From Chaos to Control

We all know that bowler who has a very solid physical game, but doesn’t seem to perform at the level you might expect. Maybe you are that bowler. We also know bowlers who are just starting out, trying to absorb everything they can about the game, but often winding up more confused. Maybe you are that bowler.

In either case, the mistake is approaching your development with the wrong mindset.

For some, it’s all about the physical game, and even once they’ve reached an incredible skill level, they still focus far too much on drills and repetition. At a certain point, you don’t need more technical training; you need competition training.

Other bowlers start trying to absorb too much information too fast before their foundation is solid, trying to manipulate their ball roll before they’ve even mastered one release. It’s hard to rush the process.

Either type of bowler would benefit from shifting to a more systematic approach. The key is understanding what to focus on at different stages, and treating their bowling game as a system of interconnected skills and knowledge, starting with a strong foundation.

And through all this, you still want to make it fun.

The bowling athlete as a system

The components that every bowler needs to develop are their biomechanics and technique, lane play skills, and mental game.

The challenge comes from where and when to work on these things. If you introduce certain concepts too early, without the proper technique, you end up with a high-variance bowler. They are capable of greatness but aren’t stable enough to be consistent.

If you don’t work on lane play concepts enough later on, you get bowlers who underperform relative to their skill set. These athletes usually have some sort of “bias” in their game, meaning they tend to stick to the same types of ...