Almost There

At today's practice I didn't work too much at using different lines like on Monday. I had enough of that and just wanted to get some confidence going. It definitely worked! I'm still not 100% there for the long shot though; it was supposed to be what it was Monday but it seemed like there was lighter oil or something, it was not as tough as Monday.. or maybe I was used to using the line I was shooting/I was shooting the right line.

Using my vivid, I ended up going down the 5, eye on the dots, just about a foot out on the lane instead of the arrows farther down. For some reason looking closer helps get the ball rolling into the direction of the pocket sooner, which is needed on a long shot.

Once it dried up a bit more I switched to my invasion since it's an older ball it has less energy to it, and changed my line to 10. I made the change instantaneously perfectly, guessing a movement of 6 boards with my feet to the left. Twice now it seems to be if I move 5 with my eyes, a move of 6 with my feet should have me close (if I remember correctly - I really need to start writing things down).

So I have a good feel for the long now, which will be the toughest pattern out there. Ideally I would love to get back on the short and find a good line. I did get some good practice on it, but instead of really trying to find a line, I was trying tough lines to see how they worked and I was working more on my hand placement and release. Unfortunately they're only putting out long from now on. But at least when we get there on Thursday we can practice so I'll spend most of my time on the short and the medium (I haven't had a chance on that one but it'll probably play more like a house shot Im thinking).

Overall I'm feeling a lot more confident now and just want to get there already. I'm going for one more practice Monday and then I'll rest until Thursday.

Side note: I lost ANOTHER thumb slug. I was using my larger one because once again it was really warm in the alley so my thumb was swelling. Dan, the pro shop guy, happened to be watching. I told him and he flipped his shit pretty much. He said here and Calgary are the only places he's heard of that happening so much (I've done it in both..). They couldn't find it so Dan said he'd do another for me. So frustrating. So that was the end of the night since I couldn't use my smaller one. I would have been done anyways, I only had 3 frames left and I was getting really tired. I ended up shooting 212 the first game by the way.

8 days!