Actually... am well into my 50's, and no stranger to stuffness and pain. This was not a debillitating stiffness, and as i mentioned....did not feel like nervousness either. It was kind of like the "normal" (normal for us old people) rigid feeling you have in the first few minutes of practice or maybe even extending into the first few frames of the first league game. The difference is.... on the night of the roll-off, it never dissipated. Every shot felt like the first or second delivery of the evening. Was like being trapped in my "just walked in off the street" self, hours afterward.
Something else I didn't mention before, probably unconciously suppressing it cause I don't want to be angry with my team captain (who I have bowled with for years, and hope to continue to do so):
I was ancor all LAST season, and then ...after being unable to bowl this year's first night due to family obligations, the newest bowler on the team was given the OPPORTUNITY to bowl anchor. I wasn't thrilled, but had no real objection, and for most of the 1st third of this season it seemed to be working out well as both he and I were doing well. We...afterall, won the first 3rd with that line-up.
But .... the rest of this year we both had kind of floundered and to make a long story a little shorter, my team captain decided to make me anchor again for the first playoff round. It worked well ----I bowled solidly, and so did everyone else on the team, and we beat a team that I though ----going in--- was better than us (at least based on recent performances).
So... naturally, I thought I would be anchor again in the rolloff, but when I arrived, the captain told me that he had made the other bowler anchor "on a hunch".
Now... I am not going where some of you think I might be with this. I am not saying we lost cause I wasn;t anchor, or that I bowled bad directly because of being in a different spot. In fact.... in my other league (where we are still alive and in the final rolloff this Wednesday), the lineup is rotated more often than not...on hunches. I expect it, and have zero problems with it.... despite preferring the anchor spot.
What I'm thinking, though, is that even though I wasn't conciously angry about the decision, that on some level I was, and that this caused my body to be all tenses up. I couldn't allow myself to conciously acknowledge the anger (though I would have been better off expressing it and moving on), so instead I swallowed my annoyance and it killed my ability to just relax and throw the ball.
Not indicting my captain here. In fact ... his decision to make me anchor the week before was on a whim as well. But that was after a poor showing the week before (by the team), and this was after a successful playoff win. Why change it?
But the real culprit is still myself. I could/should have said something. Not a strong protest, but at least an acknowledgement to my captain that I would support his decsion, but would rather be remain anchor. I would have felt better and just bowled my game. In short... I was angry at myself for not speaking up. Partly for selfish reasons, but I also am much calmer in pressure situations than the other person is. I like him, and he has come through in some pressure spots (and I have failed sometimes), but generally speaking, I don;t feel any additional pressure in the 10th frame, and more often than not, I want the ball.
Anyway... I think that's what happened. I was angry about being relieved of anchor duties unexpectedly (the week before I had not idea who was anchoring, so it was a pleasant surprise, but this week I expected it). But to compound the problem, when my capatin told me and asked if I was angry, I lied and said no problem. If I had answered truthfully, I may STILL have bowled like crap, but that rigid, stuff feeling probably would not have been present.
Ok... That's all I'll say. If anyone wants to tell me I am whining, I can accept that. I am just trying to understand what happened, and move on from this (and learn something from the experience).
