The Tao of Bowling

OK, finally here's that bowling column I promised a couple months back. No, it's not because I got inundated with requests for a column on bowling, I just always felt it was something I should write about. There's something about bowling, perhaps a science to it, or maybe something more. Maybe it's spiritual...

No, I'm not losing it, all I've done is go out to Thunderbird Lanes the last couple of weekends and after several games and several futile attempts to break 150, I've really started to wonder if there really is some sort of connection required between you and the ball and the pins in order to have any kind of success at this sport. Now for those of you who are reading this and aren't from upstate New York (which may be very few), you probably won't right away understand the place bowling holds around here. See, as you know, our winters are way, way, too long, and so we don't get to do what all of you out there do outside very often, like beer league softball or golf or croquet or whatever. We need a sport we can play several months of the year, one where alcohol is an integral part of the game (if you want it to be), and where basic athletic talents are not necessary.

Hence, bowling.

Now when I refer to alcohol as an integral part of the game, I'm referring to your average league bowling night. This is where middle-age guys who could not bowl their weight if they wanted to (and in some cases it's mathematically impossible; after all, you can't bowl higher than a 300) wear tacky multi-colored shirts and try to engage in the long-cherished manly art of trying not to make bigger asses out of yourselves than the guys you're bowling against. That's not us, not yet anyway (perhaps 20 years and 100 pounds from now). Some of our bunch isn't even of legal drinking age, and those of us who do choose to imbibe prefer to limit it to a mixed drink of our choice. However, in some cases, it might be encouraged to drink more, cuz I've seen guys who actually bowl BETTER while drunk.

Which gets me to the actual mental key to bowling, which supposedly is not to think about it. I'd say that this is where my whole point about the spiritual side comes into play. I mean, hell, isn't meditation supposed to be all about not thinking, clearing your mind of conscious thought. If I've learned anything from "The Simpsons", it's from that one episode with Lisa trying to turn Bart into a Tao-inspired super-mini-golfer. And so, the key is to not to think about it. Perhaps not by pondering the questions of the universe, like: Why do I have to wear these tacky sherbet-colored shoes, and why am I throwing this polished piece of granite or whatever the hell it is down this waxed piece of wood to knock down ten pieces of wood? No, the proper procedure is to just go into your motion, roll the ball down the lane and then meditate on it some. OMMMMMMMM...

...unless of course, this doesn't work so hot, and your ball winds up in the gutter, in which case, it's more like OMMMMMOTHERF#$%ER!!! Which is when you resort to other techniques which may improve your game. Like no-tap. This actually doesn't improve your game, just your score, since in no-tap, if you knock 9 pins down on your first throw, it counts as a strike. Sure, it may be cheating a bit, but who cares if it makes your score better? Besides, doesn't improve things much; my best normal score is around 150, and with no-tap, I've never done better than 160.

So, perhaps there could be another method of improving your game. In our case, it's an incentive program. Throw a strike, make someone do 10 push-ups. Throw a spare, make someone do 5 push-ups. Throw a gutterball, YOU do 10 push-ups. I must say, the first time we tried this, I threw a grand total of 2 gutterballs the rest of the night, and I'm talking 4 or 5 games. Just don't get on your buddy's bad side because he may have a 200 average and make you do all the push-ups.

And then there is technique. See all the great pro bowlers and a bunch of my friends who do a lot better than I do use a different technique than just rolling the ball straight down the center of the lane. They manage to put a spin on it so that it starts out curving to the right (or left if you're a southpaw), and then it comes right back to the middle of the lane in time to smash right through all the pins. This does appear to be more effective if done properly, it's just the "done properly" part of it that I can't get. I'd guess that I average around a 120-130 most games when I bowl just straight down the lane. The one time I tried to bowl the whole game "like the pros", I think I wound up with a 36. Thank goodness we weren't doing push-ups that night.

The best night to do something like this is on a night when the local bowling center does what is called "Rock-n-Bowl". They turn on blacklights to make the lanes and pins glow and pump in loud music all night. This helps with the "not thinking" aspect as well, since if you get focused on a favorite song of yours, you think less about having to roll the ball, and as a result you may do better. Where we go, the music is piped in by a satellite/Internet service called (as god is my witness) Rock 300, Bowling Radio. The problem with this is that since most of the music is requested, and we are dealing with mostly teenagers at these things, as the night gets later, the music gets steadily worse. That may not do so well to help with the whole blocking out thought thing, as your dislike of the music may become so intense that you throw the ball directly into the gutter out of frustration.

Or you could always multiply 'N Sync by 2, put them at the end of the lane in place of the pins, and bingo, instant strike!!! Hmm, not a bad idea. I should try that next time...