Story of me getting out of a slump

[Drano]

Over the last week I had trouble scoring well... I normally bowled 200+s prior to the slump.

Let's rewind a little more. Two weeks ago I went to the eye doctor and found out I needed glasses.
Last Tuesday I received said glasses, and my eye sight was amazingly better, and went down to the bowling alley to try them out right away, only to find that I couldn't seem to hit my mark, I'd miss 3-4 boards left, right, up, down.. and my wrist started hurting. Every once in a while my wrist would tingle/hurt after a shot. It'd be after maybe the 4th or 5th shot after I started bowling, and I wouldn't feel it again for another week. But on this particular day, it was hurting/tingling after EVERY shot.

So I made the change to a weaker wrist position, which made me play straighter up the lanes, and practiced it for 15 games on Friday, two days ago. I seemed to be moving back up, but not quite to where I was.

Saturday, I graduated from high school at 9:30am, so I had to miss the first league day of the new league season. After the graduation and the party with my family I went down to bowl. I first did ten games, and had a high game of about 215. I took my glasses off and bowled two more... 245 234.. I was quite baffled, I hit my mark just about every shot, so I bowled another game...290, stuck a 10-pin in the first frame... Put my glasses back on, 184 191. Took em off again, 169, 257(on the 169 I made a move inside that I didn't need to make yet).

So here we are today, Sunday. I came down early before league(without my glasses) to bowl a few with my friend and did alright, but I didn't really try. League starts, 222-300-251=773. My first ever 300 and my new highest series by 20 pins. I had one open in the first game, 10th frame left a greek church, picked up 4 of them. I kept the 800 alive until the last frame of the last game, I needed to strike out, instead I left a super-washout 1-2-4-6-10, picked it up and washed out again, getting 6 pins.

Well thanks for reading guys, I just felt like sharing the story.

PS: I'm sad to say that I didn't use the Storm Reign that I won from bowlingboards.com, Instead I was using my Storm Invasion

In conclusion: Having bad eyesight makes you bowl better, and if you're a cranker and your wrist starts to hurt, take a page out of walter ray's book.

[owlish]

I have a theory about the dilema you have. The glasses take you out of your comfort zone/static-precision mode when you have no glasses on. Make sense? Comfort zone might seem a little off the mark as far as pin pointing a correct term. I have not gone through the phenomenon you are speaking of but I definitely understand your position.

owl

PS - I have an invasion as well, incredible ball! That Reign will come into use again, don't worry :)

[mrbill]

Taking a page from walter ray is a good idea.........

[nathan]

Is one eye much worse than the other? It may be a depth perception issue.

...makes me want to try bowling without my glasses. :)

[JAnderson]

You sure when you have the glasses off you just can't see you're missing your mark, as it seems like with the glasses on you can see you are hitting your mark? If you're negatively focused on the thought "I'm not hitting my mark" it can cause you to get tight and other bad mechanics creep into your game.

That said, if the blur frees up the swing, by all mean blur yourself some strikes.

[Drano]

You sure when you have the glasses off you just can't see you're missing your mark, as it seems like with the glasses on you can see you are hitting your mark? If you're negatively focused on the thought "I'm not hitting my mark" it can cause you to get tight and other bad mechanics creep into your game.

That said, if the blur frees up the swing, by all mean blur yourself some strikes.

I can see alright without the glasses on up close, the glasses just make everything sharper and more detailed, and allow me to read further away... I'm probably just nearsighted.

For whatever reason, with them on, I was missing my mark by an extra 3-4 boards in each direction(at the arrows), I can usually hit my target and only miss up to 1 board in each direction, I'll probably do some more experimenting later with them, but who knows.


Oh, and, two days after, I was practicing with my reign(glasses off) and bowled a practice 300.