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I SEE IT!!
If you can visualize a shot that is reasonable for your physical
abilities and the lane conditions, your right brain can execute
it. This doesn't mean that if you are a stroker playing in a lot
of oil with a White Dot and just because you can visualize a cranker-type
shot going across the 25th board out to the ditch and getting it
back, you'll be able to do it. Your analytical left brain knows
this is not a shot that you can reasonably be expected to perform
so your right brain won't try to help you perform it.
If you have a plan, step up on the approach and doubt your plan,
you cannot succeed. You will fail because there is traffic on the
bridge. Let's say you have decided to shoot your spare the way you
always do. When your left brain has completed the analysis of what
needs to be done, it has sent this message across the bridge to
the part of you which can execute the plan. As you get up on the
approach, you wonder about the amount of oil on the lane and think
maybe you should have moved a little. If you doubt any of your left
brain input, conflicting signals are being sent back and forth across
the bridge. Your left brain has given up on the original plan and
your right brain does not have a new plan. NO PLAN = NO CHANCE.
If you go ahead and shoot the shot, you will be trying in your approach
to overcome your doubt or misalignment. One side interferes with
the other and you throw a bad shot.
I can remember vividly when my coach told me about visualization.
I knew I could visualize a shot but what if I visualized that shot
(down 8, let's say) and the shot turned out to be swinging 15? Then
I would have spent my mental preparation time executing over and
over in my mind the wrong line and I might not be able to overcome
it. I had taken him too literally. What I had missed was the CONCEPT
of visualization. (Don't tell me to get lost or go jump in the lake!)
What I needed to imagine was the general shape and feel of a successful
shot, the minimal effort of gliding to the line with the ball flowing
off my hand, going where I wanted it to go to get the job done.
Notice I said the GENERAL shape and feel of the shot. Overanalyzing
what you visualize is just as bad as not visualizing. "I crossed
the 11½ board at the arrows traveling at 16.9 mph at an angle of
22 until the ball hit the 8¼ board at 37 feet 9 inches where it
made a move left of 16 ..." Just know it was about here at the arrows
and went out to about there on the lane so that you have a sense
of the overall shot pattern. Collect these impressions of a good
shot. The more inventory you have, the easier it will be to retrieve
successful shots from your right brain more often.
Visualization is not an option or something it would be nice to
do later in your career. Regardless of how many times you see a
shot in your mind and the reality is that you miss by an arrow,
you must continue to visualize the right shot. It can't be something
you forget to do or only do on strike shots. (I firmly believe this
lack of concentration is the #1 cause of missed spares). You must
imagine the shape and path of every shot so that your left brain
can engage and decide how to get it done and your right brain can
do it.
RECLINER PRACTICE
Mental practice is a devastating weapon. Consider this: if you've
ever sat in your recliner and imagined yourself bowling, what did
you see? Did you miss a spare? Leave a split? Run out the 5 - 7?
NO! In your mental practice, you did everything right. You struck
when you needed to or said all the right things in the post-victory
interview. We don't ever practice the wrong things mentally.
When we do something physically, the body knows exactly what to
do to duplicate that effort. It's like water on a rock. The more
the water runs over the rock, the deeper the rut it makes in the
rock. When you imagine a shot in your recliner, those neural impulses
don't know whether you're physically doing it or not and don't care.
The activity is still making its rut and providing an easy path
for those impulses to follow when its showtime.
It is a documented phenomenon that mental practice can be effective
in achieving physical success. Mental practice can prepare you to
deal with every situation you might face on the lanes. Do it frequently.
It will help lower your performance barriers.
THE FOURTH ESTATE
Writing down your cues when you're playing well will help you recall
them when you're not. You'll then have solid data and a proven successful
feel from which to pull a needed successful feel. Keeping a journal
of your experiences and feelings during competition can be very
helpful to your continued improvement. This is not a chart of how
to play the lanes or which ball worked on what condition. You certainly
should do that but with this tactical information you need corresponding
information about the psychological implications of your play -
the mind games you play with yourself that precipitate failure.
You know how important it is that you know your own game and your
physical abilities. You should also know your psychological tendencies
under stress (any competition). You'll find there are all kinds
of ways we talk ourselves out of a great performance.
How many mental, emotional, or psychological errors do you make
in a game? When do you show poor judgment? When were you distracted,
inattentive or lost concentration? When did you get angry or fearful?
When did you allow Mildred, your evil non-bowling twin, to talk
to you while you were trying to execute a shot? If you stepped up
on the approach and for whatever reason it didn't feel right, were
you too lazy or embarrassed or indifferent to step back and reevaluate
the shot? Your right brain cannot make up for the left brain's failure
to plan. You cannot throw the ball well enough to overcome a mental
mistake.
Use the journal to discover when you tend to make mental mistakes.
The beginning of change is knowing what the issues are. If you can
figure these things out, you'll more easily be able to self-diagnose
and implement your plan to deal with it. How many times have you
stepped up on the approach to shoot a 10 pin still thinking about
how or why you left it and then missed it? That spare shot is a
shot which you played indifferently. Your performance shows a lack
of focus on the task at hand - staying in the moment. You'll have
plenty of time before your next turn to figure out why you left
it.
The journal should help you discover your psychological tendencies.
Once you know which situations cause you to become embarrassed or
afraid or distracted, you can begin to learn to deal with them.
Use the journal to set goals for yourself. When you set goals in
a concrete fashion, your motivation improves to get that fix done.
I'M AS GOOD AS I BOWL
If you have not practiced sparing the bucket hundreds of times (or
any other aspect of the game), positive thinking becomes wishful
thinking. Practice breeds confidence in your ability including converting
this evil combination. If you think positively about sparing that
bucket, you may still miss it. It just won't be because you thought
you would. There will be another reason. Perhaps you didn't have
the lane condition and your alignment figured just right. So what?
You learn from that miss and if, by some miracle you should leave
it again, you'll know you can convert it because of the new data
your error gave you.
The main reason you want to harvest your cues from a good performance
is that when you have thrown a great shot, savoring it while it's
fresh allows your right brain to intuit all the things necessary
to repeat that shot. Your right brain re-experiences that feeling
again and again, engraving its feel and reinforcing good results.
Why is it that so often we'll throw a strike on the left lane and
dismiss it so we can move on to worrying about the Big Four we left
on the right lane? Remember that the longer you savor a shot the
more likely it will be repeated. So it makes no sense at all to
think about a bad shot. We so easily dismiss a good shot thinking
that if we just try harder on the right lane or analyze the heck
out of the shot, we can fix it.
Stay with the bad shot for about as long as it takes to turn around
from the line and start making your way back to the ball return.
Your analysis should be very quick and the more experience you have,
the quicker it will be. Before you turn back around toward the pins,
you should already be plotting the fate of that spare. The left
brain, of course, performs its instantaneous analysis. If you don't
use your analyzer, your right brain will become anxious. Anxiety
produces more bad shots. What if you made an unsuccessful shot with
a good swing? Identify the error. The error was in your analysis
of the lane condition, not your execution of the shot. If you don't
identify this, your executor might be tentative next time, magnifying
the mistake.
Dwelling on the bad shot will make it easier to repeat - never a
good idea. How many times have you seen a bowler coming off the
approach moving their hand and frowning, indicating what they think
they did wrong in their release that caused the bad shot? Don't
re-experience the feel of a bad shot or mistake. That only reinforces
it. What you should be doing is moving your hand the way you WANT
to release the ball, reinforcing the feel you want to repeat.
You are not your number. You know when you shoot 720 that you are
not a 240 average bowler. You should also remember that when you
shoot 510, you are not a 170 average bowler. You are not as great
as your best performance and not as bad as your worst. Evaluate
the shot, not the shooter. You should confront problems during practice,
not during competition. After the competition is over, you can perform
a post-mortem on your performance and sentence yourself to a reward
- a workout with your coach (the quickest and most effective fix
possible) instead of slapping yourself around.
'TRY' SHOULD BE A FOUR LETTER WORD
Trying is one of the most destructive things you can do in bowling.
What we really have to do is work hard not to work hard. If you're
trying, you have decided there is a weakness in your game or ability
to perform. The instant you start to try, you become tense. The
primary cause of performance errors is trying. How many times have
you been told that you are 'trying too hard'? It's not that you
try hard, it's that you try at all. Remember that inadequate feeling
you had when someone told you to "Try again"? Regardless of the
intent, the translation is that you failed and you need to do it
again and see if you can't get it right this time. It's bad enough
we have to hear that from well-meaning folks. For joy's sake, don't
do that to yourself!
Do you try to walk or try to breathe? No, you just do it easily
and naturally. If you had to focus on walking, thinking about contracting
the correct muscles at the correct time, worrying about the length
and direction of your steps, you'd be slow, very tense, feel a great
deal of pressure, and fail. When's the last time you felt this way
about a shot?
I'm sure you've heard about the example of walking across a 2" by
12" on the floor to retrieve a $20 bill at the other end. No big
deal and easy to accomplish. But place that plank between two buildings
and what happens to how you feel? You try harder to achieve something
you already know you can do. Your ability is not different but your
thoughts are and therefore your ability is compromised.
There are hundreds of performance barriers for every bowler. We've
already discussed negative vs. positive self-talk and its effect
on your performance, but why do you always seem to choke with four
or five in a row? The truth is the more often you get four or five
in a row, the more likely you are to get the sixth or seventh because
the barrier to your performance gets lower and lower every time
you get close. The lower the barrier the easier it will be to get
by it.
A good performance is put together one shot at a time. If you treat
each shot as though it were a mini-tournament, you can forget the
previous shot and concentrate on the only shot that matters - the
next one. Pretty soon you'll have several good 'tournaments' in
a row. If you treat every shot as a mini-tournament you'll learn
that one shot is not any less important than another. The only one
that matters is the next one.
What shot would you throw if it were up to you? It is.
Human nature is quite interesting in this area. We are pretty convinced
that past occurrences influence the future. What really happens
is that a bad shot causes us to fear another one. I believe that
what happens to us is about the What-If's. "What if I score poorly
(have bad timing, pull it, miss that spare, etc.)"? We convince
ourselves that past behavior will occur again. We fear. Here's an
example. You are at a venue that really, really matters to you:
your local association tournament, scratch league with the big boys,
a regional event, whatever. I am telling you that to start the tournament,
in front of all those fans and spectators, all those competitors,
you are going to throw the worst shot of your life.
How do you feel?
Was your thought "Oh, here we go again"? Did you want the earth
to open up and swallow you? Did that put you in a place where you
remembered such a thing happening and you can feel all the feelings
you felt then? That's fear. Now you are in What If Land. The problem
is not that you threw a bad shot. Everybody does that. The problem
is that you fear you will do it again.
Move to a parallel universe. Here you are at the same tournament.
Again, you are going to start this experience with the worst shot
of your life. This time, however, I am telling you that it is the
last bad shot you will throw in this tournament. You had a bad shot
in you and you got it over with. What's your reaction now? How do
you feel about throwing that awful shot since you know you will
not throw another one? Can't wait to throw that bad shot, I'll bet,
get it over with, and move on to see the outcome of this movie!
Once that ugly one is done, it's on to the real you, the authentic
bowler you are. You know exactly what will happen. You'll flow effortlessly
to the line. Your target will be huge, the pocket wide.
You remember that feeling. You wish you had it more often actually.
If you think logically about this, you throw a bad shot and fear
it will be repeated. When you throw a good shot, why don't you attach
the same significance to that? Why don't you believe that will be
the one that is constantly repeated? And don't tell me it's because
you throw bad shots all the time. If that were true, you would either
take up ping pong or get a coach!
Fear initializes the fight or flight response. That tightens up
the muscles and affects breathing and the amount of oxygen you use.
When that happens it is difficult to have a clear mind. The left
brain stays very involved assessing the perceived threat.
Throwing another bad shot is entirely up to you. How you feel about
any less-than-perfect shot is the predictor of the next one. This
is a really interesting exercise and the beginning of understanding
how much of what goes on in your head is in your control. You're
not responsible for your thoughts unless you hold onto them.
Your mind is your own and you are in charge of what STAYS in it,
not what goes in it. The more often you get yourself into a position
to deal with success, the less intimidating that situation will
be for you. |
