Ugh

[littlelegs]

First league game after Xmas and it was nasty. Just couldn't pick up the spares. The stupid thing is I knew every time what I was doing wrong but couldn't see to stop (pulling my arm across my body a little and so missing left) yet wasn't making the mistake on my strike ball.

Oh well. Another league game on Sunday so perhaps I can get my brain into gear for it and not repeat the same stupid mistake each time.

[DanielMareina]

I am sorry to hear that you had a rough night of bowling! The most common cause for the problem is timing. Lots of people change their hand position and speed for spare shots. By doing this, it throws off their timing just enough to create a push or pull response. If you are tugging the ball left, that means that your feet are beating the ball to the foul line. When this happens again, focus on slowing your feet down just a touch, and it should fix it. Best of luck in the future!

[littlelegs]

You're spot on with the timing issues. The silly part was I knew every time what and why but couldn't seem to get my head around not doing it. The few times I treated the spare as a strike ball I made the shot. Oh well...like most sport, especially those that demand accuracy, at least half the battle is a mental one.

A good example of how bad my spare shooting was...2nd game I made 6 strikes including a nice streak of 5...but only got a 190 (I was making a few little mistakes on the strikes too but nothing like the spares).

On the plus side there's always the next league match :) Although...I just cut my thumb. We'll see how the skin paint holds up else it may be a no thumb series. Fun but sometimes...unpredictable :p

[got_a_300]

I know exactly what you mean about spare shooting I had one of those nights
last night I just could not make hardly anything on the right side of the lanes.
It seems that our lane man decided to put out a reverse block on the lanes last
night from the second arrow out was out of bounds and second arrow in was bone
dry making it extremely difficult to hit the pocket consistently and shoot across lane
at the 10 pin. I was throwing my plastic spare ball but it still wanted to hook right
in the center of the lanes so I had to throw it so hard that it threw my timing way
off on making my spares.

[J Anderson]

"The silly part was I knew every time what and why but couldn't seem to get my head around not doing it."

That's probably because you're caught up in thinking about not doing it. you need to focus on something to do, like Daniels suggestion of slowing down your steps or eyes on target.

[littlelegs]

I think focus that particular night was my issue though. As I say when I did what I knew I should be doing ie treating it as a strike ball rather than (for some reason) throwing it differently I was fine. I just seemed to get up there and rather than over-thinking do the opposite and switch off each time and throw it weirdly. Odd night.

Point taken about thinking about not doing a certain thing though. Thinking about any area too hard during a shot will always kill it for me (and I suspect most people). If I have to work on a part of my game I usually do just that these and during practice so that points don't matter and I can concentrate on just that area.

[tumblebug1949]

I have my Senior Winter League starting the 3rd of January. We are three to a team and one of my team members had shoulder surgery and so we are short one.

I had just started last league season and my average isn't very good. 131 I think. The last time I was out, I was bowling against my son (31) for fun. Even for fun, we each were working hard to win. I won two games and my son won one. My scores were 161, 149 and 179. If I can be anywhere close to that and just focus, I will be satisfied on our first winter league day.

I have been practicing with a wrist support and getting a lot more revs on the ball. Not setting any records but a lot more than the none I had before. I need to find a starting location and just role the ball while focusing on consistency for now. I have been moving around a lot and not rolling consistently either. That makes it hard to learn anything because each time I am seeing something different.

So, starting in one place for a while and focusing on rolling the same spot is what I need to do.

Tom

[J Anderson]

I bowled on the same team with my dad for over thirty years. My wife always accused us of being more concerned with beating each other than with beating the other team.

[tumblebug1949]

Yah, I understand the affliction. I didn't do much sports in school. My little school only had basketball and track. And, my senior year, I worked on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Not much time for sports.

I learned more about being competitive in the military. I spent 23 years in the USMC or the Army competing for one thing or another.

Anyway, now I play golf and bowl. I have learned that when I play golf, I am not competing against anyone but myself. Others scores mean little to me. All I focus on is "my" golf. That is until my son comes out. then "Let the competition begin.

It is actually a healthy contest. Of course we each want to win but we want the other to have a good round also.

Oh well. I guess that is life.

[littlelegs]

I bowled on the same team with my dad for over thirty years. My wife always accused us of being more concerned with beating each other than with beating the other team.

I'm often very much like that in league play. Winning is nice as it means the end of season prize money is that little bit higher but...beating a team mate who's on a similar handicap or higher is much more fun :)

It seems to confuse some of the other teams we play that we'll almost cheer when the other person on our team misses but it keeps the whole thing competitive but in a fun, relaxed way.

I take my own bowling very, very seriously (probably a little too much so) but at the same time go to have fun and when not taking a shot that's what we try to do as a team - have fun. Never have understood the people who bowl (often badly) in league but take it all so very seriously and spend the whole evening grumbling and scowling. Even many of the pros in a major tournament will have a little light-hearted banter or at least a wry smile when they do something wrong.

[littlelegs]

I have my Senior Winter League starting the 3rd of January. We are three to a team and one of my team members had shoulder surgery and so we are short one.

I had just started last league season and my average isn't very good. 131 I think. The last time I was out, I was bowling against my son (31) for fun. Even for fun, we each were working hard to win. I won two games and my son won one. My scores were 161, 149 and 179. If I can be anywhere close to that and just focus, I will be satisfied on our first winter league day.

I have been practicing with a wrist support and getting a lot more revs on the ball. Not setting any records but a lot more than the none I had before. I need to find a starting location and just role the ball while focusing on consistency for now. I have been moving around a lot and not rolling consistently either. That makes it hard to learn anything because each time I am seeing something different.

So, starting in one place for a while and focusing on rolling the same spot is what I need to do.

Tom


I returned to bowling about 18 months ago after a 10 year+ gap and consistency has been my issue too. Pretty much for the same reason i.e. there were a LOT of areas of my game that needed work and some major changes and when you're changing so much the muscle memory doesn't settle in and consistency is tough. All the time you're thinking about parts of your game during release, then concentrating on hitting that mark is just that little harder and obviously the results less predictable (as you no doubt know).

Finally though I'm happy with my basic swing, release, approach and stance. Now I'm simply trying to settle down into it and get the muscle memory to kick in so that I repeat it all every time. I've no doubt that there are areas of my game I'll continue to work on but small changes are so much easier than the big ones especially when there was so many of them.

Of course when I have a week like last Wednesday and my mind is somewhere other than bowling (no idea where it went - you'd have thought it would have left a note before wandering off to tell me when it'd be back) I'm still going to have issues. For the most part though, even my concentration and focusing have seen some big improvements (last week being an obvious exception).

[littlelegs]

So...last night's league went better. The first 6 frames or so my head was still in the wrong place for spares then I managed to make the adjustment (i.e. throw it like the strike ball as I should have been doing) and voila :)

Only a 190 average but more than enough for me to be happy as above my normal.

As I've posted before, I've spent the last 18 months or so working on my game and changing a lot. I'm now much happier with my strike ball and am finally starting to get a consistent, repeating release with it. So, if I bring those spares back to where they were I'm hoping to see at least 180+ average for the rest of the season and hopefully closer to 200 :)

[tumblebug1949]

Glad it is working out littlelegs.

Well tomorrow is the first day of our winter Senior League. I am planning on using the Commander X wrist support. It will hold my wrist straight and let me get a few revs on the ball. I also think because it still allows me to use the wrist that as I go along, my wrist will get stronger.

My average is low so as I am learning and hopefully getting better, I can be helping our team.

[littlelegs]

A wrist support helped me hugely although I needed it for nearly a year before I could get out of the habit of breaking my wrist. I was hoping it'd be much quicker but then it probably is for some people. I'm blaming my slowness to make adjustments on my age :P