In this Junior Gold Debrief, I’m working with Cristian on the 39ft short-medium sport pattern and, honestly, the big theme is control—both mentally and physically. We talk about building a pre-tournament strategy so when you step on the approach, you’re not thinking about a million things. My default plan when you don’t know what you’re walking into is simple: play up the boards, use something slow and controllable, and get more up the back of it with less rotation. Then I layer in the 15-second breath (6 in, 3 hold, 6 out) because controlling heart rate is a real competitive skill, especially when you’re nervous or the moment feels big. On the lane, I focus hard on rotational control. Cristian naturally creates a lot of axis rotation (two-hander life), and you can get away with that on urethane—but when we tried a reactive ball in the same zone, it showed exactly why rotation changes everything. I teach a super simple feel: if you want more forward roll, point your ring finger at the target; if you want more side rotation, point your pointer finger. Once he started using ring finger to target, the ball motion smoothed out front-to-back, we stayed in play longer, and he could start using reactive up the lane instead of feeling “locked” into urethane only.