Practicing for Improvement

The meaning of practice for many players is simply to go to the local bowling center and play a few games.  A good practice session is determined by the scores.   Playing in your usual way, doing what you always do, and judging progress by scores may result in some progress, however, it is not the most effective way to improve.

The first step in practicing for improvement is to make an honest determination of your bowling strengths and then list possible areas for improvement.  In some cases, you may need the help of a certified coach to assist you in this process.  Many bowlers seem to be unaware of their strengths and sometimes we avoid admitting areas that need improvement.  Take some time on this process.  Looking at your game on video can also be a helpful tool.

Next, select what you believe are the most important areas of improvement that will bring the most benefit to your game.  For example, you might find that making spares is a significant area of improvement for you.  You also might realize that improving your percentage of making single pin spares can quickly improve your scores.  In competitive bowling, it is not uncommon to find that several hundred pins are “lost” from missing single pin spares in a tournament format.  Imagine the benefit if you could improve your spare making by even 10 or 20 percent.

Another common area for improvement that is seen at the Kegel Training Center is a swing that does not match up to the line of play.  For example, often the swing will move away from the body in the ball placement phase and then go behind the back.  This swing angle does not match up to the ball path intended by the player.  Correcting this problem in practice can also make dramatic improvements in your game.

The point here is that if you need to improve your spare game or if you have a physical game issue that needs to change, going to the lanes and bowling game after game for score is limiting you to slower progress and it may even cause bad habits to be further embedded in your “muscle memory” or the neuro-muscular connections that control all activity in sports.

Thus with our spare making example, a player might go to the lanes and work on different strategies for making single pin spares.  Game score would be ignored and mistakes would be critical in determining which strategies were most effective.

In the example of correcting swing alignment, a player might use a specific technique or drill to improve.  In the case of a drill, a complete approach may not even be desirable until the player masters the intended skill.

In addition, training research also indicates that learning new techniques occurs more quickly if practice is done at a slower speed than normal.  This slower speed helps to develop the neuro-muscular connections necessary to master the new technique. 

In summary, Practice for Improvement involves the following components:

1.      Focusing on specific issues or techniques one at a time

2.      Performing at slower than normal speed to develop new neuro-muscular pathways

3.     Using mistakes as a guide to better performance

4.      Struggling through a period of being uncomfortable while learning

5.      Performing correct repetition until mastery

Once you have done the “practice for improvement” work, then it would be time for the fun and enjoyment of putting it all together and bowling for score.  Try out practice for improvement and see if you see the benefits described here that we see at the Kegel Training Center.

Mental Toughness and Confidence in Bowling

In this article, we are going to explore mental toughness as it applies to the sport of bowling and two methods that you can use to develop your mental game.  In pursuing this goal, we are going to look at examples from the world of actors and from the military.

Some people will tell you that mental toughness means being able to look your opponent in the eye, growl like a wild beast, and scare them into submission.  Others may say that mental toughness is a quiet confidence that doesn’t require any direct confrontation at all.  Still other people may say that mental toughness is keeping your cool when everyone else around you is cheering for the other team. Who is right? Maybe all of these points of view have some value. 

In the world of bowling coaching, one of the most important qualities that a coach can help a player to achieve is “confidence”.  Webster’s dictionary defines confidence as “a feeling of self-assurance arising from one's appreciation of one's own abilities or qualities”.  I believe that mental toughness arises, at least in part, from that self-assurance that we define as confidence.

Most, if not all of us, have experienced at least some moments of confidence and self-assurance.  We have also experienced many moments where we didn’t feel confident or self-assured at all.  The magic question is, “How can we create more and more moments of self-assurance when we bowl?”

During high school I spent much of my time with student actors.  I became friends with actors even though I had a terrible fear of being in front of an audience.  Maybe that is why I wanted to be close to actors – because they seemed to have mastered the art of being in front of a group and playing many different roles.  Their ability required confidence and it seemed powerful and attractive to me.  My actor friends spent hours and hours researching and rehearsing their characters and their lines.  Practice was crucial to performing at their best.

Later, I served in the United States Army which offers soldiers the option of navigating a series of very challenging obstacles that can create extreme fear, such as the fear of heights.  This was termed the “Confidence Course”.

The Army also gives soldiers experiences that closely mimic the actual events that they may encounter in battle.  These experiences include negotiating an open field with barbed wire and other obstacles while live bullets are flying overhead; actual experience in a tear gas chamber; and throwing a live hand grenade.  In a manner similar to the preparation of actors, soldiers rehearse and practice the events that might occur in battle with as much realism as possible.

U.S Army Confidence Course, Fort Benning, Georgia

Now let’s talk about how acting and the U.S. Army can help us to develop mental toughness and confidence in bowling.

Most of the top coaches that I have consulted do not believe that confidence comes from a single lesson, a scholarly text, or a magic pill. In fact, many coaches don’t believe that confidence is possible if you are not out there competing in the “heat of battle”.

Putting yourself into a competitive environment with higher level players will challenge your skills and test your abilities.

On the other hand, we all know someone who seems to exude confidence in almost everything they do.  Their confidence or self-assurance appears like something natural which they have always possessed.  Does someone like that come to mind for you?

What the Army training can teach us about bowling is that we can greatly benefit from going into “battle” on the lanes and facing our fears.  It may be the most valuable way to face fears and learn to become mentally tough.

In his book, The New Toughness Training for Sports: Mental Emotional Physical Conditioning from One of the World's Premier Sports Psychologists,  James E. Loehr talks about the similarities between athletes and actors.  Dr. Loehr is a world-renowned performance psychologist and Co-Founder of the Human Performance Institute in Orlando, Florida.

One of his key theories is that becoming mentally tough can be achieved by taking on the characteristics of what we believe a mentally tough athlete would be like.

For example, how would a mentally tough athlete act, how would he/she look, how would they walk, how would they talk, how would they prepare for an event, or how would they handle a setback or a mistake.  

Loehr believes that by giving thought to these questions, in as much detail as possible, athletes can begin to take on the “role” of the mentally tough performer.  As an athlete begins to act “as if” he was mentally tough, those characteristics will actually become a part of their skill set.  The athlete would first take on the thought process of a mentally tough performer, then the athlete would prepare like a mentally tough player, and finally the athlete would gain the confidence those results in mental toughness.

To summarize this brief analysis of becoming more mentally tough, here is a three step “practice plan” that you can use to improve your skills:

1.     Take the steps necessary to enter competitive events and test your bowling skills under pressure.  You can begin with smaller events at first, but bowling in tougher events against mentally tough competitors is one great way to develop your own mental game.

2.    Make a written list of all of the characteristics you can think of that a mentally tough bowler would possess.  How would they act? How would they prepare for an event?  How would they act under pressure?  How would they talk?  How would they treat others?  How would they dress?  How would they care for their equipment?  What kind of pre-shot routine would they have? How would they handle a bad shot? Write down as many characteristics as possible, using your own judgment as a guide.

3.    Then adopt as many of these “mental toughness” and “confidence” characteristics as you can during your next bowling event.  Behave “as if” you are already the mentally tough player that you imagined in item 2 above. 

Mental toughness and confidence can be learned and the practice plan above will give you a great beginning.  I think you will find that the results will be very interesting.  Bowling, like life, is an ongoing process of skill development and improvement.

There are many more sources of information on mental toughness and confidence to help you to continue learning; some of these resources are listed below.  Send me an e-mail at Rick.Wiltse@Kegel.net and let me know what happened, and what you learned from your experience using my three step practice plan.

References:

“This Is What Privates Go Through During Army Basic Training” by James Clark – Task & Purpose, May 16, 2016

The New Toughness Training for Sports: Mental Emotional Physical Conditioning from One of the World's Premier Sports Psychologists Paperback – November 1, 1995, by James E. Loehr , Forward by Chris Evert.

Act As If: A Winner’s "Fall Back" Position, Competitive Advantage, Dr. Alan Goldberg, 03/17/2009.