I've been looking through my member details on bowl.com and am pretty interested with it. Kind of cool to see my averages go up every year and I was wondering what every one else looked like.

According to bowl.com:

2004-2005: 187

2005-2006: 195

2006-2007: 218 (What the hell happened here?)
SportShot: 165

2007-2008: 221
SportShot: 173

2008-2009: 223
SportShot: 180 (Current, Only one more week on the Shark...)

Except for the sport shot, all of these are winter scores. I've been bowling in leagues for about 10 years (since I was 9ish) so now I want to dig through my bowling stuff at home and find out the other 5 years looked like.

2005-2006 137

2006-2007 145

2007-2008 171

2008-2009 176

2005-2006 1 ball
2006-2007 3 balls
2007-2008 6 balls
2008-2009 4 balls

as for averages
188
194
203
212

If you're 19 now, then that's the year you probably saw significant physical maturity.

I saw a special one time on adolescent growth and one thing they had stressed was that as your body matures, it takes time for your brain to catch up. Consequently you become a bit uncoordinated for awhile until your mind adjusts to the changes. I'm guessing both happened around that time.

I had a different member number so here is all that they have.

2001-2002 195
2002-2003 202
2004-2005 201
2005-2006 206
2006-2007 213
2008-2009 205

I had some years in there where I only bowled in non-sanction leagues. 01 and 02 season was in a tough league and house. My current house isn't easy either. I know I could go to a house closer and average 10 pins higher. I only bowl for fun now anyway. Not as serious as I once was.

You got that right. I averaged 215 at that age. But, that was on wood with rubber balls. After a 24 year layoff, I am lucky to hit 200 on the "new and improved" synthetic lanes. Don't see much improvement.

But, I can certainly beat those Seniors, of which I am the youngest, by far. Averaged 213 with a 299 in the non-sanctioned Senior League. They won't pay for sanctioning, and sure do like the free coffee. $3 for 3 games is all a fixed income can afford. Especially, when they all talk about their 401K losses.

2007-2008 (first year back after 10-year break):
House Shot: 209
Sport Shot: 198
2008-2009:
House Shot: 224, 239
Sport Shot: 175 (summer league in progress, struggling at new house)

When I bowled years ago (wood lanes, rubber balls), I was fortunate to average 195 in my first league. I once rolled 22 strikes in a row in a tournament with an AMF 3-Dot. Unfortunately, the first strike was in the 2nd frame of the second game, so I went 207, 290, 299, and missed 300 and 800 by a few pins.

When I stopped bowling in 1996, my average was around 223. I rolled my first 300 the last night of the last league that I bowled back then with a Pearl Cuda/C if anybody remembers that ball.

Here are mine:

2006-2007: 173
2007-2008: 202
2008-2009: 213

Right now my average in summer league is about 212-214 so hopefully by the end I will have had enough time with my new skill sets to make another jump. I am hoping to hit 220 this coming season.

Going back to before i was sanctioned.
1998-1999: 144
1999-2000: 165 (first sanctioned season)
2000-2007: all somewhere in the 180s
2007-2008: 195
2008-2009: 189 (had an injury)

I never bowl in league, but when I did, I was 140 avg. I roll 8 games a week with my wife, and average 170 on my four favorite releases and somewhat less on my lesser releases (1 bal, 8 releases each week). This is at an easy house with easy THS patterns.

I've also found that my equipment varies from 165 average to 175 average simply due to the change in equipment. My Danger Zone Red Alert Special Edition averages something like 155, but that's because I have yet to figure out how to adjust when throwing a skid-Flip type ball. The ball is awesome, so I'll keep trying.

Bottom line - in 4 years of weekly practice sessions, my average has not varied, but my skills have increased significantly so that I feel fully confident in saying that I would average 170 in PBAX league with my 10 different releases and various types of balls. And also I have gotten poretty darn good at picking up the 10 pin, and made the 6-7-10 last week and 4-7-9-10 a couple of weeks ago.

Currently working on getting the Swing Slot perfected. It's the best thing so far for improving my accuracy.

This other guy who took lessons for 2 years - his sons watched him. They (11 and 16) throw better and score better than me (in practice). Bottom line - lessons help. Big time.