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"If people knew what they
had to do to be successful, most people wouldn't"
Lord Thomson of Fleet
Trust is a must is the buzz phrase of bowling these days.
This advice is generated on a daily basis by coaches and teammates
every time a ball is pointed; an arm chicken winged, or grip pressure
squeezing a ball into dust.
In interviews with runners up you will often have them say that
they just didn't trust some aspect of their game when explaining
a failed performance. Teammates that perform best with each other
will often cite the feelings of absolute safety, and confidence
in their partners to play with full intention, that lead to success.
Trust is a huge deal. Why? Everything that you are able to do in
this sport, and probably everywhere else in life, depends on this.
The level of trust you have in yourself, your game, and your teammates
is a reflection of how you think, feel, and behave when the lights
come on, when you need to shoot a spare, and when the pressure is
on in the tenth frame.
Take a look at the following three questions and see where you rate
with respect to your ability to trust some aspects of your game
while you bowl:
- Have you experienced doubt that you can play your normal
game when you are going into a tournament, match play,
or league?
- Have you ever had to make an important spare, even a
simple one, and found that you weren't certain of your
ability to execute you shot properly?
- Have you ever picked up the ball, prepared for a shot,
and known that although you really want to execute well,
that you are not going to make a good shot?
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If you can relate to any of these experiences it is likely that
you lacked trust in yourself in critical moments, and felt vulnerably
out of control. This is a feeling that is actually fairly common
amongst competitive bowlers. This feeling of confidence seems to
come and go sometimes. Virtually every bowler I have ever known
would like to have confident feelings of trust in his/her game all
the time!
The first thing to do is to become clear about what trust means
in bowling terms. The second is to find a way to build or rebuild
trust as needed.
Trust is all or none, black or white, one or ten. You trust your
stroke, your decision making, and your ability or you don't. This
is not something that has shades of grey. If you bowl with trust
you shrug off doubts and fears of consequences. This also means
that you roll to your target area without over-controlling or feeling
like you have to roll the ball on a razor thin line in order to
have success.
When you have trust in your game you are always playing with the
belief that everything will be all right. What do you think you
are trusting when you play? The answer is simple. You are stating
to yourself that "I will come through for me" in any and all circumstances.
No one knows how your results will turn out. Bowling is a funny
game that way. But as two-time High Roller champion John Bertolina
has been quoted here before, you have to be able to state "There
is no one I'd rather have up in the tenth frame than me".
When you develop a habit of thinking like this it is like adding
IQ points to your ability to analyze the lanes and your game. You
can get a read on every shot, and quickly decide whether outcomes
are due to your execution or changing lane conditions
Elements of trust manifest in a number of different ways on the
lanes. The first and most obvious has to do with your swing mechanics.
Purely at the motor level you have thousands and tens of thousands
of repetitions. Let's assume that you have been basically successful
in getting the ball down the lane with some kind of decent roll
to it.
When you trust at this level you let go of the tendency to put your
approach on manual transmission. You believe that your automatic
program will work just fine if you bring your body to the line in
one piece. After all, that is one of the prime reasons for having
the discipline to practice.
Any time you attempt to execute a shot perfectly, you tend to cause
a physical alteration in the natural motion of your swing. Think
of this. If you don't permit yourself to trust your game and your
swing during game time you negate all of the time and effort you
spent practicing, being coached, and reading BTM.
Here's a question. What else is there to trust if not your swing?
The ball has no brains. There doesn't appear to be any bowling gods
who root for or against you. If you don't trust your bowling ability
and your own judgment the game gets to be much more difficult, and
generally much less fun.
Here is an answer. One of the primary reasons bowlers don't develop
trust is that it requires tremendous self-discipline and time to
build it into your repertoire. We're not just talking about bowling
here. Think about how long it takes to truly develop trust in your
closest, longest held friendships.
Trust is like gold. In my opinion don't ask it of anyone else if
you won't ask it of yourself. In bowling you simply have to develop
this ability. No matter what level you compete, in the end you are
alone with your thoughts, feelings, and beliefs, about what you
are capable of doing. The process trust building will be one to
address for the entirety of your bowling career. Here is how:
| Using
Your Sensitive Sensory Perception |
Bowlers vary on the degree to which they are able to use intuition
to their advantage. In my view people don't have extra sensory perception
(ESP). They have SSP, sensitive sensory perception. When you are
analyzing the lanes and choosing ball, speed, tilt, and area, it
is important to check in with your gut feel about where to play
and what to do.
Gut feel does not come from pixies whispering in your ear. It comes
from your mind consciously and unconsciously registering virtually
everything that is occurring around you. If you let it, your SSP
will guide you to make correct decisions at critical moments.
Tour players have to utilize this aspect of trust all the time.
They have to make decisions about where and when to move, and what
to throw. There is not the luxury of taking a couple of frames to
believe in themselves either. They will listen to their own SSP
and go to work.
The legendary golfer Walter Hagen was remembered to have stated,
"I would rather be of clear mind and decision with the wrong club,
than with an unclear mind and the right club." In bowling you have
to make a decision about your ball and line, and then trust yourself.
Once again, what else is there to trust? The ball? The lanes? Fate?
This principle will help you to deliver fluid athletic shots under
all circumstances.
You want to trust putting your body on automatic athletic functioning.
At the same time you want to ensure that you execute a couple of
your movements properly. Here is a technique that can work nicely
for you. Whole Part Whole works like this:
- Set up for your approach and delivery. Get a feel for
how you want to experience yourself as an athlete. This
can involve balance, grace, power, or whatever.
- Then, pick a body action that you think will serve you.
Examples might be elbow-in, staying down at the line,
or balanced follow-through. Your choice.
- Finally, go back to the whole-body experience you started
with. At this point you are trusting your training, athleticism,
and that the body part action you encoded will be available
to you without having to work real hard at retrieving
it.
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One of the most important aspects of this plan is that it takes
the emphasis out of what will happen if you make or miss the shot.
Rather the focus is appropriately placed on what to do, and a whole
body concept about what to feel. The trick is to find whole body
and whole mind thoughts that can serve you, e.g. stay connected,
free arm, or kill.
| Focus
On Where You Intend To Go |
Bowling coaches are forever encouraging players to free up their
arm swings and just let it go. The problem in bowling is that you
look at the pins as your destination, rather than total and complete
focus on the ball path you have to follow to get there. Remember
that you always roll the ball in a straight line to your target,
and then you have to trust that a hooking ball hooks, and that a
straight ball keeps going straight.
How many times after horsing a shot do you just relax and deliver
a great one? Probably a lot. When you give up control, you actually
gain predictability in terms of direction and free swing. So when
you are in practice, see if you can pick a straight path from you
to your target, not to the intended end result, and just let it
go and see what happens. This will save you from having to bemoan
to yourself, why didn't I just do that the first time?
You have to learn to enjoy the feeling of free swinging in a given
direction, versus controlling, in order to develop true trust in
your game.
Does trust take time to develop, or does it happen in an instant?
Think about relationships you've had. How did it work there? When
things are going great trust is a non-issue in life. When there
is nothing on the line you almost always trust your natural game.
Doubt doesn't creep in at those moments.
It is only when you doubt your ability or your decision making that
the trust issue alligator rears up and smacks you with its tail.
What is there to trust? The answer is always just you! How do you
develop this all important quality? By taking virtually every opportunity
you can to build trust in your game, especially in practice.
Trust means gaining total confidence over your decision making and
your ability to execute in key situations. Not every touring professional
practices trust as an essential building block to winning, only
the ones who are successful. Be exceptional. If you really want
to learn how to win, gain mastery over this part of your game.
"We have 100% confidence in each
other"
Carolyn Dorin-Ballard
On factors contributing to her record-setting
WIBC Doubles performance with Lynda Barnes
The author wishes to acknowledge Coach Ron Bruner for source material
contributing to this article. Other source material inspired by
Winters, R.K., The Ten Commandments of Mindpower Golf, McGraw-Hill.
New York. 2004. Quotes drawn from Fitzhenry, R.I., The Harper Book
of Quotations, 3rd ed. New York. 1993. |
