I was fired up to bowl last night. I woke up looking forward to knocking some pins down with my friends… I envisioned three big games and breaking last week’s funk.

And I completely blew it. The first game wasn’t horrible, just a bit below my average, but the next two were crap. Thankfully the team bailed me out and we still took five of seven points.

Toward the end of the last game when I couldn’t buy a strike, Noel asked if I wanted to stick around after and throw a few bonus games. I was more than enthusiastic about figuring out exactly what in God’s green earth I was doing wrong.

The first game was no better than the last two, but in the second game, as I was struggling to get the ball to the pocket, I got a little low as I set to take my first step, as I had for years and I thought, “no, you’re supposed to be more upright” and I stood a little taller… and then it hit me; “dance with the girl who brung ya”. I had the same issue with golf, always trying to change my swing to get the perfect angles and bend at the waist rather than swinging the way I’d always hammered the ball…

I went back to my old approach for the third game and cranked out four strikes in a row. I opened in the fifth, barely missing my spare, then two more strikes, an open and a 9-spare, and struck out in the tenth for a cool 221.

The lesson? Too many damned YouTube videos on bowling instead of just bowling and sticking with what I do well!