Well, tonight I finally found a groove in my summer league. Its a 4-game league, in which you bowl two games against two different teams. I have been averaging 200, but it was literally an average and scores have been really up and down. Tonight I started my first pair of games at 254 and 243- finally just having things come together. When we switch lanes to bowl our second pair is usually when i fall apart because when we move lanes, and don't get practice to adjust to the new conditions- so the first frames are typically adjustment frames. But the third game started strong with two solid strikes. Third frame left the nastiest 10-pin I have left in a while, just a solid shot. Struck out the rest of the game for a 279 and my summer's high game (and the high game for my league thus far). Simply put, I was simply dialed in- even missing by three or four boards struck. THEN the fourth game came, started with a strike and feeling good. Got all nervous and left a sleeper 8 count. Ended up missing the sleeper for my first open of the night and fell apart. Final game had 4 opens (only one split..) and ended with a 163 I was embarassed to be on the lanes. Still ended with a 931, the league high series and a 232 average. Not a bad night, but could have been so much better....I gotta thank the guys at Brunswick for the Ultra Zone as it was my go to ball all four games.

776 for the first three games is pretty good, nothing wrong with that at all.

What was going through your head when things started to go bad? I believe if you think things through it will be easier for you to regain control or your emotions and adjust to the lanes before things get so bad next time.

Sometimes we let our expectations get in the way of us bowling good, we see how good we are doing and start imagining greater accomplishments, and when that doesn't happen, we tend to lose focus on what we are doing and things tend to snow ball out of control.

I was questing to bowl a 300 game a while back, I would be on top of my game every game until I missed, then I would lose focus until the next game started, when that happened in the first or second frame you can imagine the wonderful scores I would post.

776 for the front three is awesome!!! next time you'll be able to link that last game too

Hey man, TOOT TOOT, go ahead and toot your horn. That is great bowling. When you get in a groove, bowling is such fun, isn't it? What's impressive is the lane switch and you continued your good bowling.

I've been there, and you just walk around in awe of your accomplishment. Go ahead and gloat. It doesn't happen too often.

Its pretty normal to "run out of gas" this is meant figuratively not really physically. And missing the sleeper just took the wind out of your sails. It happens. What a fantastic set!!!

Instead of thinking about how much you fell apart, try to relive in your head how dialed in you were for those first three games. Replay that in your head for as long as that feeling stays fresh. I know it sounds silly, but before you close your eyes for the night....replay. When you wake up......replay.

Somewhere I heard that Parker Bohn III gets ready for tournament play by reviewing himself striking on video. Strike Strike Stike. So that that positive image is fresh in his head. That feeling of confidence and invisibility is what it takes to keep going, even through some pretty cr ap py leaves and/or opens.

Don't even think of that 160 game. Forget it. And dwell on the fantastic bowling you did for those first three games.

Don't know how many times you have bowled in situations where you change lanes. So this may be repetative. When you get ready to change lanes, take a little walk over to your next pair between frames and watch how they are playing. Pick the most similiar bowler to you and see what they are doing. Knowing the house helps. When you know a house you are familiar with the idiosyncricies of each lane and pair. But that's not always the case if you go from house to house for tournament play. When you do such, check out that pair you are going to a few frames a head of time.

Erin

Moving to an unfamiliar lane can be tough. I did it in a tournament a few weeks ago because our lane broke down. I started with 245, then had to move. No shadow balls when this happens in a tournament, and I shot 180. Finished with 269.

I figured that lane change cost me some money.

Its an imperfect sport.

I dunno, maybe we should take the pro golfers and move them from hole to hole and see how they can put 18 holes together with no break or practice. Oh yea, but they only have 18 choices. Most bowling centers have 32 to 50+ lanes and those lanes you go to may or may not be "groomed".

This same thing happend to me a couple weeks ago in summer league. I started out thinking just make good shots. Focusing on making a good fluid swing and not worrying about what score I had. I shot 265--266 first two games.
I looked at the total for the first 2 games on the scorer and it said 531. I thought to myself "I'm on tonight all I need is to shoot a 269 and I will have my first 800".
Well guess what happended the 3rd game. Focus went from making good shots to trying to shoot a good score. Next thing I know I throw a 202 for a 733 set. Another thing I was thinking at the beginning of the 3rd game was I should have an easy mid to upper 700 night.
Moral of the story...
Focus on shotmaking and the scores will come.

We have all had these nights. Something is clicking and for a while and then, it stops clicking and we start thinking. I have done it a number of times. I start second guessing. I will be shooting a line all night and then it starts to break down a little. What do I do? Do I move my feet? My mark? Do I change balls? THE HUMANITY!!!!!!

The best advice is to take a step back, take a deep breath, and relax. Maybe go to the bathroom and rub some cold water on your face or head to the bar and get a drink. I find that when I start over analyzing my game I need to get my head away from the game for a minute or 2. It helps me relax.

Boy I wish that I had done this last night. PBAX league (3 game set with a cut to 8 followed by single elim. match play), all wood lanes with screaming backends, Viper pattern. Game plan for the night was to use my Twisted straight up 8 until the back ends calmed down enough to go to the Break Pearl, and then go Street Rod Pearl when it really started to dry out. Game 1 was fine, the Twisted at 2000 Abralon polished was very easy for me to keep the pocket on the fresh condition. Whiffed a 10 pin in the 7th, chopped the 3 and 9 off a 3-6-9 after a tugged shot in the 10th. Still shot 201 with a couple major blunders, so my 165 league average and I are pleased. Move to the next pair with my Break Pearl and tried moving left as 8-11 area dried up. Moving further left put me inside the carrydown, so the ball came unglued the further I tried to move in. Halfway through game 2 I move out to go straight up 4 and I found a home. Carrydown from the Track for hold meant I could miss in a little bit, and I salvaged a 176 from a trainwreck through 6 frames. Game 3 the outside line was also there on the next pair so I throw the front 5, leave a vicious ringing 10 (and whiff it ), spare-spare, chop the 4 off a 4-7 in the 9th when I got a bit slow on the first ball, three high flush strikes in the 10th for 223. First 600 series on a sport shot and I make my first cut qualifying #5, so even though my spare game is still killing me I'm very pleased.

Move to another new pair for match play, and of course I draw the house owner/my coach in the first round (Don Dupree Jr., former PBAer). Break Pearl was too much ball on this pair, so I go with the Street Rod but I can't hold the pocket with it either. 4 spares and a strike through 5, but my coach has thrown the front 4 playing inside. The panic claxon is really blowing now . So I try to move way in to just inside the line he's playing, and I continue to go high there. Get beat 215-180. I could have balled down to my White Dot and stayed outside, but I panicked and got away from what had been working well. As GP said, THE HUMANITY! Bad on me, and lesson learned.

Overall, a HUGE confidence boost on the night.

1. Started with a game plan and stayed with it.
2. Executed very well on a line that had been scary for me previously (outside first arrow)
3. Confirmed yet again that my spare game is what needs most of the work in practice.
4. Discovered that the Break Pearl is an absolute MOAB when conditions allow for a very angular ball.
5. Most of all, the stuff my coach and I have been working on (balance, timing, end over end roll) really started to click and I was just able to step up and make confident clean releases without the mental clutter of mechanical thoughts. Hopefully this is a sign of even better things to come.