Mis-Take
Imagine yourself as the Director of a movie.
Huge budget. You have an amazing crew. Best actors in the world and an impeccable script.
Question: Do you think you’re going to film the whole movie in one long, perfect take?
Even with decades of experience and the best of everything you know that’s ABSURD! Of course you’re going to have to re-do most scenes. Some over and over and over again until you get them right. (sound familiar when developing your bowling game?)
Those are all just mis-takes.
No big deal.
All part of the process, right?
Well, guess what? Same rules apply to your bowling career..
You WILL need to re-shoot some scenes (shots, drills, etc). A lot of them. Some a ton of times.
Those mistakes you’re making? They’re really just “mis-takes.”
Not a big deal. Just step back and make another shot!
Today remember when bowling it is a “mis-take”. Now Win the Day!
Three A Day Keeps Failure Away
One of the best ways to assure your long-term success is to recognize and celebrate your daily wins.
We’ve talked about the Pillow Test on Mental Mondays. Each night before you go to bed, take out your an index card and write down three wins you had today.
Your thoughts determine your actions, your actions determine your performance, and your performance determines your destiny and what you will or will not accomplish.
By celebrating your wins each day, you build off of your previous success and can see your progress on a daily basis, which adds up over time to great success.
THREE WINS IN THE LAST 24 HOURS:
1.
2.
3.
Three A Day To Win The Day!
The Bowling Yips
WHAT CAUSES “THE YIPS”?
In 90% of cases, the yips is more mental than it is physical. Mostly occurring in the spare game and when the shot becomes more important, It’s caused by a mental interference between what you want to do (the shot) and the muscles required to do it.
In practice, a player with the yips can often perform well, which makes it even more frustrating when that same game doesn’t appear on the lanes. During the comfort of the practice area, a quiet mind allows them full access to their skills. At the lanes, with the pressure higher, bowlers/competitors watching and their score at stake, their mind is agitated and the pathways which take the information about the shot to the muscles are blocked by fear, overthinking and the focus being on the shot outcome.
Instead of being athletic and letting their body react, bowlers become very internal. The brain no longer has the necessary input to tell the muscles what to do. During the delivery, there is too much control (to prevent a yip), too much tension and some form of swing effort, which makes the movement very inconsistent.
Overtime, the bowler loses confidence in their ability to make shots. With more and more negative experiences, there is a highly negative association with those particular shots which becomes ingrained in the “belief system”. The fear of it happening again causes performance anxiety which further affects the player mentally, emotionally and physiologically.
3-STEP CURES FOR THE BOWING YIPS
If you can implement this 3 step approach to curing the yips, you can see big improvement over a short period of time.
STEP 1: BUILD A PROCESS
Develop a “performance process”, which will become the measure of success for their bowling competitions. Bowlers with the yips become very outcome oriented – if a yip happens it represents failure in itself and it quickly damages the player’s confidence, ego and scores. Whenever we measure success by the outcome, it puts a lot of pressure to achieve that outcome (in the case of the player with the yips, that outcome is not yipping). The outcome of any shot or competition will always be uncertain and out of your control, however, “the process” is something that can be achieved with certainty and is 100% within your control. The brain doesn’t like uncertainty and triggers the stress response to try to keep you away from it. Focusing on certainty makes us feel safer and more comfortable. So what exactly does it mean by PROCESS? Simple steps that you can do before, during and after each shot, which maximizes your chances of success. This can also include what that bowler does in between shots to manage their thoughts about the yips (self-talk, body language and being more present).
STEP 2: TRAIN THE SUBCONSCIOUS MIND
The subconscious mind is the store of all your memories. If you have the yips and you think of shooting a specific spare, there will be an automatic response that will trigger those feelings you get when a yip happens. Successful cures for the yips require “re-wiring” the brain to have a more positive relationship with that area of the game where it shows up.
This will take time but it will come down to repeating a positive story/memory (instead of the one you might currently tell yourself), visualizations and using techniques which can then be used during your pre shot routine. After a while, you will begin to see yourself as someone who is proficient at the spare shooting, specific lane conditions, etc. and that there is opportunity there and not fear.
STEP 3: PRACTICE IN THE RIGHT WAY
When I ask bowlers/students with the yips how they practice, they invariably describe something very repetitive – throwing many shots in practice (quantity practice), “trying to practice it away”. In practice this works great, as the process of making each shot is driven by the (subconscious) memory of the previous shot. In the bowling center during competition, you might make a shot every 1-2 minutes, not every 10-20 seconds.
Develop elite PROCESS routines. Make sure your pre and post routines are consistent, concise and are filled with the key elements (breath, self-talk, visualization). Make sure you spend part of your practice simulating a real competition that includes your routines and the time between shots. Make it as close to the upcoming bowling competition as you possibly can.
Practicing in this way trains the bowler in a way that will place more emphasis on the process than the result, help them manage their “performance state” and become better under the pressure.
Win the Process to Win the Day!
Win the Process to Win the Day!
Start The Hard Work Today
Most big, deeply satisfying accomplishments in life take at least five years to achieve. This can include building a business, cultivating a loving relationship, writing a book, getting in the best shape of you life, raising a family, becoming a PBA Champion, and more.
Five years is a long time. It is much slower than most of us would like. If you accept the reality of slow progress, you have every reason to take action today. If you resist the reality of slow progress, five years from now you'll simply be five years older and still looking for a shortcut.
Do the hard work today, tomorrow, the next day... to get where you would like to be in whatever that is.
Five years is a long time. It is much slower than most of us would like. If you accept the reality of slow progress, you have every reason to take action today. If you resist the reality of slow progress, five years from now you'll simply be five years older and still looking for a shortcut.
Do the hard work today, tomorrow, the next day... to get where you would like to be in whatever that is.
Start the work today to Win the Day!
Mental Skills for Bowling
As you will have seen from our daily WTD 1424 and Mental Monday's, your ability to access the best possible game you have in any game/tournament comes down to your mindset and the mental game.
On any given day, you don't know whether you'll have your A, B, or C game, but with a strong mental game you can get the best out of it, whatever game you have.
Let's review the Mental Strategies for Bowling:
Let's review the Mental Strategies for Bowling:
Mindset is probably the biggest overall factor in your success and something you must continually work on.
Mindfulness - we all have a lot of meaningless negative thoughts that have the potential to be able to keep us from our best. In order to be free from your thoughts and just "be" while you are playing requires a skill called "mindfulness".
Staying present - being able to quiet your mind and stay in the present moment is key to remaining calm, being mindful and conserving mental energy.
Self-talk - being able to use the power of words in any situation to keep you in your optimal performance state is key to being able to play your best under pressure.
Acceptance - being able to accept what’s happened is another key to maintaining a positive mental and emotional state.
Body language - if you look like you are in control, you probably are!
Tension and tempo awareness - tension and tempo change the swing when we're under pressure, so knowing how to relax and maintain a smooth tempo is essential in the big tournaments/moments.
Performance Anxiety management - we all get nervous and that's not a bad thing (in fact it can help you bowl better). But being too nervous will inhibit you which is why it's key to learn stress management techniques.
What Mental Skills are your strengths and what Mental Skills are opportunities for improvement?
Keep improving your Mental Skills to Win the Day!
What Mental Skills are your strengths and what Mental Skills are opportunities for improvement?
Keep improving your Mental Skills to Win the Day!
Being In The Present
Being “in the present” is so important in bowling. It frees up your mind, allowing you to focus on what’s most important to access to your best skills.
The ancient practice of meditation and mindfulness is all about improving a person's ability to access the present moment and be accepting of how they feel in that moment and not try to change it. This creates freedom.
I advise all my students to start a daily practice of meditation and mindfulness, as it has so many benefits (beyond bowling). With this practice you will become more able to clearly focus on the things that are most important and reduce the noise from those things that are not.
Samurai Warriors adopted Zen Buddhism and meditation because it allowed them to fight with an “empty mind”. For these swordsmen, having an empty mind was vital during combat as it freed them from doubt, fear and focus on technique. Of course, they trained technique, but when combat began, all thinking departed, and the purity of the action took over.
Being in the present, is when your attention (focus) isn’t on what’s happened or what will happen (consequences), only on what’s happening now, e.g. your pre-shot routine or time in the settee area (Area #1) in between shots. In between shots, direct your focus of attention to your breathing and what you see and feel (the view inside the bowling center, the sound of the balls hitting the pins, etc.). This will bring you to the present - you are alert and aware but not thinking.
It’s also a perfect way at any time to come out of “negative” emotions, regret, anger, anxiety – fear is always ‘future’. Excitement suggests thinking about results, regret suggests thinking about past mistakes, instead, just keep playing the shot in hand until they run out.
Lock into the PRESENT to Win the Day!
Pressure Practice To Improve Skills
In League and in Tournaments:
- Every shot counts and has a consequence
- Every shot is a unique challenge
- There are several minutes between shots for possible “thinking” time
- Your heart rate is higher
Although most bowlers know this to be true, they spend very little time practicing in a way that will help them to adapt to the changing (external and internal) conditions between practice and competition play. Instead, they over-practice the technical and don’t train their “performance skills” such as focus, dealing with consequences and internal state management.
The best place to practice is usually our local bowling center. We usually know the house characteristics, practice on the same pair and many times just throw a quantity of shots. For this reason, it’s important to find ways to simulate what we experience in league and in tournament play, so we can improve our performance skills and become better at executing our best technical skills during bowling competition.
For Each Shot
1. Go through your Pre Shot Routine
2. Practice your Post Shot Routine and how you will respond to different outcomes
3. Considering your heart rate could be 120 bpm or more during a tournament or in a “big moment”, run on the spot to get it there before making a shot during a practice session. If you have a heart rate monitor on your watch you can get it to the desired heart rate before making each shot.
4. Take 1-2 minutes break in between shots to simulate the bowling competition and to make sure you don’t get into a rhythm of just making shots (one of the pitfalls of normal a bowling practice that leads to an “illusion of competence”). You could use the time in between to do some meditation for bowling, journal or to practice being alone with your thoughts (don’t get your phone out to occupy the time).
By doing more pressure practice for bowling, you’ll discover more about the effectiveness of your current “performance process” in controlling your internal state and preparing for shots, and you can experiment with new ideas to give you further adaptability/tools under pressure.
Practice Under Pressure to Win Your Day!
By doing more pressure practice for bowling, you’ll discover more about the effectiveness of your current “performance process” in controlling your internal state and preparing for shots, and you can experiment with new ideas to give you further adaptability/tools under pressure.
Practice Under Pressure to Win Your Day!
Both Must Be Trained
99% of bowling instruction is aimed at improving technical skills, but unless you are in control of the mental side, you won’t be able to access your skills no matter how good they are.
If you are anxious, unable to focus and full of doubt, then your movement will be inhibited, and you will underperform.
How many times have you felt fully prepared technically but yet underachieved because something negative was winning the battle?
If you are anxious, unable to focus and full of doubt, then your movement will be inhibited, and you will underperform.
How many times have you felt fully prepared technically but yet underachieved because something negative was winning the battle?
It’s important that you work on training both: the technical and mental.
Start Training Your Mindset To Win the Day!
Start Training Your Mindset To Win the Day!
Excuse Extermination
Today, eliminate excuses from your life, for just one day. You can do anything for just one day. You don't need to eliminate excuses for your entire life - Just do it today.
Exterminate your excuses and start your day by saying: "This is my time, my life and my destiny. I make my own momentum and I will not stop today till I achieve my goal. I will attach today with a relentless positive entergy and Win the Day!"
Being unstoppable and successful is a decision that you make every day - every hour, every minute and every second of the day.
Have the awareness that success is a choice.
Every time you choose to lock in your focus and stay on task, you are strengthening your self-discipline muscle.
With each refocus and excuse elimination, that muscle will grow stronger and stronger, making it easier to bring about the positive changes you seek in your performance and in your life.
Exterminate your excuses and start your day by saying: "This is my time, my life and my destiny. I make my own momentum and I will not stop today till I achieve my goal. I will attach today with a relentless positive entergy and Win the Day!"
Being unstoppable and successful is a decision that you make every day - every hour, every minute and every second of the day.
Have the awareness that success is a choice.
Every time you choose to lock in your focus and stay on task, you are strengthening your self-discipline muscle.
With each refocus and excuse elimination, that muscle will grow stronger and stronger, making it easier to bring about the positive changes you seek in your performance and in your life.
Win Your 86,400 Today!
Thoughts Become Things
What you think about you bring about. Many bowlers will write mental game reminders on their shoes, grip sack, towel so that before league or tournament starts they are reminded of the mentality they need to have to be successful.
Today, advertise the mentality you want to yourself by hanging a Post-it® note or piece of paper with a motivational reminder. You can also set a reoccurring appointment or reminder on your phone with the same message.
What message will you remind yourself of today?
