Another Sad Day at the Alley

After my four strikes in a row in my last game yesterday, I got the itch to go bowling today. I was hoping that I could bowl a 200 game or achieve some high scores of 170 or above. That didn’t happen. Instead my scores were 101, 134, and 124.

It seems like the more I go the worst I get. It makes me mad because I put a lot of time and effort into getting better and it doesn’t seem to be paying off. I enjoy bowling, but what I really enjoy is getting better.

Compared to other sports, I figured you could probably get better a bowling a lot faster since there is less to it. You simply roll the ball down the lane and knock over 10 pins. How hard can it be? I have a deeper appreciation for those who can carry high averages. It is obviously a lot harder than it looks.

One good thing did happen today. My accuracy got better. I hit the right pocket several times and when I missed, I didn’t miss by much. The hard part was making adjustments. I never throw two shots alike so it’s hard to be accurate. If I good get to the point where everything was the same: my timing and release, then it would be easy to figure out where to stand and be able to hit the pocket every time.

Even when I did hit the pocket, most of the time there would be pins left standing. You must have to hit that pocket just right or with the right angle to strike.

Another thing I need to work on is my spare shooting. I missed a lot of one pin spares. Had I picked them up, my scores would have been much higher.

This weekend I’m going to start rereading my bowling book and see if it can help.

Today's Cost: $10.75
Total cost to date: $120.50

6th Bowling Lesson

I didn’t know what to expect from this lesson because I bowled poorly a couple of days ago. Before my lesson began, I explained to my instructor that my ball kept hooking to the far left last time I went bowling. He seems to think it was due to ball speed. I think he’s right. Maybe I was rolling the ball to slow and it had too much time to hook. That explains why it would hook past most of the pins.

I try to have a natural arm swing. I want the weight of the ball to control my back and forward swing. I’ve been told not to use my arm muscles. The problem is when I release the ball it doesn’t have much speed behind it and therefore hooks earlier than it should.

During my first couple of lessons, I thought I rolled the ball too slowly. But my instructor said the ball speed was fine, so I didn’t think much of it. So why am I know rolling the ball slower than before? Maybe I’ve gotten so use to the weight of the ball and need a heavier one.

To correct the problem, I started to muscle the forward swing a little bit to give the ball more speed. You’re not supposed to do this, but in this case it seems like a must. The ball goes further down the lane and starts hooking much later. As a result, my accuracy improved.

My scores today were 152, 101, and 170. My second game wasn’t too great, but the other two were pretty good. I got 4 strikes in a row on that last game.

Cost for today: $30.75
Total cost to date: $109.75