Bowling scores back in the 100s consistently.

I'm proud to say that today in bowling my three scores were 103, 110, and 116 in order from my first game to last. I have been working on my aim and Friday night I once again went bowling with my friends so that I could get more practice. I think the practice has helped me quite a bit, especially because it gives me the time to try using different bowling balls and to just have fun without the scores counting. One thing I've learned is to use the same bowling ball consistently and to find one that fits your hand perfectly, and I found one ball that I am comfortable with. In the past I alternated between different balls, some of which were harder to hold than others or didn't fit my hand as well.

I'm becoming less nervous around the other people in my group too. This is good mostly because I think the few weeks in which I had done badly, I feel as if for one reason or another I was more self-conscious either because of the people in the lanes next to me or the people in the general vicinity, who may have been very experienced, attractive (in which case I would have been distracted, nervous, or tense), or critical. Now that I have developed an "I don't care what anyone else thinks at all and if they want to criticize, let them!" type of attitude, I don't care if bowling slowly and precisely makes me look inexperienced, it gets me good scores and I have very precise control over the ball and much better aim when I take my time. I'm not ready to begin bowling faster with a lot more force yet, although a few times today I was able to release the ball with a little more force, trying to make sure that in doing this, my aim is still good.

As hard as it is to believe, for the first time this week I noticed that all of the pins are not in a row, but some are closer to me and some are farther away, therefore it really is necessary to hit the middle pin in order to knock down the ones behind it. Each time, I try to aim for the middle pin and hope that there is a domino effect and the rest of the pins fall, giving me a strike.

All in all right now I feel very comfortable with myself and my skills, and I am going to continue to practice during the week (most likely Friday nights). I've been learning more and more about bowling and the basic things, and becoming more observant, so that I can deduce subtle ways that I can improve. I know that going up there and flinging the ball and trying to bowl as fast as I can has not worked for me so regardless of my nervousness if certain people are around (attractive people particularly), I am going to have to get over this nervousness and pretend that the people around me that cause it are not there, so that it doesn't get in the way of my bowling. My average for all of the games thus far (from the start of the program) is 87 and I am determined to get my average to at least 100 by spring, and nothing is going to stop me!