A Scattered Brain

Greetings all and welcome back to my weekly bowling feature.

This week I went in with three goals:

1. 1 clean game (no open frames)
2. 540 series (180 average for week)
3. No games below 160

I reached none of them. The only two consoloations I can take from this week are my scores weren’t all over the place (152, 160, 171) with an increase each game. I believe this is primarily due to an effort to slow down as the games progressed. I find myself rushing my shots and being excited at the first part of the night.

Also, I was really working hard to stay balanced on my shots as opposed to falling off to the right each time. I think I did better with that part, although without videotape it’s hard to know for sure. My average stayed at 165 for the league.

So, I guess the jury is back. That really good week two weeks ago was a fluke not a sign of things to come, yet. A summer league is generally a short tune up for the longer winter league, so this is a good time to work on improvement.

Here are this weeks full results:

Wk#	Date	Lanes	Gm1	Gm2	Gm3	Series	Avg	Run Avg
8	Jul 12, 2006	9-10	152	160	171	483	161.00	165.00
Game Averages:			168.57	168.57	157.86

I hope you all have a terrific week! Take care.

Apparently, last week was a fluke, as this week my scores and inconsistency came back to normal.  I couldn’t consistently hit my targets at all an my release was all over the place.

Spare shooting was the most disappointing aspect of the night.  I missed 4 single pin spares in the second game alone… completely unacceptable.  Except for a stretch in the first game where I got 5 strikes in a row, I couldn’t read the lanes or make any adjustments at all properly.  My focus just wasn’t there.  I rushed all of my shots and didn’t visualize any shot before stepping onto the lane and then wondered why I was all over the place.

Here are this week’s scores:

Wk#	Date	Lanes	Gm1	Gm2	Gm3	Series	Avg	Run Avg
7	Jul 05, 2006	19-20	200	139	149	488	162.67	165.67
Game Averages:			171.33	170.00	155.67

I’m hoping that next week will get back on track.  When I practice next I have a lot of things to work on, but I think it all stems from slowing down and concentrating on the moment.

On a completely different note, I’ve paid off my car!!!  Now we only have the house mortgage and one car payment.  It’s a great feeling to be driving something that is completely ours.

Have a great week and I hope all of you had a great 4th of July!

Greetings,

So, even though my wife gave me a hard time about my bowling blog, I’m still going to do it, especially after a night like tonight.

It was by far my best league night in my entire life!  I bowled a 596 series (198.67 average) over three games, but even more important is my low game was a 192 which means that all three games were fairly consistent.  The ball felt great all night and I was close to hitting my targets every ball.  As the lane conditions changed, I was quicker than usual in making small but good adjustments.  My ball reaction and rotation were also consistent for the first time.  I don’t know what I did differently if anything, but things just really clicked tonight.

My spare shooting was nearly dead on.  I only had 6 open frames total (evenly spaced at 2 per game).  I did miss a couple of single pins in the first game but the rest of them were tough spares to convert.

So, without further ado, here are this weeks numbers:

Wk#	Date	Lanes	Gm1	Gm2	Gm3	Series	Avg	Run Avg
6	Jun 28, 2006	17-18	*206*	198	192	*596*	198.67	166.27
Game Averages:			165.60	176.20	157.00

The only possible downside is that I jacked my average up by 8 pins meaning I have to maintain or at least not drop off too much in order to stay above my new average.

Now, I’m off to Colorado for a few days before the 4th of July holiday.  I hope you all have a great 4th and I’ll catch you all next week.  Except for, of course, Kylah, I’ll see you tomorrow and the next day and the next day!

Greetings,

So, I’m going to start a new weekly blog that I had planned to start a month ago, but hey, I’m a bit lazy.

To start, I used to be into bowling in a big way until my senior year in college.  The money was tight and I stopped bowling competitively or at all really.  In the past seven years, I had bowled maybe 3 times.  Starting this spring, I had gone bowling with some friends from work, remembered how much I loved it and the bug bit me again.  So, when the next set of leagues came around, I was quick to sign up.  The league has been running for about a month now and currently our team is sitting near the bottom of the heap, but that’s ok.

Starting with tomorrow night’s league, I’ll post a running journal of how I did and how I felt about my games.  For tonight, I’ll just incorporate a table of how the league has gone so far:

Wk#	Date	Lanes	Gm1	Gm2	Gm3	Series	Avg	Run Avg
1	May 24, 2006	9-10	—	—	—	0	0	-1.00
2	May 31, 2006	15-16	137	183	144	464	154.67	154.67
3	Jun 07, 2006	11-12	187	162	134	483	161.00	157.83
4	Jun 14, 2006	13-14	151	133	166	450	150.00	155.22
5	Jun 21, 2006	23-24	147	*205*	149	*501*	167.00	158.17
Game Averages:			155.50	170.75	148.25

I wasn’t able to bowl the first week due to travel for work, so that week doesn’t have any scores.  The * indicates high game/high series.  Right now I’m averaging just below 160.  Not bad for just getting back into things, and if I’d start making my single pin spares more regularly, I’d be up around 180 or at least up to my goal for this league of 170.

So, there is the current round up of where things stand.  I’ll do my best to keep things up to date as I know how you are all sitting on the edge of your seats.

Take care and bowl great!