Listed in the topic subject are what i believe to be my two biggest problems with my game. often enough i found myself bowling a 240 one game, only to lose it and finish a 150 or 160 the next. i don't know what happens during the layover from one game to the next, but for some reason soemthing falls out of place and starts somewhat of a domino effect.

also, many a time i have found myself on the edge of what i consider to be "greatness," still being a junior bowler. only once have i made it through even 9 frames perfect, and in that game i left the ball a board wide after the front ten and left a wobbly seven. on a simialr note, i also have only made it to the 700 plateau twice, and, for instance, whenever i roll an outstanding first two games, i always fall flat in the third, and then kick myself for a while afterward because i know that i could have done a better job of getting there. i believe my most classic example of probably both of these scenarios was a prebowling session in which i began with a 290 and then lost something and rolled a still-respectable 202 the next game. then i got to thinking that if i could only get a 208 then i'd be at the 700 again and things fell apart more and i finished with a 181. granted, those are respectable scores, and i don't claim to be a professional in any sense of the word, but i feel with a career performance in the fall league last year (finishing the year with a 203 average), that i shouldn't still be having problems such as these.

does anyone have any advice that i could use to help me keep things together?

P.S. i also learned last year that a brilliant league play performance does not guarantee the same in tournaments; out of 12 or so tournaments last year i rolled well in one of them, and even in that tournament (a scratch tournament) i started with a 118, and then followed that with the division high score of 278. i think maybe that problem of thinking too much comes back into play, because i often found myself thinking about how i was struggling to keep up with the expectations that my average brought with me.

Take two:

My first start at a response went into a direction I did not expect and I deep 6'ed it.

You may well be dwelling too much on the numbers. This may work:
Remember - The division between games is artificial. The lane doesn't know about it. The pins don't, either. Even your bowling ball doesn't care that you have progressed from game 1 to game 2. The important thing to think about is the process by which you produce a good (GREAT!) shot. Ignore the numbers, and go through your reads and progressions, your set up and delivery as if it was the first frame of the first game.

I saw my brother get up in the 10th once on the front nine, throw an absolute missile, and then come back and sit down. He was so focused on throwing the shot that he didn't know it was the 10th frame! This is not easy to do, but it sounds really good. Let me know if it works and I will try it. [weak grin]

While I agree with 6 ball man on several points, I disagree on several more. The division between games IS artificial, but the lane sees extra play between your last ball in the tenth and your first ball in the next game. Because of the extra balls in the tenth, this is where many bowlers loose their line. You have to be prepared for the lanes to transition. Once it begins it will be rapid. Not only do you need to focus on your shots, but you need to foucs on your team mates and opponents shots. By focusing on what their shots are doing, you should be able to see when the lanes change and be able to adapt to the change quicker.

The problem is you don't claim to be a professional, but you expect professional results. It takes a ton of practice and lots of working on your game to learn new skills to be able to adjust to the ever changing lane conditions, unless you get a coach that can teach you all of the skills you don't know yet, (by that I mean it will be a long process and don't expect it over night or in one lesson), it will take a long time to develop these skills on your own. Until then keep your expectations in check, and do the best you can do on every shot and your scores will improve.

I think the best advice I can give you is to stop thinking about the game and the series. How do you you think pro's make good shots on TV under all the pressure they're under? You have to remove all the other distractions and just get up there and execute.

When you get up on the approach, know what you're going to do and execute. When you have a bad frame, when you walk off the lane, forget about it. Treat each frame as a something completely unrelated to any other frame. Just get up there and bowl the frame as though it was any other frame you've bowled. The spare you missed, the bad Execution 2 frames ago, what your opponent is doing, what you could shoot... none of that has anything to do with executing your shot.

Get up on the approach, go through your routine and execute that shot just like you've executed thousands of other shots. When it's over, forget about it.

EDIT: I personally don't even check the scores until the 10th frame.

I think PSBA10 had an interesting take and is right; the extra lineage has an effect. But even more than that, it's a mental thing, like you're thinking too much about the last game and trying to "calculate" your next game before you even throw a ball. Expect very little - like the first ball in practice. Or, better yet, be a student of the game and watch your teammates as they roll and their ball reaction. Don't just sit there and do nothing. Sit there and learn something, but don't focus on a score.


I can relate to this. This was how I was in junior bowling. The problem? Like I said in the previous paragraph; you're thinking about a score instead of just going out there like it's the first ball in practice. You need to have a short memory in this game, whether it was a strike the last ball or a missed split conversion. Don't base the results of the next ball based on the results of the previous one. The only thing you should take with your frame to frame is the ball reaction and WHY your result was what it was, not the result itself.


I did this quite often when I was a junior bowler and even up until 4 years ago as an adult; shoot 470, 480, 490, or 500 for the first two games only to finish with a 660, 670, 680 or 690 because I was trying too hard. Think of why you shot the 470 or 480 for the first two games to begin with. Was it because you were just going out there and rolling the ball, or was it because you were calculating each ball? I will answer my own question because I already know the answer - you were just rolling the ball. Try that for the last game and see what happens.


You said it yourself, "i was struggling to keep up with the expectations that my average brought with me". This should tell you something. You already know the problem, now you need to find the solution. I have given you a solution, as has everyone else who has posted a reply. Now it's up to you to change your mental game and "rethink how you think about bowling." It seems so simple, and it seems so cliche, but really, the whole "take the game one frame at a time" really does work. Try it for a few weeks and let us know what happens. It's a new year - no expectations, no preconceived notions. Just go out there with a new mental attitude and quit thinking about your scores and think about executing your shot. You'll be pleasantly surprised at the results.

First of all, relax. You need to clear the mechanism and focus on the shot. After that I would suggest trying to find out if you did something wrong on your pitch if it didn't yield the result you thought it would. If not chalk it up to lane change, and adjust. This should only take a couple of seconds at the very least. Dwelling on the shot isn't going to help you any because you'll move out of your comfort zone in your approach because you think you need to adjust when you simply messed up a little.

I am not nearly skilled or experienced enough to offer you advice from the perspective of a bowler, so I will do so from the perspective of a musician.

Mistakes happen. No one is perfect 100% of the time, despite how much we may try to be, or aspire to be. The difference between good musicians (and bowlers), and great musicians (and bowlers), is the ability to let your mistakes exist ONLY in the moment where they occurred. You cannot change them, you cannot fix them, so you should not carry their burden with you. It is impossible to stay focused on what you need to do if you're thinking about the mistakes you already made.

When I played my senior recital in college, I was a bag of nerves. This performance was just me, my tuba, and a piano player. Everyone was there to see me. Talk about pressure!! I walked out on stage, tuned my horn, and began playing the first piece on my program. Within about 45 seconds, I made my first major mistake (they renovated the recital hall the next semester, and I like to say it's because they couldn't get the note I splattered off the walls :-P). After that, I instantly relaxed. I had been afraid to make a mistake, it had consumed my thought. So, of course, I made one. Once it was done, I was able to put that line of thinking away, and focus on what I was currently doing. Truly living "in the moment."

While I am by no means a great bowler, I definitely think this same kind of thinking is necessary. Don't think about what you've done, don't think about what you need to do later, think about what you are doing RIGHT NOW. This shot. This frame. Nothing else matters.

Of course, if doing this were easy, there'd be way more 200+ average bowlers out there (myself included!).

Excellent analogy, SilentTuba. Like anything in life, if you have developed the right technique and are physically sound in your mechanics and the finer points of your craft (we know this as "practice"), then the only obstacle and the difference between being good and great is your mental game. Trying to "do too much" or "letting your brain control your body" will make you more frustrated than successful. When you "think about what you have to do", you're actually slowing down your body's natural reflexes and learned processes and that's where mistakes happen. Instead, focus your mental energy on the actual "cerebral" parts of your craft; adjusting, problem-solving, troubleshooting, learning, planning, etc. Let your muscles do the work you've trained them to do and let your brain do what it's supposed to do and nothing more.

hmmm...there's a lot of very useful information here, i hope anyone who finds the same problems going on with their game can benefit themselves from what has been posted here.

and now that it's been mentioned, i completely understand what goes wrong when it does: when i start with something like a front 6 or 7, or with a pair of 230s or something i start to think about the next five or six shots at the same time, or the next whole game at once, rather than the shot i'm in right now, and i think that's the biggest. i remember very distinctly the 290 and 289 games, and even the 3 or 4 279s that i have, and how i really wasn't paying attention at all to what would be going on in the following shots, but what i had to do in the shot that i had at the present, and then once i was done with that shot, i would forget about it. (i think where i went wrong with the 289 was, when i stepped up for the second ball in the 10th, i was thinking already about the third ball, and not the one i was on. i'm sure my hands and knees shaking a lot didn't help, but that same thing was happening on the first ball, and i put that one in the pocket anyway, so i can't really use that as an excuse.)

At any rate, i intend to perhaps, if the house is not full tonight, get a few practice games, so i'll certainly keep these things in mind when i go. Thanks for the help everyone, i appreciate it.