A Scattered Brain

Last night I had one of my better nights of recent memory.  I had 215, 218, 140 for a 573 series.  The first two games were as good as the scores indicate with only one bad miss between both of them.  The last game, despite the score, also only had one bad spare miss.  The lane conditions had really changed, and no matter how I moved, I kept coming high and leaving some weird spares.  I even tried to take a deep line and yes, threw a first ball gutter; and it was right where I was aiming, but didn’t recover at all and slid off.  I don’t know if I should have changed balls or what, and maybe I’m too afraid to move left of center on the approach.  I’ll have to figure out what to do when the lanes break down like that.

I also wanted to go ahead and use this space to do my New Year’s Resolution Update:

• Weight: 204.4; Only lost a bit and that can be considered standard fluctuation so no real loss this month. We did have a lot of company and I’ve been eating dessert quite a bit this month, so no gain is probably just as good as loss would have been.
• Devotional: Weekends are still tougher but getting better.  Weekdays are still pretty good but sometimes I rush through more than I should.
• Bowling blog: I think I wrote, even if shortly, about each week this month so that’s good.  Also the last two weeks have seen my average going back up and that’s always good.

Overall grade: B.  Still room for improvement, but staying with all three through 2 months is better than I’ve been able to do usually.

Greetings all,

This week was a little better as far as overall scores go: 192, 184, 198; 574 Series.  All three games were above average so that is always good.  If I had made all of my non-split, easy spares (the ones that should be automatic), I would have had the following scores: 205, 216, 209 for a 630 series.  5 spares missed, nearly 60 pins difference.  That isn’t including any splits (I had two); just single and 2-pin spares that are easy.

My overall approach and release I was happy with.  I adjusted to lane condition changes better than usual and definitely focused more on each shot; even the spares.  I would hit my target mostly, I must have been lining up a little wrong that I’ll need to correct.

On a different note; Purdue faces Michigan tonight.  Go Boilermakers!

This one will be really short… kind of like my scores:

140, 170, 193; 503 series.

I just can’t seem to make even easy spares.  I would easily be over 200 average if I just made the easy spares.  Is my problem trying too hard, or not hard enough?  I don’t know; but I have got to figure out my spare shooting somehow.

Last night’s bowling wasn’t much to write home about; I had 520 series.  I mostly felt good about my strike ball but left a lot of single pin spares.  Unfortunately, I wasn’t converting them.  I missed 4 single pins in the first game alone.  That’s inexcusable!  Next week, during the 10 minutes of practice, I’m going to throw a strike ball once on each lane and then the rest of the time will be devoted to practicing the corner pins.

As a team we did well; we lost the first game by only 15 pins but won the other two and took total pins.  We’ve now won the last two weeks in a row for the first time I believe this season.  Now if only I had made those spares… we could have taken all 7 points.  Oh well, next week will be better, I’m sure.

After a long day of calls, I had to take a late lunch and decided to get some practice in after Wednesday night’s poor performance.  The scores were as follows: 192, 182, 236, 259, 249.  The first two games were warming up and trying to put into practice one very valuable piece of information someone gave me on Wednesday… more on that later.

The last three games, I had a total of 1 open frame and if those would have counted, would have given me a 744 series (my first in a three game set of any kind).  So, what was this piece of very valuable information that helped today and hopefully can in the future?  I was told to “throw my second ball first”.  Apparently, to no real knowledge of mine until pointed out, I was trying too hard on my first ball, but had a nice relaxed swing and release on any spare ball.  So, today, instead of trying to guide or muscle my first throw, I just picked my target and went.  I didn’t try to add extra speed or revolutions.  The result; more consistent throws that hit harder.

Now, I know this was one practice session on one particular day and previous results don’t predict future outcomes; but if I can try to remember what I did (or really didn’t do) today, hopefully that can translate to better scores when it does count.

Have a great weekend!

So, this isn’t a great start to the revival of the bowling blog.  Last night we lost all 7 points (3 games and total pins) to our opponents, who were great fun to bowl with so that’s a consoloation.  The nearly one month layoff really didn’t help my scores:

Ouch, a 2 pin drop in average for one week.  Not good.  I was using a new ball, but that wasn’t the issue entirely.  I kept trying to hard.  I have a tendency to try to guide the ball which ends up taking away any power and drive.  When I start to do that and notice, I tend to over correct and throw the ball hard.  Usually I can make smaller adjustments and work out ok, but last night kept going from one extreme to another.

My spares really did me in.  Other than the times I had splits, I missed 2 easy spares in the first game, 4 in the second, and 1 in the 3rd.  That’s a total of 7 missed easy spares in 20 opportunities.  If I made those, that adds approximately 70 pins to my series and gets me to my average.  I know what I need to really practice on: smooth arm swing letting the ball do the work and spares.

I hope you all have a good rest of the week and weekend!

As you may or may not have noticed, I’ve been pretty quiet about bowling lately and that has been for one primary reason… the last two months have really been bad. Ever since my great night (and best ever) on January 16th, I’ve not had one night over my average. Until last night… and it all just seemed to click again.

I bowled a 603 series and had two games over 200. My release was smooth and consistent and for the most part, my targeting was good too. Even in the middle 162 game, most of my strike shots were decent with a couple of bad breaks with splits.

Here are my scores for the season; you’ll be able to see what I mean about my slump.

I’ve also gotten my average back up over 180… dropping below that was a real shot against my ego for this season. There are only 8 weeks left that count toward average so achieving my goal of 190 for the season is well out of reach. If I can get two more series in the 600’s and none in the 400’s over that time I’ll be pretty happy.

So, we’ve just nearly passed the mid point of the season and so far, not too bad. I’ve had a few bad weeks, but for the most part it was pretty nice. I’ve been able to maintain a 180+ average, about 10 pins higher than last season so that’s a positive.

My biggest issue and average killer is my recent decline in spare shooting. Outside of this past week, I’ve been missing about half of my single pin spares. Sometimes I would shrug it off, but then I realized that shooting a single pin spare (no matter the pin) is like shooting free throws in basketball. I have a high standard when I see pro and college players shooting less than 90% free throws and now will hold myself to the same standard. If I can’t make 90% of my single pin spares, obviously I should work on that first and foremost. I can’t expect to strike more than 50% of the time so spare shooting is extremely important. Missing a single pin can account for 11 pins in scoring (the spare + next frame) so it is worth much more than just the single miss. This will be the thing I work on most over the rest of the season.

So, here are my scores for the first 17 weeks. Enjoy.

Did you see that last week!!!! I had some lucky breaks in the first two games and some equally unlucky breaks in the third game. Regardless, 641 is my personal best 3 game series so I’m pleased with that. I’ll be even happier if I get another 600 series next week…

Please note, I’m not sure why the table gets a little messed up when it posts, while editing everything looks good. It doesn’t seem to matter how I input the table, so oh well. I’m thinking about moving my blog elsewhere, and this may be the catalyst to do so.

Take care all and have a great week.

This bowling year is off to a strange start.  The first week was horrible and the last two weeks have started bad and ended GREAT!  Here is the chart:

Here’s the best and worst part.  I know exactly what I’m changing during that third game; my tempo.  For some reason though, it’s taking that long to adjust to find what’s right for me.  If I can get that reaction time down to a reasonable level I think I can start to average 190+ on a regular basis.

So, the summer season is over.  I ended up with a 185 average which isn’t too bad, but the season was a steady decline from the first week on down.  I’ll try to make the trend the other way for the long winter season.  I plan to incorporate something into my game that I’m always lacking; focus.  I will be more deliberate with my approach and try to throw every ball with a purpose instead of sometimes showing focus and other times just going up and bowling quickly.  Even if I am having a bad game/night, I need to work on maintaining a solid focus so that is my first goal for this season.

As far as average, I’m going to shoot for a goal of 190 for the season.  This will be quite difficult I know over 30+ weeks.  Goals are meant to be hard though, right?

I will try to be more consistent with updating my scores for those that have missed it.  We’ll see how that goes.