Friday, February 17, 2006

Career high & the backstory

This past Sunday I achieved a career high in bowling:
214 217 225

That's a 656 series, a personal best!

Of course, since I'm so bad about updating my blog I've neglected to mention that I'm part of a Sunday night bowling league, so perhaps I should fill in a little backstory.

Back in November, I was invited to join a team in a Sunday night mixer league. In fact, I was a replacement player. The team I'm on originally consisted of two couples. However, one couple broke up and (in a scenario eerily similar to that of an upcoming movie "The Break Up" starring Jennifer Aniston and Vince Vaughn) no longer could stand each other enough to stay on the same team. So I joined.

I think it was a rough time for me. It's hard to describe, but after a drinking session that ending up as a puking session sometime in September (I don't remember when exacty. Heh, maybe I should of blogged it), a food poisoning bout which reminded me how much I hate throwing up, and a rather vexing series of events late October, I think I just withdrew from society and kept to myself. I focused on school and bowling from then on. (I also pretty much quit thinking about my blog.)

So anyway, I did my usual routine when I start bowling in a new league, experiment! I tried to incorporate a new delivery, hoping to increase my strike potential. (I should mention my normal 'style' is that of an accurate spare shooter averaging around 150 - 180. But I want more strikes, dammit!)

The results were disasterous. With my new 'release' I couldn't hit water if I fell off a boat! I way spraying the ball all over the place. How was I supposed to get more strikes if I couldn't hit the pocket? So, after about a month, I gave up my experimentation in order to try to recover my old release. It took a month or so to 'fix' my stroke. Then after that I've bowled with my old stroke for just under a month (finally getting my average above 150), which leads to this past Sunday.

I was on fire. I could not be stopped. I . . . was doing my math homework between frames!? See, I had a math test the next day, so I HAD to finish up my homework. It probably wouldn't have turned out like this, but I was swamped with homework all semester and work was overworking me (working me on Sunday mornings, too!)

I think my math homework was the key. I went up to throw my ball, then sat down to focus on my (incredibly difficult) math homework. This kept me from thinking and obsessing about the bowling match. I was completely relaxed every frame because I wasn't thinking. Maybe this affirms the saying in Bull Durham: "Don't think. It could only hurt the team." Plus, I was mad. That helped. Despite my 214 and my 217, we lost both games! (The first game by 3 pins, the second by 37. The other team was really good.) So despite my sore wrist which I tweaked, and my weariness from having worked all day, I threw my best game the third game. There's no way in hell I'm going to bowl this well and have my team go 0 - 7! It turned out that my three strikes in the 10th frame was key, because our anchor split in the 10th and our opponent's anchor struck out. We ended up winning by only 44 pins, and we won total pins by 4. We went 3 - 4. Not bad considering the first two games.

The question is, how do I simulate what happened last Sunday? More math homework? And I think it's ironic that the team I'm on now that once consisted of two couples now consists of four singles. The other couple broke up, but they're both still bowling for the team. How fragile relationships are.

Anyway, that's all for now. Maybe I'll start keeping up with my blog. But I'm not going to hold my breath.

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