What ruins your game, and how do you recover?

[bobforsaken]

For me, it seems to be my footing.. if I stick on the approach early on, my whole session usually goes down the tubes. I need to trust my feet. Unfortunately I haven't yet found a way to recover from that.

[epiepenburg]

For me, it seems to be my footing.. if I stick on the approach early on, my whole session usually goes down the tubes. I need to trust my feet. Unfortunately I haven't yet found a way to recover from that.

That's one of mine right there. One bad approach on a shot and usually that game is bad for me.

[mc_runner]

Missing a ten pin, really badly. Think when you just shank it and it goes in the gutter half way... next time up I'm thinking "well I better not do THAT again" and end up whiffing it. Then I've missed 2 in a row.

Doesn't happen all the time, and thankfully getting less frequent, but it still pops up every once in awhile.

[vdubtx]

Hitting my ankle on the down swing at delivery of the ball. That always spells disaster for me. And it freaking hurts.

[bubba809]

Going bowling with a toothache.

[djp1080]

I have a horrible tendency of pulling up on my backswing. When I do, I also tend to turn my hand counter-clockwise as well. With all that going wrong I can't recover on the downswing. I've been working on fixing this by feeling what's going on more to avoid a high swing. I'm able to keep my hand behind the ball much easier and my ball is no longer DOA. Scores are working their way back up. :)

[RobLV1]

Missing a move as a result of not paying attention to others' ball reactions on the pair, ruins my game by getting inordinately mad at myself.

[GeoLes]

Ball speed. If I push the ball too much the first time, the ball fails to turn into the pocket properly. I get so busy fixing it that my whole game is off. I focus on my slowing down, and my swing is off. I focus on the swing and lose my release, focus on my release and pull the ball, or grip it or something else. A horible downward spiral.

The only recovery for me is to stop thinking and just roll the ball - just put it down into the lane in a good finish position and everything seems to properly realign itself again. Unfortunately, it take me a few frames (or even a whole game) for that to happen.

[J Anderson]

For me, it seems to be my footing.. if I stick on the approach early on, my whole session usually goes down the tubes. I need to trust my feet. Unfortunately I haven't yet found a way to recover from that.

A bad stick on the approach will usually bother me for a couple of frames, with the thought that I might stick again floating in the back of my mind. After a couple of frames without any sudden stops I'm back to normal, at least normal for me;)

What ruins my game irritations outside of bowling. Whatever happens on the lane, be it a tap, a pocket 7-10, missing the 5 pin, etc. doesn't bother me more than 5 or 10 seconds. What does bother my game is when a friend insists on talking about something for an entire series.

[Blomer]

Ball speed and losing focus. My center doesn't have the ball speed display. At times I'll go to fast and it throws me off. Mi also tend to lose focus of my targe and then I'm in trouble.

[Tony]

For me it's missing the 10 pin or another single pin spare, if I start out by missing one it sometimes continues the rest of the night. The other one is being too deliberate on my approach and delivery, this causes me to loose the free flowing arm motion and follow through causing poor ball rotation and misses to the right

[classygranny]

I hate to follow a bowler that has to give a commentating dissertation about everything they did wrong on the shot, or what happened on the lane. Seems like I tend to start thinking about what NOT to do instead of staying in my own game, watching the ball reaction myself, etc.

I've started an ignore stage where I try and not listen and just nod my head (it's hard because I tend to hear everything). On Friday mornings we have changed our lineup so I don't have to follow the commentator, so we will see if it changes things any. I know avoidance isn't really going to help me "address" the issue, but after 3 years, I'm tired of following that.

[Kells]

I have a problem with rushing my next shot after throwing a bad one. Generally since I'm so amped up and ready to correct my prior mistake, I will move my feet too fast and end up throwing a worse shot. I try to avoid rushing by taking a deep breath before I deliver my next ball and if it doesn't feel right, I'll stop, put the ball down, and start my approach over.

[Tony]

I hate to follow a bowler that has to give a commentating dissertation about everything they did wrong on the shot, or what happened on the lane. Seems like I tend to start thinking about what NOT to do instead of staying in my own game, watching the ball reaction myself, etc.

I've started an ignore stage where I try and not listen and just nod my head (it's hard because I tend to hear everything). On Friday mornings we have changed our lineup so I don't have to follow the commentator, so we will see if it changes things any. I know avoidance isn't really going to help me "address" the issue, but after 3 years, I'm tired of following that.

That sounds very annoying, hopefully changing the lineup will help you somewhat. I would think just ignoring the comments and not acknowledging the commentator would be an option, maybe if they know that you're not an audience they might talk to themselves or wait until they get back to the table where they have other potential audience members.

[billf]

Hitting my ankle is the hardest for me to recover from. I have many faults but that one tends to stay the longest.