I've been bowling since I was big enough to push a ball down the lane, but until recently, struggled to get the elusive "perfect game".  I still remembered the days when the whole place stopped to watch because they were so rare.

I've really learned a lot bowling with a guy around here who looks for greatness on every shot and really shows his emotions on his bad ones.  It's gotten so bad that other bowlers instantly recognize him as the guy to throws his hands in the air, rolls his eyes as he turns around, but still strikes a bunch.  

It finally hit me after watching this that I shouldn't put so much emphasis on the making the perfect shot.  I just need to relax and let it flow into a solid delivery and let these high-powered balls and easy lanes help me along.  I'm getting much better at trusting myself to make a good shot that puts me in position to strike and accepting that I won't make 36 dead solid perfect shots.  

Last night, the teammate mentioned above and myself both shot 300 scores the first game of the night.  Both of us threw several shots that were far from perfect, but they were all in the pocket and given the trust to succeed.  My teammate went on to post 279-276 for an 855 series.  This is a humongous score and all throughout the night, we kept rating his shots from 1-10.  He threw a few in the 8-9 range, but the vast majority were merely 7's.  There were even a few that felt so bad as to give a 4-5 rating.  To me that means that you miss your mark at the breakpoint by more than 2 boards and you fell off balance and your release was bad.  Basically you hope to not leave a split when one of these leave your hand.  On fair lanes, you would not strike, but these are the days of the THS, so we must learn to adapt.

In watching him closely for the past couple years, I began to realize that he gets these bad shots to fall mainly because he starts with the full trust that he is going to throw an 8-9 rated shot.  The pins seem to fall over by themselves somehow just because of this confident attitude.  When he doesn't have that attitude, he is mortal or downright terrible.

How much can you attribute attitude to getting 300 games?  Personally, it took me several years to get my first 300 and as of 13 months ago, I only had 3 lifetime.  However I have had 7 since then with 3 coming in the past 2 weeks.  I am walking into bowl with the attitude that I can shoot 300 without being on my best game.  I accept the imperfect shots that carry and move on.  I've learned to trust my next shot to be great, not question it just because the last ball I threw was substandard.

Confidence is a major factor. To know you have a chance every night to do something special (yes shooting 300 is still special) makes every game seem exciting. You might look back at the end of the season and say "Just another ho hum 279 on the log sheet" but do you remember having the front 7 during a week where every game had a chance to be perfect.

I think people dont embrace stretches like this enough. Alot of people (not you KSU) seem to think that streaks like this should happen. I, for one, think that they can happen---but only to the right person, at the right time. Belief is one constant in bowling. If you believe you will bowl well---there is no doubt you will. If you believe you will struggle.... well it goes both ways.
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Only Losers Feel Pressure
www.thetimekillers.com

Well I’m going to jump off the bandwagon to a degree, sorry ksucat.

A free arm swing, totally trusted, good rolling ball can trip a 4 pin, carry a blower, tap out a ten, maybe even break down a split on a nose shot, but any ball thrown Brooklyn for a strike is not a good shot, any ball that trips out a back door strike is not a good shot.

We’ve all seen bowlers who ball never turns over get strikes.

Trusting your swing and rolling the ball well can and will create huge amounts of area on the THS and when you hit the pocket your carry will be better.

I have always been overly mechanical and strive to throw the perfect shot every time. I’m sure that I would have shot more scores if I could bring myself to free wheel the ball a little more but at this point if it boiled down to having to throw a runaway Brooklyn to shoot a score I’d just as soon not shoot the score.

Congratulations on another 300, I’ll be expecting the same next week when you sub for our team.