In bowling, we always step up to the lane hoping to succeed. But our shots, of course, don’t always go according to plan. We might miss our target badly, watch as a bad entry angle leads to a split, or fail to pick up an important spare. We could even throw a gutterball now and then!
It’s easy to put our shots into a binary category of either good or bad. If we achieved our desired result, it was a good shot. If we failed to deliver, it was a bad one.
But in order to reach a higher level in bowling, you need to get beyond this simplified thinking. There are so many other factors at play that affect how we do.
Sometimes we get lucky and succeed on a bad shot. Sometimes we do everything right execution-wise, but a misreading of lane conditions results in a poor result. Be sure to keep these things in mind as you diagnose either your successes or your failures.
A crucial part of the equation is our own minds. The mental game is crucial for players of all levels and in many cases is even more important than your physical technique. Here’s one way in which the mental manifests itself in your game.
One thing you hear all the time is that so and so “choked” on a shot, just because they missed (USBC). But this is similar to the simplistic thinking of “good” vs. “bad” and fails to recognize the important difference between choking and making a mistake.
A missed shot can occur for many reasons, some of which we already outlined. You might have read the lane wrong and planned your shot wrong as a result. Maybe you used the wrong ball.
Or maybe your attention was off, and you were distracted by something. If you’re bored or frustrated, or wondering why you missed your last shot, you’ll likely not execute well. Ditto if you’re overly excited. None of this is “choking;” instead, you aren’t even present for your shot.
Choking, specifically, is fear or negative thoughts overwhelming you, which tends to make you tense up and rush things, which often results in a miss.
This illustrates some of the complexity of the mental game: not everything is “choking,” and in order to understand what went wrong and start to make improvements, you need to recognize the differences. Are you choking? Or not even present? What was it that made your shot bad? A bad read of the lane, a bad approach?
Now that you understand the difference between choking and missing a shot, there is much more to learn about dominating the mental game of bowling. Check out our book Get in the Bowling Zone for detailed and systematic plans for improving your success.
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