Bowling Better

“Can you be a sub on my bowling team?”

I laughed at my best friend and said, “I’ve bowled a handful of times in my life, mostly under those disco lights at Moonlight Bowling. I don’t think you want me bowling on your team.”

“You don’t have to be good at it,” she said. “I mean, you pretty much know how it works, right?”

“Um. Yeah. You throw the ball down the lane and try to knock the pins over.”

“That’s all you need to know. I’ll take care of the other details.”

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It was three years or so ago when that conversation took place. And being a sub on the bowling team quickly turned into being a regular in the second half of that season. I used one of my son’s bowling balls that he had used in his junior bowling league. I rented shoes. I did okay too. I held my own. And I had fun.

I think I was surprised that I had fun. I was surprised that I wanted to do it again when that first season ended. Prior to joining the team, I had a stereotype image of the sport of bowling. I pictured bowling as something that middle-aged, lower-class men did to get away from demanding wives and the pressures of home life. I pictured Ed Bundy look-a-likes, with beer-bellies swelling under their button-down bowling shirts. I pictured a place filled with the haze of cigarette smoke and pitchers of beer on every table.

courtesy Google images

“Listen Jerry, bowling is a man’s sport. If God had wanted women to bowl, he would have put their breasts on their backs so we would have something to watch while waiting our turn.” … Al Bundy

My mental image was a little bit off.There’s no smoking allowed anymore. Oh, there are definitely some beer-bellied men in the sport. There are some beer-bellied women too. There are men and women of all ages, from all kinds of backgrounds. And maybe some of them are there to escape having to be somewhere else, but for the most part we all have one thing in common. We love to bowl.

It took a while to convince myself that it was okay to like bowling and to want to get better at it. Up to that time in my life, I hadn’t really invested myself in anything that I didn’t have to do. Growing up, I learned to believe that most hobbies were a waste of time and money because I’d never had the opportunity to explore any interest to the point where it might require a time or financial commitment. In my adult life to that point, I had done the things I was supposed to do. I earned a living. I took care of my family. I invested time and money in activities and sports that my kids enjoyed, because I wanted to nurture their abilities as much as possible. I had a few hobbies of my own, but for the most part, they didn’t take me outside of the house. And somehow it escaped me that it might be good for me to nurture other interests of my own and that it wasn’t too late to do so.

I turned a corner when I bought my own bowling ball and shoes and made a (maybe subconscious) commitment to the sport. I began to make friends at the bowling alley, with people besides just the girls on my bowling team. I learned more about the sport, like  how to score a game and how to make the ball go where I wanted it to go so it would knock down the most pins. (That’s a skill I will forever be trying to perfect!) I watched others bowl, especially the ones who were good at it. I tried to learn by watching them so I could improve my own game.

Many, many times over these past few years since I started bowling, it has occurred to me that I’ve never really learned how to bowl. I did only what I knew to do and improved some by trial and error. But sometimes I’d be talking with others who really know the game and I would be embarrassed to join the conversation because I didn’t really know the ins and outs of the game. For instance, the place where you stand when you’re preparing to throw the ball? It’s made up of a whole bunch of vertical boards. Each board has its own number. One time while practicing, someone suggested I try standing on a particular board on the approach and I had no idea where it was.

I was getting better at bowling than I was when I first started, but I hit a plateau and didn’t know how to get past it. So when I met my friend Teri in summer league last year and learned that not only was she a really good bowler, but an actual bowling coach who offers instruction, I nagged her to run a class that I could attend. Teri and her partner, Lonnie ran a clinic at our bowling alley last weekend and for three hours, I learned the basics of bowling and then some. I learned all the things I thought I should know but was afraid to admit I didn’t know. I learned about timing, and the optimal number of steps one should take on the approach. I learned that it was important to keep my fingers curved when holding the ball, and to keep them that way when releasing it. I learned how to swing my arm and how and when to release the ball for the best performance. They taught us that throwing hard and fast doesn’t necessarily mean throwing accurately.

And I learned that the number of boards varies between bowling alleys, but the boards are marked with a dot on every fifth board. The middle dot always signifies the 20th board!

courtesy Google images

Teri and Lonnie taught me all kinds of things, so much that I probably won’t remember it all. At their suggestion, I chose to focus on a few things, and once I get comfortable with them, I can build on them with the other stuff.

Last night I went to my Monday league. During warm-ups, I practiced standing on a different board than I normally do. I practiced my new swing and release, trying to remember to keep my fingers curved, bend my knee, kick my right leg behind and hold my balance with my toe down on the floor. Everything felt strange and different. I watched as my ball consistently went close or directly to the place I wanted it to hit the pins. It took a while and I had to remind myself that Rome wasn’t built in a day. My game was not going to improve overnight. I spent a lot of time moving my starting position slightly to the left or right, in an effort to find where I might hit the pocket consistently. I was getting frustrated during the first two games because even though I sometimes felt more in control of the ball, sometimes it went somewhere completely unexpected. Teri had brought one of her young helpers along when she came to leagues last night and told him to watch me and offer pointers when needed. He told me to just relax. He said I was doing all the right things, but my arm was still too tense when I was throwing.

courtesy Google images

Throughout it all, I remembered that as much as I want to be a better bowler, the other big reason I bowl is because it’s fun. I bowl with some wonderful ladies who don’t really care whether we win or lose, as long as we have fun. And as soon as I remembered that and stopped thinking so much about all of the mechanics of bowling, it all began to come together. I talked with the girls and shared a whole lot of laughs. We cheered each other on. And I threw five strikes in that third game, which for me, is a pretty good thing.

I was excited after that third game and sorry to see the night come to an end. The fact that I had begun to grasp some of the new things I’d learned from Teri and Lonnie made me want to get back on the lanes as soon as possible to keep working on improving my game. I can’t say that I’ve ever grown bored with bowling over the past three years, but last night I felt a renewed sense of excitement about it.

I guess it just goes to show that you’re never too old to learn something new!