Anger Management

Hello readers! Before i start, want to advetise that the Torched Lane has an official twitter. Follow @torchedlane for tweets every now and then. We dont know what about, but hey, its twitter!

In this post I'd like to tackle a reader suggested topic. Ive decided on Kelsey Abrahamsen's question which is as follows:
"Tips on how to stay positive even when you're bowling bad, so hopefully you can pull your self out of the deep hole? That way you don't keep bowling bad? Just a thought :) I know I've had plenty of times where I throw a couple of bad shots, and the rest of my game, or even my day is blown."
Thanks for the suggestion. I feel like after this past weekend i can certainly say that controlling emotions can go a long way.

1. First and foremost, the game and certainly the tournament, is not over after a few bad shots or a bad game. I see people give up all the time because they threw a bad game or two. Theres no excuse for that. If you are still bowling, you are still in it.

2. Get EVERY SINGLE PIN THAT YOU CAN! If you are having a rough time, its ok to get a little frustrated. But you cant let that frustration take away from your bowling. Ive missed cuts a lot by under ten pins. Missed spare, missed split counts, fill balls, they all contribute.

3. Take it one shot at a time. Each ball you throw is seperate from the last. Focus on that one shot at that one moment. Threw a bad shot? Oh well, focus on the spare, then think about what happened after. This also means that you cant change what happened in the past. You cant change the score, so stop thinking about it.

4, Finally, never give up. Always finish. Leave on a good note, If you are 80 pins off the cut with one game left, then go out there and make 12 great shots. Or if you are completely lost, then make moves and try and figure it out. I missed cut at the Invitational by 9 pins, but i rallied from -73 to -30 when i felt completely lost. Now i know i can do it, but need to work on doing it sooner.

I hope that helps. To say it more bluntly, you just got to force yourself to stay positive. One of the things i do is i tend to "bowl mad." Like, if im bowling bad, i look at the lane as my enemy and i want to kick its ass. So once i line up, i put all my energy towards striking. Not exactly positive, but not negative either.

As always, thanks for reading. Feel free to ask questions about this or any of our posts. We will happily answer the best that we can.

@torchedlane
-Cameron