Bolivia's Secret Bowling Technique

STORY:

By turning the two-handed bowling technique into a new and improved fluid motion, a team of Bolivian bowlers are taking the world by storm. Young practitioners of the novel style showed up at a bowling alley in Santa Cruz on Tuesday to practice the technique developed by successful Australian bowler Jason Belmonte.

Just two fingers are inserted into the holes and the thumb is left out. The right hand is used to cradle the ball and create extra spin on release. Then, if you're lucky, you get a strike. Trainers in eastern Bolivia are studying videos on YouTube of Belmonte and fellow two-hander bowler, Osku Palerma.  They're passing the technique on to young bowlers like Sebastian Nemtala Garcia.

[Sebastian Nemtala Garcia, Amateur Bowler]:
"(I learned) from coach, Bene Villa and players Jason Belmonte and Osku Palerma, who are also two-handed players. The method can be learned more quickly and because we are training for the Bolivian Games, we had to learn as quickly as possible. There isn't much time, so we opted for this more effective way of playing.”

A two-handed ball nearly drops into the right gutter before veering back into the pins. Properly thrown, it can rack up strike after strike. Marcelo Garafulic, the president of the Bolivian Bowling Federation, wants to bring up an entire generation of bowlers using the unusual, but successful, technique.

[Marcelo Garafulic, Bolivian Bowling Federation President]:
"We're specializing and focusing on two-handed bowling in Bolivia with concrete results. We get more medals this way.”

Training started at the end of March 2008 . Since then Bolivian bowlers have had unprecedented success in international tournaments, winning medals in Argentina and Brazil. They've also managed to win the elusive perfect game, not once, but twice.

[Marcelo Garafulic, Bolivian Bowling Federation President]:
"Gold, silver, bronze; we won all the medals there were to win, and Bolivia had never won an official championship. We also got a perfect game, which means three hundred points, all strikes to the end. Thanks to these clinics we got a perfect game in a month and two months later another three hundred. Breaking the record of thirty four years with no championship and then this perfect game."

And with young bowlers from Santa Cruz, Cochabamba and La Paz honing their two-handed throws on the lanes five hours a day, Garafulic hopes Bolivians are on the way to joining Belmonte on the professional ten-pin circuit.

Category:

Sports

Tags:

• ntd
• ntdtv
• news
• bowling
• technique
• bolivia
• bolivian
• handed
• secret
• bowlers
• game
• garafulic
• belmonte
• way
• young
• president
• had

[Supra114]

Funny but Good Technique Hope to see Bolivia Compete :)

[powerbowler]

Wonderful!

[richardelam100]

I remember when bouncing the ball was not allowed in bowling. Looks like things are different now.

Richard

southeast Tennessee

[RCROX5000]

These Bolivian bowlers look high school age... wish it was this easy to get onto the national team for the USA, lol.

[20alphabet]

@RCROX5000 Another gamerboy with no life experience. Don't like the comment? Don't read it.

[RCROX5000]

@20alphabet Yeah. Right. That makes sense. Or is the actual reason there were hardly any two-handers in the last century because almost all of the bowlers were one-handers, and if there were any people who tried to deviate from that, they would be viciously criticized and outcast by people like you?

[20alphabet]

Without linoleum lanes, double-voided pins and juiced balls this "novel" behavior wouldn't work. If it did work many would've adopted it within the last 100 years.

[Riddikc]

Then if you're lucky you get a strike...

[BowlingIsLife300]

ok, two handed bowling IS a legitimate style if done properly... there are pros and cons to two handed bowling... but to force it on an entire team IS NOT right... if a bowler wants to learn to bowl two handed then more power to them but one handed has stood the test of time and there is no reason to make accomplished bowlers change because of two players...

[epicbowler]

@sumtwig07 u can def change hand positions throwing two handed...btw

[PongoHimself]

The technique is an attempt to further modify a game that has limited room left for alteration. Fads come................fads go. Personaly, it looks unco-ordinated and down right lane damageing.