I rediscover how to bowl, and dominate my match

I've had a prolonged period of not being very good at bowling in our weekly league here in Da Nang. It's been a bit depressing and irritating because I tried what felt like almost everything that I could to no avail. I would make adjustments to my throw, my stance, I even changed up what ball I was using multiple times but no matter what I did it just didn't seem to work.

In the middle of my second game last week I suddenly remembered what it was that made me a force to be reckoned with in our league and I told everyone that there's a decent chance that I might be back in the running for the belt if I can all of a sudden remember how to do it the following week.

I was competing for the white belt on Thursday and what this means is that this is not the top belt but rather whoever wins it gets promoted to the top league and then they are eligible to compete for the overall championship. I have been doing so poorly the past couple of months that I was relegated to the bottom division of my own league and was unable to break out. After re-discovering what made my roll kind of work in the first place, I think by accident, I had a good deal of confidence that I could return to the top league with a convincing win.

I wasn't sure if I would remember what it is that the I had been doing correctly but as luck would have it I did remember. It's something about turning my wrist over right as I release the ball on my first throw and this creates a spin that hooks me into the front pin and makes contact with either the 2 or 3 pin as well creating a sort of pin explosion that would get me strikes frequently.

There are 3 games in the championships instead of 2 that everyone else has. In my first game I was already a bit ahead of my new average, which wasn't great since the start of this year. I got a 161 and this is really good compared to my last 3 months or so but still not an amazing score. When I was bowling somewhat consistently I was bowling around 140, so I was reasonably happy with the increased 20 points, but I wanted more.

In my 2nd game I remained somewhat consistent and bowled a 159 but I was getting a bit frustrated because even though I was hitting the pins almost exactly where you are supposed to, I was ending up getting 9's frequently. Sometimes the game just doesn't make sense.

I ended up swapping out my 11 pound ball for a 12 and there was no good reason for this other than the fact that I figured that I needed to change something and perhaps a slightly heavier ball would do the trick.

Well, apparently it did do the trick because in game 3 I has the 2nd highest game of my entire life.

Mine in the score on the top. My poor opponent was already down by more than 100 points going into game three and she was still having fun but realized there was no chance of victory for her, especially not when I went up to the line and got a strike in 8 out of a possible 12 rolls. This tied the all-time record for strikes in a single game in our league. I just couldn't miss it seems.

I didn't take a picture of the frames before the game was over because of superstition that I have about taking photos = you break your streak. So I just let it ride. But in all of the 10 frames only one of them was open (not getting a strike or a spare). I didn't think much of it at the time but that 9 I got in frame 4 was the difference of 20 more points. I 252 would have obliterated my own personal best of 235 - which I got more than 30 years ago - and it would have beaten the all-time record of our league of 234.

We have a rule in our league though and that is that the game 3 of championship rounds do not count as far as our official records are concerned. The reason being that everyone else only gets 2 games so it isn't fair that others would have 33% more opportunities to get in the recordbooks. But if we WERE recording it, I would have won almost everything that you can win that day. The turkey (3 strikes in a row), the hambone (4 strikes in a row), the highest score for the month, and the promotion championship white belt. The post bowling photo would have been pretty boring because there wouldn't have been very many people in them.

We have only had one instance ever where someone won all of the awards and that was one of our oldest members who is in his mid 70's. This just goes to show that youth bears no advantage in our league. We have a guy that is 83 and comes with us every week.

There are a couple of things that I have to do moving forward. The number one thing is to not get complacent or arrogant. I think this is what happened in the first place and lead to my skill level diminishing to a really bad point where I was barely breaking 100 points per game. K.I.S.S. = Keep It Simple, Stupid. I just need to stick to the plan and stay consistent.

There are people that turn up early in order to bowl a practice round but I cannot do that because I handle the registration and collecting of all the money. So I am always at a bit of a disadvantage when it comes to being primed for the fight.

I hope that I can continue to do well because it was really frustrating when my skill just disappeared and I couldn't figure out why. Hopefully I have a grasp on rotating my wrist at the last second before releasing the ball and won't forget it this time.