Session Type: League
I came across an old journal entry from last summer after a couple of really bad league nights, and it stopped me for a second.
One night I shot 154, 156, 148.
Another week it was 150, 170, 120-something.
I remember how down I felt. Not just because of the scores, but because I felt like I should be better than that. Even without a ton of practice, I expected more than scraping around 150. Everything felt off. Shots missed inside. I couldn’t get the ball to do what I wanted. Something that worked the week before just completely stopped working.
What made it even more frustrating was that earlier in the day — during a prebowl — I averaged around 200. Same bowler. Same equipment. Same lanes. Then league came around and it all fell apart.
At the time, I didn’t really know why.
I thought the issue was targeting. I had started focusing more downlane instead of staring at the arrows, and it worked for a bit… until it didn’t. I blamed transition, the slower league pace, other people breaking down the lanes. All of those things were part of the picture, but none of them were the real problem.
Looking back now, the difference between then and now is pretty clear.
I wasn’t wrong to think downlane — I just didn’t have a complete targeting system yet.
I wrote about targeting the arrows vs targeting the breakpoint before.
Today, I don’t just “aim downlane.” I draw a mental line from my laydown point through the arrows to where I want the ball to exit the pattern. I still use the arrows, but they’re a checkpoint, not the destination. After the shot, I stay with the ball visually and read what the lane is actually telling me — not what I hope it’s doing.
That one change alone made a massive difference.
The prebowl vs league issue makes more sense now too. Prebowling hides a lot of weaknesses. There’s less transition, a faster pace, and fewer variables. League exposes everything — especially poor lane reading, slow adjustments, and emotional carryover from frame to frame.
And yes… spares mattered. A lot. When ball motion feels unpredictable, spare shooting is usually the first thing to suffer, even if you don’t want to admit it.
The biggest takeaway for me — and what I tell students now — is this:
Bad nights aren’t random.
They’re feedback.
If something “suddenly stops working,” it usually means your process wasn’t as solid as you thought yet. That doesn’t mean you’re regressing. It means you’ve hit the next layer of understanding.
Reading this old entry now, it’s kind of funny. I remember how lost I felt — and I also know how much farther ahead I am today because of moments like that. Not in spite of them.
Those nights didn’t mean I was getting worse.
They were part of learning how to see the lane more clearly.