Well I'm posting this it has occurred to me that when I go into a night at league, and I really don't care how I bowl or I am trying out a new ball and have lowered expectations or I haven't bowled in awhile thereby lowering expectations, I bowl much better.

Case in point, my first week of bowling this year, I shoot 717. Over the summer, the first week, I shot 709, and at the start of the Winter last year, I shot 737. It has gotten to the point that my team is like, "Why oh why during establishing do you always shoot 700?"  Last week was even funnier because I had to go straight from work to bowling and my wife grabbed my other bowling bag with old gear in it. So I shot with a import Bionic zone I haven't used in 3 years and a pair of bowling shoes that are my backups.

I have come to the realization, that the pressure we put on ourselves, and this includes our expectations of ourselves, can severely affect the way we bowl, even if it is subconsciencely. I walked into the alley last week expecting to not bowl well because I hadn't bowled in 4 weeks and had brought the wrong gear. I have come to the conclusion that when we don't anticipate doing well, we subconsciencely focus more intently on the object as hand. We tend not to nit-pick the small things that may be wrong and we focus on the basic mechanics. I noticed this on Thursday night going into the third game. I realized that I was intently focused on simply staying balanced and keeping my correct mantra, because these are the two common mistakes I make. By not focusing on allot of other things, and keeping it simple, I hit the pocket with just about every ball. I shot 276 my first game.

This simple approach, combined with my lowered expectation of how I would probably bowl kept me from getting frustrated when I did miss and conversely prevented me from over compensating when I did miss. Anyway, I was wondering how many of you focus or pay attention to the psychological part of the game and not only practice it, but try to analyze how it affects your game and when it affects your game.


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Tell me about it. When I am at work and I look forward to go bowling I normally bowl like krap. But when I could care less I bowl good.
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   DON'T TEMP THE BOWLING GODS

Bowling is a mental game... you have to be mental to bowl!

It helps if you can divorce score from execution when evaluating your performance. Focusing heavily on score takes focus away from where it needs to be: proper execution.

Even so, there is always the confidence/expectation factor. It is natural to be disappointed when performance doesn't meet expectation. If the disappointment is allowed to undermine confidence, the effects can be even more devastating.

As some of you have pointed out, being excited about bowling can be counter-productive. Using a little meta-cognition (thinking about our thinking), we'd probably realize that on those nights where we were excited, we were probably focused on enjoying the moment, the lanes, the physical act of bowling, and so on. Maybe we "gloss over" the concentration needed on a shot-by-shot basis in those situations.

Like you, ~9, some of my very best outings have been while physically sick. I believe that when our body wants to shut down, our conscious thought is more inclined to settle on a focus on a single thing to the exclusion of others. (sort of a quiet, self-preservation mode) When that single thing is the bowling, look out.


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J.J. "Waterola Kid" Anderson, the bLowling King  : Kill the back row