I did mentally fall apart the last game. That's the weakest part of my game right now.

thursday night league, low scores, but.....

had a 158, 155 and a 147.

was on 5 and 6.

5 was nice, could play my normal line, and if i executed properly, text book strike.

6, holy hanna! never knew where the ball was gonna go. moved feet and target all over the place, with crazy results.

i have heard talk here about flooded lanes, and let me tell ya, 6 WAS flooded! so much so, the ball return was just spinning the balls as they came 'up to the return', the part where they come up 'out of the floor', the rubber flexible wheel had no grip, and they'd just spin there, 3 deep!

the whole house had lower than avg scores, big time.

i felt bad about my bowling untill i talked to others, it was horrible for everyone, one friend avg's 200+ and he strugled to hit a 400 series. my ball looked like a greased pig.

lane machine musta puked after lane 5.........

and yet again, missed a ton of 4 pins!!!!

158-169-191 = 518. Games 1 and 2 both featured HORRIBLE starts, and I pulled both out of the fire w/strikes late (double in game 1, turkey in 2).

Game 3... bleh.

Turkey, 3-5, turkey, 9-spare, 6-3, 8-miss.

I had never had the indignity before of tossing a turkey and then missing the 5-board far enough right that I thought off my hand that I'd sent it into the ditch.

Once again, this series could easily have been 60-70 pins better if not for my customary average of 3 stupid shots per game. Came up in the 9th frame of game 3 knowing that I only needed 1 mark for my best sanctioned game ever.

What do I do? I try too hard. I jacked the foot speed to the line, and the ball speed, WAY up and don't even come close to the headpin in 4 shots. Left the 1-2-4-7 in the 9th, hooked the spare shot past the headpin into the 2-4-7. Left the 1-2 in the 10th, couldn't decide what I wanted to do to shoot it (use my strike target and hook, or move more inside and straighten it out). Lined up on my strike target thinking I would hook at it and proceeded to flatten the wrist out instead. Missed the headpin by a foot and a half.

Team took 2 games plus totals, though. This team is really doing well lately after a horrific start.

200 is an enormous mental roadblock for me right now. I haven't hit it even in practice since December, and the 200 even that I needed 9 strikes to shoot is the only sanctioned one I have. Every time I get close, I shoot myself in the foot, and it's something different that I screw up each time. I cursed myself out for a good 5 minutes after finishing the 191 for tossing 4 stupid shots in a row.

What an odd weekend with lots of bowling.
Started with 3 practice games to warm up for City Tourney. Threw a 670. Ready to roll.
Struggled in doubles, dumped it very badly in singles, both Saturday.
586-490. Just bad. 490 was absolute worst series in several years.. splits, missed easy spares, GAG!
Then came out for the team event in City this morning (Sun. Morn)... much better. 678. Team did very well with the handicap competition. We are no scratch team, but everyone was over average.. and two of the team members bowled personal bests for their series. We were told we might be in the lead for Team Handicap series with one more round of teams to go. Probably should hit at least Top 3 for the handicap team competition. So VERY cool.

A bit tired, got to the afternoon league today. Shot 620. Could not string much together, two bad splits, one missed 7 pin for the series. Ehhh...

Got to the night league tonight. 184 was mired with inconsistency and two consecutive easy miss type of spares. ick.
208 for the second game, a bit better. Lots of 7 pins which were converted alternating with strikes. One double. done.

Third game. Ringing 7, seven straight strikes. Weird 5 pin leave in the 9th. Felt good, seemed light pocket.. no carry. Stike, 6 pin leave/ spare to finish for a 259. 651 series. done for the weekend.

Phew. Respect out to anyone who has to bowl 6 or more series a week with any regularity. Lot of wear and tear on the old hand....

Cheers!

Last night was pretty good, but had the potential to be so much better. 213-221-243 = 677

Game 1: After warmups I thought I was lined up playing inside on the left lane and outside on the right lane. The shot fell apart inside early in the game, but I fought it and wasn't punished too hard.

Game 2: I continued to fight the left lane and was punished more than the first as I had to go clean to shoot the 221. (I didn't go clean the first game)

Game 3: I made the right moves right at the end of game 2 (ball switch and moving outside on the left lane, swinging it a bit on the right) and I was all lined up, but two bad shots that dove threw the head killed the game.

O X X X X X X X O XXX

Two bad shots killed the game; the obnoxious thing is that both leaves were unmakable splits :-(

Nice going Jay. Should have your 200 average target by now, right?

198 Dennis, I dropped the ball two weeks ago I think... or maybe it was last week, either way I had lost 1 pin in there and am inching back up again.

Very nice shooting.
I went 156,184,188. about 3 or 4 weeks ago I couldn't miss a spare, with some strikes sprinkled in here and there for good measure.

Now its the opposite I am missing makeable spares and stringing strikes. The 184 was open 9th, 10th. 188 open 10th.

This is going to sound strange but I think the issue is my form is better as well as release (spinner to roller) I have to play way different lines then what I used to and I can not seem to get my brain to trust not rolling my spare shot down the old targets.

Practiced today not focusing on first ball so I could leave different spares but I was still only about 60% when I finished a lot of pulled shots like my brain was saying not over there over here where we used to throw it.

If your old spare system worked, why change it? Did your improved strike shot affect your spare game, mentally and/or physically?

I have that problem a lot of times, where when I'm stringing strikes I miss spares and when I can't strike I make most of my spares. When I practice shooting at corner pins my percentage is even lower than in league and tournament, for some reason.

Beefers, it may be that getting those competitive fires burning during league or tournament action helps you stay in the moment and focus. This has been the case for me also. When I was 21 and under, this was the main reason I never bothered to look for a candlepin coach and rarely bowled any practice. If the shot didn't mean anything in the here and now, I couldn't be bothered to concentrate. I always loved candlepin tournaments -- the pressure helped me and 75-80% of the time I would beat my league average in them, sometimes by very, very wide margins.

Fortunately, this does not seem to be the case for me anymore. I'll post about that shortly.