6 inches on a 60 foot lane equates to a change of 0.0084%, or less than 1%. You know how small your standard deviations on rev rate, speed, axis tilt, and angle of rotation would have to be to take advantage of that consistently? You might as well be saying, "Well my rev rate is 400, but if it's not hooking soon enough, I just change it to 404." Theoretically it sounds good, practically it doesn't.
However, I'm definitely not saying it doesn't work for you. If you say it does, I believe you. I'm just not sure it works for you in the way that you think it does. You know how many times somebody has brought a ball in and said it sucked and wanted the surface changed when I knew better? Take it back, flip the spinner on and off a few times, then take it back out after doing absolutely nothing to it. All the sudden it's a brand new ball and they go nuts with it.
I've also found out from many hours of coaching that when you try to get someone to do something they've never done before, they either over-focus on that one thing, or they don't pay enough attention to it and their muscle memory compensates and nothing changes. Your point about hating rote prescriptions is spot on though. Everyone is different, everyone executes concepts differently to end up at the same result. You get the concept of what needs to happen across, and then find out how their game would execute that the best.
I will still say that there are quicker, easier ways that work better with what somebody already does than trying to adjust to moving forwards or backwards on the approach, especially on the fly without having all those hours to practice it. So once again, way to start an argument where one didn't exist.
If somebody is paying more attention to where their feet end up than how they're throwing the shot, that doesn't sound like a recipe for success. And I did qualify it, you can't just move a couple inches and number one think that a couple inches is going to turn a 10 pin into a strike, or number two think you're so accurate that you'll end up exactly that distance back from the foul line. If you're that accurate that a couple inches back matters, you wouldn't be leaving 10s in the first place. If you move a foot, yeah there's a pretty good chance you'll end up in the neighborhood of a foot back from where you normally end up.
Sometimes it's just changing angles. If there's more dry outside, move your breakpoint a board or two right and catch that dry earlier. If there's not, move your breakpoint a board in. Don't always have to make moves with your feet, sometimes you just have to play with the shape a little.
Lol, as if checking where my foot stopped after the ball has hit the rack is somehow detrimental to my shot? Get over yourself.
It's one of several tools in my bag, and I can and do change my start position if I'm having pin leaves - but not all of us conform to your declarations or behave consistently just because it's pat bowling lore to say "you'll just end up compensating".
What I do to change my carry, like what many pros do, is subjective and based on hours of practice to prove that it consistently DOES make a difference, else I wouldn't employ it. It's why I hate rote prescriptions for carry or movements. We're not robots, and we can all perform the same tasks with differing results no matter what Slowinsky or Baker say about "correct".
And, you're absolutely wrong about a couple of inches making a difference....5 or 6 inches can change where that ball contacts and leaves the oil just enough to address the 3 pin differently with the same shot and breakpoint - that's PRECISELY what changes 10 pin leaves - a very small change in direction, angle or speed will trip the 6 correctly. In fact, it's the only thing that changes the 10 pin. Where you hit the 3 is what happens to the 10. Period.
Don't contradict me with empirical nonsense about a game you've never seen in person, or tell me what I know to be true is not. It's arrogant and presumptuous at best, and insulting at worst.
