Winter practice and big video files

Monday night is karate night for Ben and Joe and me go along and watch him normally and we're stuck there sitting on a bench for an hour. I've normally got a ball on me somewhere so last week in the bay next to the Karate blokes we threw a ball around a bit bowling it back and forth to each other but I realised we were taking the P a bit and we stopped. But I then said to Joe 'Let's go and ask the lady how much a bay is for an hour and maybe next week we'll bring some bats and some stumps and have a practice while Ben's doing his Kung Fu'? Joe was up for it and we asked. £10.50 it was for the same £8.50 bays at the weekend! So not cheap for an hour. So tonight we went for it and had a bit of a bowl and bat each and better still I took the Canon G9 and did a load of video clips of both of us having a bat and bowl.

So, since coming in I've been working on looking through nearly an hours worth of video footage to see what I can upload to youtube for analysis. I found a bit with me bowling and used the slow motion program I've got and slowed it right down and got it ready to upload. This time when I did the recording I used the high quality mode and when I'd done the editing which I'm still a bit iffy with the file despite the fact that it's only a few seconds long and is me bowling once was nearly 170MB. As I write it's been uploading to youtube for almost an hour now.
A little later - it's now been an hour and half and it's still going..... Three hours later and I gave up, obviously 170mb files are a bit too big. I went back to the editing software and cut it down further and left it at 90mb and I'll try that at some point. The annoying thing is when it's being uploaded you don't have any indication of it's progress so when I stopped the uploading I don't whether it was 95% complete or 5%?

Anyway other than that - the £10.50 session. It's not ideal this venue as It's only the length of a badmnton court - it's the same place I practiced a couple of weeks ago with Simon, Badger and Alex. But for JOe who would be expected to play on a 17 yard wicket it's fine. Joe's bowling was fine - loads of difference in the flight and speed and generally on-line. No apparent spin though which I'm not fussed about, when he tries to bowl spin he opts for an out the back of the hand approach which produces off-spin and I want him to bowl Leg breaks otherwise he'll end up like me! If he sticks to his Leg Breaks he'll continue to get wickets as he did in the summer. Generally since the summer his bowling has come on loads - he's a lot faster and I think if he concentrates he'd be a lot more accurate. The only real area for development is the follow through with the leg coming round and over in the delivery. I'll have to show him the Beau Casson video as he responds to these a lot better than he does to me telling him.

With his batting it's a similar story - when he's told by other people to do things he makes a lot more effort to do so, whereas if I suggest things he starts to get stroppy it's a bit like Fozzy and Ross at Grays! He's another Dad who's son bowls Leg Spin who has a similar reaction to his advice.

Looking at the video of my bowling I'm quite happy with my bowling action, I'll try and get more shots of it from all angles when I get the next opportunity. Realistically I still need to test the camera and get the right combination of file size and composition and also come up with a way of protecting the camera from the ball. I don't think I'll get the perfect combination till we get in a bigger hall where I'll have a run up and be able to use a real ball?

Last night I tried some of the Flippers out the back of the hand and couldn't get them to work and then ended up bowling Doosras and man did they turn. The normal flippers are coming along nicely with them turning well when I don't opt for speed and go for a more flighted approach, but like Joe generally a good line and length. Also looking at my batting there looks as though there's an improvement too and it'll be good to see how I do against the likes of Simon and Alex if we get in the big hall as against Joe (Who's only 7) I look like I'm doing okay!! I ithink there's got to have been some improvement after the session with Simon and Alex 2 weeks ago and the practice up against the wall in the underpass - so I'm looking forward to facing their bowling in a much bigger space where they'll be able get a run up and throw the ball faster.

The initial response from some of the blokes is that they're up for a weekly slot at the hall which is good - but we'll have to see if that's realistic when we get the contract details from the school regarding the hire. They might want the money up front and we may need to make some kind of commitment that then ties us into using it and paying for it every week irrespective of whether we all go down with the flu or something. But if we can get in the hall every weekend for two hours I'm hoping to see an improvement in my bowling.