and upright, with your trunk in particular braced and pushing tall from the base of the spine - don't let your body collapse because most of your body weight is here and it will pull you off balance. Try and be nice and tall as you approach the crease, then in your delivery stride push yourself taller over a braced front foot. As your body pivots and surges higher it is almost like you are coiling a spring tighter and tigher. As your body starts to slow down, *keep going* and ratchet up the tension. Finally 'release the spring' and allow yourself to flow forwards and complete the pivot as you release. You will naturally end up following through with your left arm high behind you, your body turned round towards cover, and your right arm across your body down by your left hip.
Don't worry too much about what the hands are doing - practice the hand action underarm (a la Philpott) or overarm over a short distance, and concentrate on the run-up and body action. For me, at any rate, 90% of the problems and the difficulties occur below the neck and elbows, and probably 60% above the knees. If your body is in a nice position and balanced at the point of release, then it can be ridiculously easy to control the ball and even make subtle variations of pace and flight. If you're off balance and falling through the action in an uncontrolled manner, then there is little your arm muscles can do to fight the 90% of your body mass that is pulling you out of kilter.
Symptom: Things are more consistently ok now - I have bursts of it going well. But then other times it seems not to work at all. I think I've diagnosed the problem and cracked it, then when I come to nets the next time it's almost back to square one with a different set of problems.
Suggestion: Getting there, but not all of the parts of the action are grooved enough to be automatic. The bowling action (from run up to follow through) is a concerted process with a lot of small actions: these often act against one another and cancel each other out to some extent. If you make one part of it 10% more vigorous, you probably need to make other parts 10% more vigorous to compensate, or you will end up with horribly mismatched forces. Furthermore, if concentrating mentally too hard on any one bit, and the other parts aren't completely grooved, you can forget to do them completely where previously you were doing them. Your practice can start to resemble attempting to fix a wobbly chair by putting wrong-sized wadges of paper under each of the legs in turn, going round and round and round. Concentrate on balance and rhythm. Try and get yourself to a stage where *all* of the parts of your action are functioning reasonably at 60% welly, such that it all seems balanced and not rushed and the ball lands reasonably predictably, even if it is still a bit of a lollipop. Make sure you are neither overexaggerating any one part, nor chickening out of another completely. Then slowly ratchet up the oomph, giving yourself a chance to learn how to adjust elsewhere to counterbalance the extra vigour in the bit you're working on. If you do try to work on a particular part of the action, only devote 10% of your brain 'CPU power' to focussing on that thing, lest you forget any of the other bits - use the other 90% to concentrate on being committed and rhythmical over the action as a whole.
I'm pretty much entirely self-taught, except for occasional bits of advice, not always good or helpful, from well-meaning proper players. I've got to the stage now where it's generally coming out rather nicely, even really well in the nets, although not always yet in matches, but it's been a long and tortuous journey.... sometimes I feel like I've established how to bowl by methodically trying and eliminating all the 100000 possible wrong ways. However if I'd never bowled a decent ball, I would have given up long ago. All the coaching I've ever wanted was just to take what was going right on the days it really clicked, and be able to wrap it up and carry it around in the kit-bag. I know very clearly in my head that there's a certain 'feel' when it comes out really well, as well as the way it 'feel's for different kinds of bad ball. Unfortunately a lot of coaches when it comes to leg-spin seem to have read the music, but not really heard it played, as it were. Even those who can bowl it well are not always able easily to communicate how it is that they are doing what comes naturally.
However I've started to build confidence that if I do a few particular things right, then it is likely to work, and that the days of wondering how I'd ever managed it are largely in the past. Things still go wrong, but I now have an idea of particular things that can go wrong and how to fix them. I'd be really interested if the particular problems ring a bell with anyone, even if you disagree with the suggested solutions. I have some youtube vloggy stuff I intend to get round to posting any decade now, but this is a mini ego-trip in the meantime.
[disclaimer] I'm pretty much entirely self taught, although I've read and followed what some of the writers and coaches who know what they're talking about say. So please take all this with a grain of salt.
[legspin common problems]
Symptom (beginner): I can bowl the odd good ball, maybe even have spells of landing a few fairly regularly, but things are generally all over the place. It feels either rushed or sluggish. The ball rarely lands on the spot, being comically bad some of the time, and when I do fluke one it sits up and turns only gently, and the trajectory is often funereally slow and loopy.
Suggestion: Slow things right down. Decide on the length of your run up so it's not something you have to think about. Measure it. Stick to it. You don't need much pace in your run up, or oomph in your body action, at least to start with, but you need to be committed to every part of it and not chicken out at any point. Try and run up, get side on, and pivot right through, with your eyes and shoulder level. Aim to be balanced and upright, with your trunk in particular braced and pushing tall from the base of the spine - don't let your body collapse because most of your body weight is here and it will pull you off balance. Try and be nice and tall as you approach the crease, then in your delivery stride push yourself taller over a braced front foot. As your body pivots and surges higher it is almost like you are coiling a spring tighter and tigher. As your body starts to slow down, *keep going* and ratchet up the tension. Finally 'release the spring' and allow yourself to flow forwards and complete the pivot as you release. You will naturally end up following through with your left arm high behind you, your body turned round towards cover, and your right arm across your body down by your left hip.
Don't worry too much about what the hands are doing - practice the hand action underarm (a la Philpott) or overarm over a short distance, and concentrate on the run-up and body action. For me, at any rate, 90% of the problems and the difficulties occur below the neck and elbows, and probably 60% above the knees. If your body is in a nice position and balanced at the point of release, then it can be ridiculously easy to control the ball and even make subtle variations of pace and flight. If you're off balance and falling through the action in an uncontrolled manner, then there is little your arm muscles can do to fight the 90% of your body mass that is pulling you out of kilter.
Symptom: Things are more consistently ok now - I have bursts of it going well. But then other times it seems not to work at all. I think I've diagnosed the problem and cracked it, then when I come to nets the next time it's almost back to square one with a different set of problems.
Suggestion: Getting there, but not all of the parts of the action are grooved enough to be automatic. The bowling action (from run up to follow through) is a concerted process with a lot of small actions: these often act against one another and cancel each other out to some extent. If you make one part of it 10% more vigorous, you probably need to make other parts 10% more vigorous to compensate, or you will end up with horribly mismatched forces. Furthermore, if concentrating mentally too hard on any one bit, and the other parts aren't completely grooved, you can forget to do them completely where previously you were doing them. Your practice can start to resemble attempting to fix a wobbly chair by putting wrong-sized wadges of paper under each of the legs in turn, going round and round and round. Concentrate on balance and rhythm. Try and get yourself to a stage where *all* of the parts of your action are functioning reasonably at 60% welly, such that it all seems balanced and not rushed and the ball lands reasonably predictably, even if it is still a bit of a lollipop. Make sure you are neither overexaggerating any one part, nor chickening out of another completely. Then slowly ratchet up the oomph, giving yourself a chance to learn how to adjust elsewhere to counterbalance the extra vigour in the bit you're working on. If you do try to work on a particular part of the action, only devote 10% of your brain 'CPU power' to focussing on that thing, lest you forget any of the other bits - use the other 90% to concentrate on being committed and rhythmical over the action as a whole.
