I did it again. That's right, a 3rd 400 series.  And I'm supposed to be a scratch bowler.  Also, competed in a scratch tourney last weekend and the problems continued.  I made about 15% of my spares, it was just really awful.  I could feel my arm just going all over in the swing.  It was ugly.  Then, after the 3rd 400 last night, I'm like, "that's it, I quit!" broke my bag, got soooo angry, told my coach I was done and he could sell all my equipment blah blah blah.  Walked around for about 15 minutes, cooled down and decided to practice some.  The coach was still there and he stuck around to work with me.  He was watching my swing every shot, and it kept wrapping around me every time.  Then, bout 20 minutes into it he's like, "your second step (left foot) is about 6 to 8 inches to the left of your center of gravity.  You are opening everything up with that step.  See if walking straight might help a little."  So I'm like, ok.  A few minutes earlier he told me that I should stop practicing unless he's there with me so that I don't further ingrain these bad habits into me.  I try walking straight one time and he's like "Eureaka!"  That was it, my swing was on line, my hand didn't come around to the side of the ball, my accuracy was back, balance was better...  It was so relieving to find that out.  I was feeling so hopeless.  He made me throw about 20 more like that and told me that all I need to do for the next couple months is practice that.  My swing is good, it's online, better power and leverage.  He said there wouldn't be a magical thing to fix it, and it could take months until we work it out; but then there it was.  One step, all I had to do was align my foot-work and everything fell back into place.  Not that I'm done yet, of course I still need work, but it really helped alot.  I went in to practice today, and my first 3 games I made 10 of 10 spares with a 696 pinfall.  3 clean games out of the gate!  With the problems I've had with spares lately, that was a huge boost.  The 4th and final game I had back-to-back 8-10 splits, and flagged a 10 pin.  I'm not too anxious for next Wednesday, I'm not sure if this is one of those "flash in the pan" fixes that doesn't get to the root of the problem (I get those sometimes) but Paul feels great about it and so do I.  So, hopefully next week will be a return to form from earlier this season, as I set the highest average on the first week (it was a fluke, of course) and in the last month I've dropped my average 15 pins and might be dead last.  I hope I can push it back up into the 200 range before it's all over, and a couple big weeks should help.

I did it again.  I had another 400 series this week.  I know why too:  Once I get into a slump, or have accuracy problems, I try really really hard to hit my target.  The problem is, my coach always says, is that "muscles are not nearly as accurate or predictable as gravity."  So, the harder I try, the farther I get from my fundamentals... In this case a free arm-swing.  It's interesting how, as I get better at this sport, that smaller problems in my mechanics/delivery have a larger effect.  A year ago, somthing like this wouldn't have changed as much about my game because there was so much going on that was wrong.  Like, if you are bleeding from 1000 cuts adding one more won't make much of a difference.  I stayed and practiced for a couple hours afterwards and did ALOT better than I did during league.  I just hope I can carry the confidence into next week and remember to just let gravity and the ball do their thing.  The more I can get out of the way, the better.  Fortunately we did manage to take 5 or 7 points as my counterpart on the other team had a rough night as well.  That gives us a 12-9 record 3 weeks into the 3rd quarter.  We've got our work cut out for us.

Holy shit.  I thought I sucked tonight after the first game when I threw 182.  Little did I know what was in store for me after that!  Wonderful things, such as a 116 game!  No shit.  Then I wrapped it up with a tidy 143 for my worst night ever, 441 series.  Holy fuck, that sucked.  I can't even comment on the lanes tonight, I'm sure they were as easy as ever.  It was a variety night, seemed like every ball I let go of I did something different wrong.  I think I covered the entire gamut of possible mistakes this evening and possibly even invented some new ones.  441.  Jeezus.  Well, at least now I know I won't have a series worse than that this year.  New resolution right now:  If I shoot worse this year than I did tonight I'm giving up the game for 6 months.  I had six consecutive opens in the second game, and only 4 of them were splits.  I had a total of 16 open frames out of 30 tonight.  Man, it sucked.  On a better note, Carl Chavez bowled a 300 against us in the first game tonight.  You know it was a horrible night when the best part is your opponent's perfect game.

Last night was a good night.  I didn't have the scores, but we won all 7 points from the team that took first the last quarter.  The last few weeks, I get lined up in practice and then once we start I don't get the same look; the ball doesn't read the same breakpoint, and finishes a little weak.  I had the same problem last night.  I'm not sure if I start throwing the ball a little harder, or if it's something to do with the lanes.  Anyway, my 1st 2 shots were swishy-mixers and carried.  The next 6 frames were either light hits that didn't carry or ringing tens off an adjustment I made after the 6th.  I covered all spares, then back to back splits in the 9th and 10th.  My partner stepped up though, so it was ok.  The next game, I knew I needed to move back inside and did but the ball still didn't finish hard enough.  So I adjusted my hand position and went more up the back of the ball to try to get it to read earlier and I got just what I wanted.  I was quite proud of myself, and it was awesome to see the problem and correctly adjust.  Knowing that I can make subtle changes like that gives me alot of confidence now that we are coming into the tournament season.  I plan to make match play at least once this year.  Anyway, I'm off track.  The second and third games both gave me a 204 score.  The second game took me a couple frames until I started striking on both lanes to get a double.  The third game started with me missing 2 makeable spares.  (Why must my opens always come in twos?  Why not just once, or not at all?)  I am confident that we will win this quarter.  I am really feeling good about my game lately.  The last lesson I had I changed where I hold the ball and push it too.  I was having a problem bumping the ball away from my body as it went into the backswing.  Now, I hold the ball more towards the center of my body, just in front of my right leg and push it straight out and my body clears the ball, rather than the ball clearing my body, and my arm stays closer into my body.  I was pretty consistant in hitting my mark last night, and my release was better with the ball being closer to my ankle.  So, like I say, the confidence is there and now I just need to wait for the scores to come.  It generally happens like this, I feel like I'm bowling well theoretically but score-wise I'm just ok, then I break out and the improvements really start to show on the sheet.  We don't bowl next week, but have a safe and happy holiday season everyone!  Bowl well!

Two teams pre-bowled earlier, and we came in tonight needing a 7 point sweep to tie for first which would give us a roll-off.  My experience on the lanes tonight was a good one.  The transition tonight was different than I'm used to.  The lanes started off as usual, I played a typical line over 11 at the arrows to 8 at the breakpoint.  About 5 frames in I noticed that all shots were coming in light.  Remembering last weeks experience, when I had to use a more aggressive ball, I switched right away to my big one.  That worked fine for two shots.  After those 2 shots, everything was reading the midlane waaaay to early, and I even went Brooklyn twice (haven't done that in awhile.)  I made a few different adjustments before going back to the 1st ball, everything still coming in high.  I realized at this point that I had some carrydown problems early, but that cleared up.  The challenge then was to get the ball to clear the heads, even with the weaker, pearlized crossfire.  I kept trying adjustments, and each adjustment got me the same result, Brooklyn!  I had 5 total tonight!  Eventually, with the right combination of release, speed and target, I found the pocket.  I feel like I did pretty good tonight.  I made all but 1 makeable spare, and 2 other opens on splits (and I converted a 3-10 split!)  I shot a 190, 200 & 210 for an even 600 series.  To come in, have trouble figuring out the lanes and keeping up with the transition and still shoot 600, makes me proud of myself.  The only downfall tonight being that we didn't get the sweep.  In fact, we only won 2 out of the 7 points.  Oh well, there's still another half of the season left.  The only guy who had any success on our pair tonight is a full roller.  Not sure if that has anything to do with it, but he shot pretty well: 690.  His counterpart, my partner, had his worst night of the season with a 580 series.  My counterpart (someone who taught me quite a bit back when I was beginning) shot a 580 as well.  That's twice we've met in this league, and twice I've had a better series.  Hooray for me!  So, a good night personally, a night to be proud of; although not what we needed as a team.