"Oh no, ak57's trying to make a coherent post!!!"
As sad as it is, it has now just come to me that there is no singular "mental game". It is not just one thing, it is composed of different parts. The way i see it there are two main mental games.
The first is what I excel in, which is like confidence. This mental attribute has to do with pyschology. In this regards, i have an excellent mental game. I choose to be anchor bowler, and i love nothing more than having to throw a strike or 3 in the tenth frame to secure a win. Many people have trouble in this regards. THier confidence appears not to be as high as mine, which may be due to the fact that i am an incredible egomaniac, but that is another matter. But this is the first part of the mental game, the pyschological part, the confidence. This is something that can't really be changed without gaining good experience to back it up. But it is perhaps one of the most important things in deciding who will be a great bowler. With a weak confidence game, one can never truly be excellent. They will probably have few 300s, and will likely not be able to secure games when they need to. They need experience rather than fear to sink in. Or in my case being full of yourself.
The next part of the mental game is what i struggle with. It's concentration and focus. I lack any concentration during the beginning or middle of the game. I don't concentrate on my mark, and tend to just dump it. Most people are much better at this part than I am. We'll use my friend Drew for example. His Confidence mental game is horrible. If it's even the 9th frame and we need him to get a spare in the 9th or strike in the 10th, he will almost always without fail screw up and throw an errant shot and probably split. Due to irony and a bit of mean behavior on my part, i call him Captain Confidence. He doesn't seem to appreciate it for whatever reason. Anyways. The confidence is just not there, or perhaps he doesn't have my massive ego. But, Drew's focus/concentration game is very good. More times than not, he'll line up in the beginning of a game, hold it into the middle of the game, but towards the end his Confidence game will kick in and he'll choke. BUt his focus is good. He is able to hit the same spot consecutively, which i am unable to do efficiently and consistantly as of yet.
I find that most bowlers are more proficient in the Concentration/focus game i talked about. I'm not saying their confidence game is bad like in drew's case, but simply that they are better with their concentration than having loads of pressure dumped on them and everyone watching. That's what makes the perfect game so difficult for most. It's not a matter of getting the front 8 or whatever, it's being able to perform in the 9th and tenth, when it sinks in and their confidence game completely overshadows their previous concentration. It then becomes a measure of how much confidence they have and whether or not their pyschological aspect will overpower the physical game that got them to that point.
But basically in conclusion, i have come to realize that someone is being extremely vague when they say they have a good mental game, as i used to say. The mental game is truly two very different parts, but are still mental/pyschological parts of the game. Everyone excels in one mental game over the other. Some people are in the extreme, being excellent at one and having virtually none of the other, most are more moderate, and some have conquered both and have become well rounded (pros). No one can be extremely proficient in both, but the better you can be and the closer you get, the rewards will be magnificent and scores will increase. But the first step to this is coming to realize that there is no singular mental game, figuring out which sub-category you are already proficient in, and strengthing the other one to become the best bowler you can be.
Now if i could take all this and actually put it to use.
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- Andy
Teh BrUnSwIcK pwnz j00!!!!!!!112Edited on 1/17/2005 2:14 PM
