A Scattered Brain

What’s worse than a bad bowler?  A bad bowler who thought he was good.  After a terrific first week, things have just been down hill.  This week has by far been the worst 3 game series I’ve bowled in league.  I haven’t had a single clean game (no open frames) and only 1 over 200 the entire time; and that was in the first week.  Pathetic is all I can say about it so far.  The only other remotely decent week was when we all pre-bowled so we were able to go at a much faster pace.  It got so bad tonight that I used my straight spare ball the third game because I couldn’t handle the bad breaks.

The most frustrating part is, espcially in the last two weeks, I’ve been hitting my marks on my strike ball.  My aim is right where I want it; but either I get too much or not enough oil and the ball misses the pocket nearly every time.  I make a small adjustment, as I should based on the previous ball and the same thing happens, either I hit high or I hit light.  To put it in other terms, it’s like hitting a baseball on the sweet part of the bat every time but still flying out at the warning track.

Here are all of my scores to get you up to date:

I need to figure something out quickly as it’s to the point now where my poor bowling is hurting the team pretty drastically.  I’m supposed to be the most consistent, and at least 30 pins higher in my consistency than I was tonight.  I either need more practice or need a break; and I just don’t know which.  Probably should get a lesson with someone who can look at my game objectively and put me back on the right track.  Who knows?

Thanks for letting me babble on.  Have a great rest of the week, everyone!

Greetings to all of my numerous fans who missed my bowling blog.  The new season has started and so I’m back, back again, guess who’s back, tell some friends.

So, this new season started off pretty well.  My goal average for the entire league is 190.  Tonight, I started off with a 547 series; 182 average.  Not too shabby to start out 30 pins higher my first week over my first week of the summer.  We’ll see how things go as the weeks progress, but out side of my first game where I couldn’t get a good read on the lanes at all, I was pleased with everything.

Here are this week’s results:

Again, not bad except for the first game before any of the oil broke down.  I’ll have to figure that out but it’s tough to practice for that because very seldom do you get to bowl on fresh oil when you come to open bowling.

This league is huge, too.  The summer league had only 24 teams.  This one has 38!  Plus with more money going into the pot, the payouts should be much nicer so that’s all good.

Well, that’s all for tonight.  Have a great one everybody and take care!

Last night was the last competitive night of the summer bowling league.  We had a nice, strong finish and won all three games plus total pins.  The win comes with a bit of an empty feeling as the other team didn’t even show up except for one person and you have to have at least 2 of the 4 be there for anything to count.  He seemed very disappointed and upset with his team and who can blame him?  Basically, it meant that as long as we were all within 10 pins of our average all games, we’d win.  We all bowled fairly well regardless and probably would have won at least 2 of the 3 games even if they had fielded a team.

I bowled my second best series of the summer, which I’m proud of.  Unlike the last good one, which just seemed to be all luck, this time I’d made some changes to my approach and delivery that look to be helping with two of my biggest issues: consistency and speed.  Here are my scores and averages for the whole season:

I ended up with an average just 4 pins off of my goal of 170 which isn’t bad considering it was a fairly arbitrary number based on what I used to bowl 7 years ago.

The next league starts Sept. 6 so that gives me three weeks to just practice, recondition my balls (insert dirty joke here) and get ready for the next season.  Don’t worry, the bowling blog portion will return.  We’ve even ordered really spiffy bowling shirts and if we can’t beat the other teams with talent, we’ll at least look better losing!

We are almost to the end of the summer season of bowling.  Only two more weeks left and next week is the last competitive week.  This week I was in a bit of a funky mood and I’m still not quite sure why.  I bowled better than my average in all three games and I’m happy with that.

Game 2 started out awesome.  Started with 5 strikes and then the wheels came off.  I couldn’t get any breaks on the left lane after that and left 3 straight wicked splits.  That killed the chance to get 200 but that happens.

I want to congratulate two of my teammates.  They both got their personal bests for this league in game 3.  Erin bowled over 130 for the first time and Ty bowled a team-best of 217!

Here are this weeks scores:

The average is still mid 160’s which is a little lower than my goal of 170 and with only one more week, I don’t think that goal will be achieved.

UPDATE: I almost forgot, we are still looking for a team name for next season.  If you have any clever (keep it clean) ideas, pass them along for consideration.  We also plan to buy shirts.  If we aren’t going to win, we’re going to look snazzy losing!

I hope you all have a good rest of the week.  It’s almost Friday!

Good evening all,

Well, tonight was just an average night… a little below actually but really not much to say.  I just need more practice to gradually get better and more consistent.  So without further ado, here are this week’s scores:

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

We finally had a winning night!  For the first time, we one all three games as a team and thereby also winning the bonus point for most pins.  My games were a bit below my average, but that’s ok.  My primary goal for this week was to have fun and not worry too much about my scores or even my technique.  That was accomplished, I had a blast tonight, which why else bowl unless you’re going to have fun?

My more serious goals were to slow down as I tend to rush most of the time.  This will be an ongoing struggle as I rush in most things I do in life, not just bowling.  I’m also looking for that elusive clean game and with tonights scores, that just wasn’t going to happen.

So, you can see I was fairly consistent tonight, even if below my average.  If I can finish this season (5 more weeks) with a 160 average, that’s pretty good for being out of the game for nearly seven years, so I won’t complain.

I won’t be able to bowl next week as I have to go to Florida on business.  The rules won’t allow me to make up my games alone, we’d have to request as a team to pre-bowl or post-bowl and that’s just too strict a rule, but that’s the way the cookie crumbles.

I will be back late Friday morning and am looking forward to J and Danielle’s upcoming visit.  I’m sure we’ll have a great time and it’s been way too long for the girls to have had to wait to see each other.

Have a great night, all, and I’ll see you later.

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:

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:

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:

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:

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!