DESPITE A prolonged and ongoing recession, bowling is still America's most popular indoor sport. However, when considering the number of participants, it is perhaps America's least taught sport. This is mostly attributable to the reluctance of its players to invest time and energy in bowling instruction. Indeed, the recreational bowler, who now makes up more than 90 percent of bowling's patronage, is not prone to higher aspirations so he or she usually dismisses the services of tutors and forgoes diligent practice.

But let's not lay all the blame for this disinterest in excellence at the feet of the bowlers. There are two other significant reasons for this apathy and restraint, although less prevalent. First, though quality instruction is available (through the likes of Dick Ritger, Fred Borden, John Jowdy, Mike McGrath, Bill Spigner and Jeri Edwards, etc.), it is not pervasive, nor is it proliferating. For this I blame most bowling proprietors, who are unwilling to subsidize and promote sound instructional programs in their respective centers. Second, I blame the sport as a whole for allowing "misguided gurus" to espouse "fairy tale methodology" as fundamental tenets of the sport. The latter problem is the subject of this column.

Emerson once wrote, "He who knows nothing is far closer to the truth than he whose mind is filled with falsehoods and errors." We do a great injustice to the nation's bowlers by failing to challenge the merit and validity of ill-conceived methodology. I'm not advocating censure here, but rather responsive rebuttal. Surely the industry's media has some responsibility in protecting bowling neophytes from that which is fraudulent and damaging to a player's skill level and progress. Let's take a case in point:

In the last few years, the term "biomechanics" has been used with increasing frequency, often to support the (technical) superiority of a newly-conceived dogma, technique, or piece of equipment. "Biomechanic studies have shown that this product will..." begin some claims. Others herald, "This new theory is the result of extensive biomechanical testing." Still others support preferential and biased technique with statements such as, "Biomechanic research has proven that four steps are superior to five;" or, "Biomechanical experiments have proven that supinating through the backswing is more advantageous than pronating."

Most of these claimants have little knowledge of what biomechanics is all about. Let's elaborate: the study of biomechanics is an off-shoot of kinesiology, which is the study of the body's motion; or, put another way, kinesiology is the study of the origin, insertion and action of the body's muscles. Meanwhile, biomechanics is a science that investigates the effects of internal and external forces with regard to living bodies. In this sense, it is the mechanics of animate structures.

Every movement we make is a process of levers moving through arcs. In this regard, biomechanics is concerned with the principle of summation of forces, which states that a force produced by one body movement (body part) will be added to the force produced by the next body part, and so on until the final movement. The optimum relationship of these forces (timing) is not, however, entirely understood. Yet, there is strong data to support the concept that each force should happen optimally at the point of maximum velocity of the previous action. This suggests that the engaging and disengaging of muscles (at proper intervals) has much to do with ideal technique and timing in every sport.

Biomechanics, however, is highly prone to creating questions that have never been asked; understandably, that can create a lot of confusion and misunderstanding. But there is even a more dangerous factor. In his great book, The Sweet Spot In Time, John Jerome states, "There is a tendency in biomechanics to leap to wrong answers, to see answers where there are no answers at all. If the biomechanist doesn't state the problem correctly, what seem to be valuable revelations might be nothing more than hunches and misperceptions, which can do more harm than good to sports techniques. The study of biomechanics requires great procedural delicacy, and it does not always get it. It is being touted as a miracle maker for sports performance, but much too often its application is so superficial as to produce only misleading results."

Indeed, because of the characteristically unbounded nature of this relatively new science, misleading information is often distributed from under this "academic umbrella" called biomechanics. In turn, all of this can have you barking up the wrong tree when it comes to bowling methodology. Consequently, when you come across biomechanical data, be sure that what is being stated is pertinent, proportionately applicable and, most of all, properly researched.

This is as it should be with all bowling instruction.