Other Grips

Mickey D's "The Bowler"

I’ve developed a new grip I call “The Bowler”.  I call it that because it looks exactly like the way you hold a bowling ball.  I came up with the grip one day when I was playing around with the Mad Professor’s “Long Ranger” grip.  I couldn’t for the life of me get the Long Ranger to make the dice come off my hand as perfect mirror images flying parallel to the tabletop on axis.  So I started fooling around with it and came up with a hybrid of my own that works perfectly: The Bowler!  Basically, the dice are curled into the first joint of the middle and ring fingers.   

              

At release you uncurl the fingers and the pads of the first joint act as little ramps or runways to get the dice off on plane.  What is really neat is that even if the dice aren’t sitting parallel in your hand, they tend to straighten out and get on plane in the air on the way to the landing zone. (I’m sure there’s some thing or another in physics that causes that to happen!)  The grip is also pretty versatile. You can throw the dice anyway you like; a high soft arc or a low roller type of shot. It’s pretty forgiving.  I throw it like I would toss a ball to a small child: underhanded and very gentle with a nice medium arc.  You can use this “system” (Grip & toss) from anywhere on the table but it is amazingly effective from the straight out position.  So if you’ve been afraid of throwing from twelve feet out, this system will give you another shooting option.

The Pick-up:

I preset the dice side by side. I then lay my two middle fingers over the top of the dice so the first joint in each finger settles onto the leading, top edge of each die. At the same time I use my thumb to push the dice into the joint.  I’ll also use the pinky and index finger to help get the dice situated in place as I curl the two middle fingers.  Once I get the dice set, the index finger, pinky and thumb are released and the dice are basically held in place between the pads of the first finger joint and the pads of the third finger joint. If you have trouble setting the dice in your hand, see if you can get away with using the rail as an aid the get them set in position.  If that move brings heat then you’ll have to depend on manual dexterity to get the dice set comfortably. But I’ve found that the dice don’t have to be set as perfectly as in other grips to get them flying off the hand on axis.

The Stance and Release:

I’m right handed, so from straight out I lean my hips square against the table, and have 95% of my weight on my right foot. The left foot is used only to keep balance.  The left hand is holding the rail.  The arm hangs straight down with two faces of the dice looking straight up at you. 

Then it’s just a matter of making the same motion you would to make that gentle toss of the ball to your son, daughter, niece or nephew. At release you simply uncurl the two middle fingers.  Then it’s just a matter of finding the sweet spot and hammering out numbers!!

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