I opted to practice tonight as I will be going on vacation and wanted to make sure I got in some time with no breaks before the season begins, as I worry about still being stiff/sore the day after bowling.  Personally, I think there may be permanent damage to my hip muscle since I simply don’t feel 100% the day after bowling, but my chiropractor keeps telling me over and over that stretching and bowling will help.  We’ll just see who is the winner in this little tug-o-war eventually ;)

The place I chose to practice was Bowling IQ.  They’re close to home and I need to get some time in on synthetic approaches since I injured myself back in late April/early May and I have trust issues on those kinds of approaches.  Bowling IQ has 4 Brunswick Anvilanes and 4 AMF Qubica Lanes side by side.  I found the Anvilanes to slide much nicer than Qubica.  The Anvilanes were smooth but to me the Qubicas felt gritty/sandy/beachy.  It was weird.  I just made sure to take my time and keep my wire brush handy so I could slide smoothly. 

On Sundays and Tuesdays Bowling IQ (located in Sterling Heights, Michigan) offers a 2-hour practice session for $15.00.  There are 8 lanes in the building and Bowling IQ puts out 8 different patterns, one on each lane.   Tonight’s patterns on Lanes 1-8 were:

Highway to Hell

Dead Man’s Curve

Scorpion

Cheetah

U.S. Open

Chameleon

Shark

Abbey Road

Highway to Hell and Dead Man’s Curve played similarly with me (Special Agent).  I could get the ball to hook playing around 15, and my ball speed is 13-13.5 mph.  Scorpion is my favorite, and again I can play 15 and get my Avalanche Pearl to strike from there.  Cheetah is tough because of lack of ball speed, but I can hook the White Dot on that throwing slower, around 11-12 mph and get the ball to the pocket but carry is an issue because it’s plastic.  The U.S. Open was tough no matter what I threw on it short of the kitchen sink, and Chameleon was all right with the Avalanche Pearl getting closer inside near 20.  I absolutely bombed on Shark, which worries me a bit, because I’m bowling a PBA Experience league and with my luck that’ll be the first pattern of the season ;)  Abbey Road was really cool.  It reminded me of a house shot with some serious backend kick but you absolutely have to be able to repeat shots because if you leak one outside, it’s buhbye.

All in all, I thought it was a good practice session.  I’m a 190s house hack who’s hungry to be better and now that I’m back into bowling again, I plan to keep practicing to get better, because I want the payoff to be some good bowling at Nationals in Reno.

If you’re so inclined and you’re on Facebook, you can look up Bowling IQ and see pictures of the facility.  To me, it’s just a giant toy box with a lot of cool things inside.

Play on!

Our summer league ended in mid-August.  The house does a banquet of Italian food and then the teams get their prize money and we bowl a 3-game tournament and the top four scores bowl an eliminator (first place bowls fourth place and second place bowls third place and the winners bowl for the championship).  We placed 14th out of 16 teams and won $100 per person, so that isn't too shabby.

14 teams competed, and as a team we had 2700 and wound up in fourth!   I didn't bowl great, but went up every game and found my spare shooting in the second and third games after a brief absence
171
192
216
579

I was really happy with the way I bowled, and as we ended up fourth, we had to bowl the first place team and they absolutely crushed us.  I filled the wood box in the 10th for 200 on the nose that fourth game, and I am happy to report I had NO hip pain bowling four games (this was the first time I bowled four games in a row since October of 2008 at the state 600 tournament).

I had a good experience this summer, LOVED to be back bowling, and will practice until fall league(s) start.  I will be bowling a women’s league with my daughter (YAY!) and I will also be bowling a PBA Experience league with scary scores to report.  Stay tuned