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!












Good job and keep knocking them down.
jack05:31 AM EST