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Would you rather bowl like Chris
Barnes, Patrick Healey, Kim Terrell, or Michelle Feldman? Or how
about Robert Smith, Mika Kouveniemi, or LeeAnne Barrette? You must
have some basis for picking one of these competitors. Perhaps you
think that one of them bowls right. If you are like most serious
bowlers you think that there is something wrong with your game,
something to fix as it were. Well, since this is the New Year's
article let's start off with a bang. I'm going to suggest that there
are some things in your thinking that are so ingrained that you
almost can't shake loose to be free to learn, improve, and compete
to the best of your ability on any given day. You may have to take
out a crow bar to open your mind to really get what this article
is about. Go ahead and park your normal belief systems at the door.
They will still be there when you get up to bowl, and you can always
come back to them if you need to.
First, in order to see if you are a candidate for an essential mental
game expanding experience see if you answer "yes" to any of the
following:
• There is something wrong with my game.
• There is something which I must fix in my bowling.
• I may read something in Bowling This Month that will help
me fix my game.
• Good bowling is not really natural; therefore I must struggle
mightily in order to be any good.
• Real bowling is difficult. Only a few of us, those with some
sort of gift can ever really hope to do more than take a run at
being "a player".
• There is a "right" way to bowl.
Is your belief system represented here? I bet it is. Most bowlers
buy into the idea that there is something wrong with their game
and it needs to be fixed. Well if this is you let me say welcome
to the culture of bowling. You join literally millions of members
of this not-so-exclusive club.
Before I go any further I had better clarify a couple of things.
First of all virtually every BTM coach has helped me to improve
my own game. I have more respect for the coaches in this magazine,
and many whom I have met around the world, than I can fully express
here. Every one of the Tour players I work with simply could not
have learned to make their living without the assistance of their
physical game coaches. Secondly, it seems only obvious that great
coaching can help any player make leaps and bounds in the possibilities
in their games.
That said, we are not going to take Roger Bowker's titles away because
he muscles the start of his swing. Nor will we call back Marshall
Holman's Hall of Fame status for hiking up his backswing, and sliding
while he delivered the ball. We won't ask Mike Miller to put his
thumb in the ball. LeeAnne Barrette has over two dozen titles, but
I don't know anyone who makes their way to the line in the manner
that she does. Walter Ray Williams III is one of the best bowlers
of all time, but his style appears to be inimitable.
The truth, in all things, is based on results. The first truth to
come to grips with is that there is no "right" way to bowl. There
are simply ways to enhance your results on certain conditions, and
you can have better results on a wider variety of conditions as
you improve. It may seem impossible to imagine anything other than
fixing your game and still be effective at improving it. There really
is another way. In order to have your world open up, you must first
map out the territory in which you have been traveling. Read on.
The Bowler's Dilemma is a hidden belief that the odds are always
against you, and that only extra-ordinary individuals can hope to
overcome them consistently. For the rest of us there is always the
struggle of the game against us. This includes holding onto your
swing, timing, and release with clutching fingers so that none of
this, and more, leaves you. Some even believe that a good bowling
swing and delivery are not natural motions. The connecting belief
is that if you are not careful, always paying attention, then you
will revert back to your natural unbowling-like swing and delivery.
Self-examine for a second and ask yourself a question. When you
go to the bowling center what are your main thoughts about practice
and play? Probably it is that you need to work on, or fix, something,
e.g. your release, timing, balance, arm-swing, lane play and etc.
Hey, no problem you're just normal. However, normal is over-rated
in my book. Let's go for extraordinary. There is another way to
improve your game.
| Awareness Is A Skeleton Key |
In the olden days when beer was a nickel and everyone who is now
over fifty had to walk at least five miles to school, uphill both
ways, they had something called skeleton keys. These keys could
open almost any lock in certain buildings. Well we have one of those
in bowling land, it is called awareness.
The big plus of camps, clinics, and coaching for most bowlers is
that someone looks at you. You are filmed, watched, and otherwise
given feedback. The great thing is that you become aware of what
you are doing. The bad news is that we all tend immediately to compare
what we do to some perfect model in the sky.
The most important thing to know is that nothing can be adjusted,
improved upon, or fixed unless, and until, you know exactly what
you are doing. Awareness of how you move throughout your approach
is the only thing that will allow you to consistently develop your
game. Anything else is hit or miss, tips that work today and slip
out of gear tomorrow. Sure there are many things that work to help
towards better bowling, but if you don't have a great scanner for
what is in sync from within, no bowling tip or instruction can be
integrated, stick, and be called into action at will.
Here is the shift. Instead of saying there is something wrong with
my bowling and it must be fixed…now. Effective learning and improvement
says "there is something going on in my bowling and I must become
aware of it". The irony is this. The best way to become aware of
something is to suspend fixing for a little while, and just execute
with your mind's eye wide open.
Instead of making changes right away, just feel what you are doing
for starters. What do you think would happen if you judged yourself
on the quality of your awareness instead of how good your shots
are? When the quality of your awareness is high, "feel" is high,
consistency peaks, and you can then execute to the best of your
developed ability. What's more when the focus is on awareness, you
can make the greatest gains in improving the possibilities in your
bowling.
We see the truth of this time and again at camps, clinics, and one
on one coaching sessions. When bowlers become aware of parts of
their game that were previously out of awareness, or when they have
a mistaken idea of what their body is actually doing, simply opening
awareness allows the body's natural instincts and abilities to come
into play. At this point there is a real possibility of making real
and lasting gains.
You know you learned to walk in just this way. All you did was make
moves. Some of them resulted in falling on your behind. Some moves
had you stay upright and stepping forward. Quite simply, children
learn by trial and error, and awareness of action leading to results.
There is no judgment how good a walker he/she is, just focus on
body awareness and outcome. This leads to feel, and shazaam!, walking
is grooved in forever.
At this point in bowling history there is not much mystery in what
makes a ball spin, rotate, tilt, and hit the way it does. If you
do certain things with your hand, head, arm, and feet, the ball
will behave in predictable ways (You must, of course, factor in
lane, ball, and approach surfaces). The focus on awareness lets
you learn like a child e.g. "If my hand does this the ball does
that". In that vein coaching simply speeds up your mindfulness about
how you are moving and what your options are.
If you want to practice a great exercise for this, just work on
striking from all parts of the lane as a warm up exercise. You will
suspend your expectations of scoring, and elevate awareness of body
and lane conditions.
The natural feedback loop of life is action-results-awareness-and
repeat. If you interfere with this process by always assuming that
something is wrong with you then you depend increasingly on outside
help to "fix" you. You can kill your own natural learning process.
In the land of the blind, the one-eye is king
"You can observe a lot just by watching." Yogi Berra
Culture is a set of beliefs, values and behaviors that are so entrenched
that we take them as the right way to think and proceed. What we
are considering here is an actual change in the culture of bowling…
and your thinking.
| Old culture |
New culture |
Judge what
is right and wrong Without first simply focusing on What you
are doing.
I really don't know what is happening in all parts of my swing
and approach.
I try to fix my mental game without first mapping out my mental
game.
I am partially or totally blind to what happens in my body
when I bowl. |
Staying aware of what you
are doing and how it feels, then noticing results.
I am committed to becoming aware of what is heppening throughout
my swing and approach.
I observe my mental processes, then make adjustments in thinking
and focus. I observe the results.
My commitment is to see myself, and my mental and physical
game clearly. I can then choose to move differently.
I see. |
Now we get back to coaching. How do you learn to see clearly? Through
feedback. Who gives the best feedback? Great coaches. Whether it
is video, verbal feedback, or literally having someone position
your body in functional positions, great coaching helps you to understand
what are doing that may be outside of your awareness. Later, the
more you "wake up", the less you need someone external to let you
know what you are doing, and what your other options are.
The nature of bowling encourages to count and to keep score constantly.
There is a way to introduce a new possibility into your training
regimen that you can carry into competition. Instead of rating your
shots on the quality of perfect performance, you can rate your shots
on the quality of awareness. Pick your focus. Rate yourself low,
medium, or high on any one of the following during practice:
• Awareness of the body during execution
• Ball reaction and lane characteristics
• Focus and concentration
• Trust and willingness to risk
This is an entirely different "scorecard". You can also score on
any other internally generated attribute. Trust me your bowling
will not suffer as a result. Your documented score is quite likely
to correlate very closely with your score on the qualities that
depend only on you.
Most bowlers go through life always looking for what is wrong with
their game, always in search of some fix. Well, there is no true
freedom if all you follow are formulas. There is limited joy when
you always have to struggle to feel like you are doing something
right. Once you really wake up to what is happening in your hand,
arm, body, and mind as you bowl, you are free to integrate any and
all great coaching that may come your way.
This article appeared in similar form in Bowling This Month January
2004
The author wishes to acknowledge Coaches Ron Bruner, Donovan Moreno,
and Kenny McPartlin for inspiring source material for this article.
Other source material drawn from Shoemaker, F., & Shoemaker, P.,
Extraordinary Golf. Berkley Pub. Grp., New York. 1996.
Quote drawn from Fitzhenry, R., The Harper Book of Quotations. HarperCollins,
New York. 1993. |
