I like the way you think Dennis. My set my goals for this summer to improve on spare percentage didnt set any goals score or average wise. Just wanted to improve on spare percentage and in turn my average has gone up and scores have improved.

That's exactly my point, Brandon. Your goal was to improve spares, and you average benefited. Great.

I seem to have the opposite problem. When I practice spares, I rush in and do everything wrong. But when the heat’s on in league, it makes me take my time to set up the shot.

Ludo, you should practice just like you are in league. You have the opportunity, since no one is rushing you. Go through your preshot routine. Make sure you are lined up properly. Relax and take a deep breath. And, focus on that shot only.

Then, step back and analyze what you did, right or wrong. If it was right, repeat it until it is in your memory. If it was wrong, understand why, and make a correction.

My main goal in a night is to have no more than 2 opens a game. That for me usually tends to yield 170-180 scores. And let's say that in the first game I have 3 opens. So I'm a little over but from there I progressivly try to limit the number of open frames by one i.e. 3 to 2, and 2 to 1 and so on.

Also another goal by the end of the night is to at least to have a 90% convertion on my risght side spares (in particulat the 6,10 and the 10 pin). I like to pride myself on picking those up because more often then not my team mates will miss them. So I try to make it a habit to first not leave them and then if I do leave them to pick them up. And like it was said before, I try to be somewhere around 80% on spare conversions. Eventually I'll look to be clean throughout the entire night, but right now since I'm still learning the game I feel it's important to allow for mistakes.

Lane reading is the last thing that I try to use and perfect as a goal. I try to correctly read the lanes throughout the night that way I won't leave too many tough spare conversions. I've seen this work wonders for me. I had a 279 because I read the lanes better then the people I was bowling against(two ten pins).

The another thing that I set as goal for myself is to play my own game (even though I recently had to learn to do that again). I like to play my game, my line and if I my mistakes I adjust. The thing that bugs me is when my teammates suggest a move or an adjustment after a poorly thrown ball. For instance, instead of suggesting to keep your straight on the back and down swings (meaning to not break it on the downswing), they would instead suggest that I move like 3 boards left and my mark 2 boards left. That really grinds my gears, so I play my own game, and usually know when I throw a bad ball and why.

The last thing that I do and set as a goal for myself is more of precaution to eliminate badly thrown balls. If I feel something wrong with my stance or the ball or during my approach I stop and start again. I've been robbed of too many high scores and clean games and the above mentioned goals because I didn't stop when I should've. And as far as I'm concened it's a valuable skill to have. Even cooler, there is rule that states that as long as you don't that go of the ball, you can go over the foul line and you won't be penalize. It's for when the ball gets stuck on the bowler's hand and they don't feel like sliding down the lane. Of course I have to see if that is in the league rules because I think it is overlooked most of the time.

I really need to go back a actually try some of these goals in my summer leagues. I think the infux of information I've been learning along with the PBA league I'm in have really been screwing me up.

LudoMonster,
You may be what is called a gamer (not referring to the definition of someone who plays an excessive amount of video games). They're in every sport. They're usually the atheletes that have [censored] practices either because they just don't perform as well as in practice as they do in competition, or because they don't perform well on their own valition. Regardless, if you watch a gamer practice, you'll scratch your head wondering just how in the hell they made the starting team or have won so many tournaments. But when you watch them in competition or play along side them it's like there's an entirely different person that is performing.

I allow one open per game and it better be a split and not a spare I missed. Yah it's hard on myself but it must be done. One open can lose alot of money in the brackets on league night or dinner if out with the guys. My goal is 650 per night right now. The guys I play with are all in the same range so it's a MUST to have 210+ per game. Realistilly it's 225+ to win. There's 5 others in our group and anyone can get hot so it's a tough battle and lots of trash talking too HAHA

So I was close to achieving my goals last night it was fairly decent. I didn't have as many strikes as wouldn't liked, but I achieved most of my goals. I had 7 opens when my goal was to allow for 6 (two on the right and four on the left). I adjusted to the lanes pretty well and I made ball changes accordingly, which I was happy with.

The cool thing that I found out that I can cup my wrist on the backswing and I can release the ball a lot stronger which was causing me to have adjustment issues because I'm not used to the way the ball was moving.