Big Picture Bowling

The ball crosses 13 at the arrows, heading toward the gutter before it picks up in the midlane, hooks away from board five, and rolls into the pocket as the pins go ten-back into the pit. A casual observer watches in disbelief at how much the ball hooked. The bowler’s teammate cheers and says, “Great shot!” The bowler shakes his head, looks frustrated, and looks down at his hand while coming back, smiling sheepishly as he gets high-fives from the other bowlers on the pair.

All three people experienced the same strike, yet all three people had different reactions. What was the difference? Perspective. As a human being, keeping perspective can help manage life’s ups and downs. As a competitive bowler, being able to keep perspective forms part of the foundation of a solid mental game.

“Reality is a question of perspective.”
–Salman Rushdie

Perspective is a way of regarding something, a point of view. In the introductory example, the points of view were all different for the exact same event:

• The casual observer who bowls a few times per year and can barely make a spare watched an “expert bowler” throw a bowling ball that seemed to magically change direction just before disaster.
• The teammate watched something they’ve seen many times before: their anchor bowler throwing a strike, with his customary release and power through the pins.
• The bowler watched the ball sail right of target, recovering just enough in the dry part of the lane to get back to the pocket and strike.

This article will focus on perspective, both as a skill that can be developed, and on how it applies to bowling at both a macro and micro level.

Developing perspective

Keeping perspective on anything in life is a skill that you can develop and transfer to your bowling game. Different contexts use this ...