A Scattered Brain

Greetings to all,

I have to figure something out; and so far I just can’t.  The lanes at South Point are certainly different than they have been in the past.  No matter which ball I use, by the third game (and last night even the second) no matter where I start my approach, my ball seems to come high.  I keep making adjustments, and still high;  once I’ve lost the pocket for the night, I can’t seem to get it back.

The worst part is I don’t know what else to do.  I move a little, no change; I change balls, same result; adjust my target line, either the same result or something else even worse than coming in high (e.g. missing the head pin altogether).  I’m just not sure where to go from here.  I’ve been meaning to schedule a lesson for quite some time; maybe now is the time to finally schedule it.

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!

We are just one day away from the 2008 Beijing Olympics and I can’t wait anymore! I love the Olympics and always have. For me, the first week of the Summer Games are the best because that is when all of the swimming events take place. I am caught up in not only the events themselves but the side stories. Michael Phelps going for 8 Gold medals, Dara Torres competing at 41 years old; they are all so compelling. I will DVR every bit of content I can and will probably watch a bunch on the web as well. I will keep track of the medal count constantly hoping that the United States is always in first. I get almost as excited about the Olympics as I do the NCAA Tournament.

However, there are a couple of aspects of the Olympics that I feel are lacking and need change. The first; the IOC should have never chosen China to host. For all of the geopolitical reasons that exist, choosing China was irresponsible and arrogant by the IOC. There was a time I felt that the U.S. should protest and not send a team to China and I agree that we were right to not send a team to Moscow in 1980. However, I do understand that the Olympics are supposed to be about athletic competition, not the policies or politics of the host nation and the athletes should not have to suffer to serve a political end. That is part of why China should not be the host. When it is known long before hand that a country will be controversial for significant reason, that country should not be in the running for an Olympic bid. It isn’t like this is a new concern, people have been protesting this choice since it was made. So, while politics shouldn’t have an effect on the athletes, it absolutely must play a role in selecting the host and the IOC should be ashamed of considering China for the games and I believe they did so partly just to cause the controversy in the U.S. especially.

The second aspect covers all Olympic Games and that is the allowed use of professional athletes in the games. The primary reason for allowing professionals was understandable; to counter act the USSR and Eastern European Bloc’s use of ‘professional’ amateur athletes. The world knew that while they weren’t part of professional clubs, team athletes from those countries were by all accounts professionals. So, 20 years too late, the IOC allowed professionals for all events. Of course, that started in 1992… after the fall of the Berlin Wall… at which point, the need to allow professionals was greatly diminished.

This is another area where I have changed my mind over the years. I agreed with the use of pros for the primary reason that the Olympics should showcase the best athletes regardless of pro/amateur status. However, now I take the stance that pros are paid already to perform in their profession and are showcased already through the countless TV networks and internet. If you want to see someone play, you have ample opportunity to. However, rising stars and those currently not paid directly for their competition should get this chance to show off in front of the world. It was easy to allow professionals before, it should be easy to go back to amateur competition.

Despite some flaws, I love the Olympics, the competition, and the side stories. I think NBC does a great job mostly of presenting the Games (except for that nasty time delay issue that is hard to avoid) and I will look forward greatly to the next 2 weeks!

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.

For the first time in a long time, and at least since I’ve been there, Purdue is in sole possesion of first place in the Big Ten for men’s basketball.  This has been a long time coming and is great to see.  The team is made up of primarily young players (four freshman regularly start for the team) so I didn’t expect much from this season except hopefully building to the next two years.

All expectations have been well exceeded by this group of kids.  They play hard, and most importantly play together.  No one person is the star or tries to take the glory.  Each night a different two or three players tend to step up to give Purdue the win.  They are having a nice 9 game winning streak and just came off a terrific win at Wisconsin, a place they hadn’t won at since 1996.

Hopefully Purdue can keep this up going into the conference tournament and NCAA tournament as well.  This just makes me more excited for March coming up!