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calendar   Saturday - February 15, 2020

Trying To Deal With Losing (without losing it too much)

We had yet another piss poor performing night at bowling league last night. We lost all the games, again. We have only won 1 game in the past 5 weeks. 1 out of 15. 6% success rate. That is horrible.

What’s worse was that we played ex-teammates Joe and Dave’s team last night. We’d beat them 7-0, 7-0 the first two times we went up against them this year. But last night ... phooey. We limped along, they had a better than average night, and they took all 7. Oh well.

My average is down, but just a little. I threw a 506 series last night, about 6 pins under average per game. Even with a super clean ball, and what felt like a decent release and accurate targeting I could not get the ball to do a damn thing. I don’t get it, and that’s very frustrating.
When I get frustrated I try harder. Trying harder makes things worse. Tension, extra effort in the wrong direction, etc. Need to relax and focus on the basics, and let the ball do the work. Have to be friends with the ball. Have to be the ball.

Lane conditions last night were very bad. Confusing. We usually bowl on freshly cleaned and oiled lanes, and need to wipe our balls down after every shot throughout the night. Last night, nothing. Even our teammate, a beginner and a bit of an oblivion, remarked how his ball was coming back dry. And yet the back ends were dead. That means ... well, the lanes are usually only oiled about 2/3 of their length. Call it 40 feet out of 60. The last 1/3 is cleaned, but the surface is “dry” so that your ball can get traction and hook to the inside. There are a zillion different oil patterns that can be applied; the lane cleaning machine is computerized and very precise. In theory. Patterns run from very short and light - 33 feet of hardly any oil - to very long and heavy - 45 feet of an oil flood.

Our center does not post what oil pattern they are using. Maybe that’s because no one asks for it, but I think such knowledge could be useful. No, we have to “read the lanes”, which is a skill you develop over time, by gauging how your ball reacts when you throw it. Of course, for that analysis to have any meaning whatsoever, you have to have a highly consistent release, almost like a robot, which few of us with less than semi-pro averages do.  So it’s a chicken-egg death spiral thing. And that can really bum a guy out.

I really hope I didn’t bite people’s heads off last night. Pretty sure I didn’t. But by the time the night was over I was in an angry black mood. I was tense, depressed, on the edge of exploding for hours afterwards. Yeah I know, it’s just a game. Relax and have fun. I try, and usually I do. But it is competition, and I’m very tired of losing all the time, week after fucking week.

The lane cleaning machine does not clean all the way up to the foul line. It can’t; if it did it would wind up spraying cleaner an oil on the end of the approach which could create a dangerous condition. So the first half a foot or so up by the foul line at the end of the approach is often pretty foul. A thick black line of built up crap across each lane. God forbid that the employees use a mop or something first, and wipe that slop up. Hell no. You just have to learn to throw your ball over it, so that it doesn’t contact the lane until it’s couple feet past the line. But in my dark mood this poor work offended me. Do your damn job right for once. But they never do. That area doesn’t get cleaned for years I swear.

I also found myself annoyed by the lay down the guy on the other team was throwing. The idea of bowling is that your ball shouldn’t hit the lane until after it’s past the foul line. Putting your ball down on the approach will transfer oil and dirt from your ball to the place where people are walking. This makes the approach grubby, sticky, or slippery. Possibly dangerous. It is a thoughtless or inconsiderate or selfish or passive aggressive or just plain stupid thing to do. Ok, maybe if your ball touches down just at the line, or maybe 3 inches before it. That’s one thing. K was dropping his ball FOUR FEET before the line. Thank heaven there was no oil last night, or there would have been a lot of slips and falls. K’s bowling irks me anyway, always has. He’s one of those backup ball throwers, which I think is just plain weird, although I’m seeing more and more of it. Everybody goes easy on K because he’s simple minded, but enough is enough. Don’t shit the approach up with your dumbass throw, and don’t endanger other people through your thoughtless actions.

Yeah, I’m still a bit cranky. Maybe I can find a big bunch of sugary carbs for breakfast. And then I want to dig out my low power balls and go back up there and practice the basics. After I run my strike ball through my cleaning machine, just to see if anything comes off it. Which I doubt. It’s always so easy to blame the lanes, blame the balls, blame your teammates ... but it’s usually you who are the problem. So achieve a happy mellow zen state of grace, and practice the basic things. That way I can have confidence that my own stupid isn’t making things even worse.


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Posted by Drew458   United States  on 02/15/2020 at 07:15 AM   
Filed Under: • Bowling Blogging •  
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