Tuesday - July 06, 2010

Down and then up again

I should have just given up years ago. Seriously. I seem to only be able to bowl well when I don’t try. Go figure.

We played “Mr. 300’s” team again tonight, and whupped them severely in all 3 games. After being in first place last week, then losing all 7, we dropped to 4th. This 7 will put us back up again. Hey, it’s a very tiny, short league, so the numbers can change really fast.

I did Ok the first game. Nothing great, about a 150 I think. Maybe a 130. All I recall is that I could not get the ball to move. I even gave up my out-n-back line, and went with the down-n-in line I thought I’d put behind me ages ago. Even that didn’t help much. Mr. 300 pulled a 223, our anchor Rex went 222, and with the bit of handicap we had (39) we managed to win by about a dozen.

Game 2 I quit trying. Since the ball seems to zoom off my longer than average arms no matter how slowly I walk, I decided to hardly walk at all. No step-out on the push away, wait until the ball is down in front of my knees, then take a baby step a mere half a shoe long. Swing free, the ball goes back, and I take another baby step. Coming forward I’m not crouching or bending forward, and I take another very short step. Eyes down on the target as the ball comes through, my last step is not a lunge, just another short step. Turn the hand, elbow locked, pull the thumb ... feel it, feel it ... now! Snap up on the lifters and carry through all the way, one smooth motion and “answer the phone”. And the ball launches off my hand, glides through the air a good 6 or more feet while building up some decent rev, hits on the 14 and skids out ... still revving strongly ... finds the breakpoint and turns in, almost, almost, yes! Into the pocket. BLAMM! Strike. And again. And again. And again. Then I pulled it a little and left the 10, so I tried the same “grandpa” approach with a flat hand, thumb up. And drove my strike ball right across the lane with no hook and nailed the 10er right in the middle. Dink. 9/! But I kept grandpa-ing it, and the strikes kept coming. I finished with a 223. Nice! And that served to get my team hot, so even though Mr. 300 pulled a 243 and the rest of his team did well, we smeared them. By 138 pins. Woo hoo!

I am not going to mess with a good thing, so I kept right on bowling like I was 129 years old. My entire approach, from the middle dots, was about 40 inches. I was letting go of the ball at least 5 feet behind the foul line, so I guess my ball was gliding - I wouldn’t call it lofting - at least 12 feet before touching the boards. At this point the other team started doing some serious drinking, and never came closer than the 97 pins we were up by the 3rd frame. I finished with a 211. We won that one big time, I think by 173. Total destruction!  Our team total was an 759 for the 3rd, plus handi for an 798. Not bad at all!!

I try really hard to use a free swinging arm, but I’m wondering if I’ve been muscling the ball the last bit. I want so very much to come “through the ball” and to “rip the cover right off” to get some rev ... have I been lifting up too early this whole time, when my hand is still moving forward not upwards? That would explain the excess ball speed. Come on, a grandpa approach and a release from 5 feet back? The ball should have hooked 2 lanes over by the time it got to the pins. Not tonight! Tonight it either went out easy and back hard, or, if I threw inside a bit, it went straight down and broke hard really late on a very inside (15 board) line. Whatever!  I want to have a good technique, but sometimes it’s just nice to blast the crap out of the pins and get some good scores.

Posted by Drew458     on 07/06/2010 at 09:02 PM   
Filed Under: • Bowling Blogging •  
• Comments (2) • Trackbacks(0)  Permalink •  

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