Wednesday & other

Last night was another good work, with good work being done on my swing. It was also a bit frustrating though, mostly from getting tired though I think. But I've also had problems really focusing on my mark, hitting it, staying down and getting the proper lift on the ball. I think that a few days before we leave, I'm just going to bowl for fun, not worry about technicalities..

Exciting news (for me) though! I finally got my new ball! It's the Vivid by Storm.

It's drilled specifically to be stronger for me; to get to the pocket with more hook & power. Dan also had me trying out some different surfaces on it (sanding it) to see the different reactions. This is all the purpose for the long oil shot. Long oil means 45ft of oil, so there generally isn't much hook to be had on those types of shots. I unfortunately didn't get to practice with it on long, we were on more of a short shot, so there was a lot more hook than needed. Next Monday we're doing long so maybe I'll get to use the new ball on it (Dan doesn't want me using it too much so it doesn't burn out before the tourney). 

It's kind of crazy that there's only 2 weeks left until we leave! That means 4 more practice sessions, but I'll probably take the last one off, since it'll be Wednesday - we leave Thursday and will be practicing later that day, then bowling 18 games in the following 3 days.. so that's a lot of bowling. 

In the last post I was saying how maybe there would be a plan of attack for CNCs.. well I suppose there was, talking about different surfaces to use on the new ball and such. But we also talked about for next fall. Dan said that when he gets back from doing expos in August that he's going to fit me into a new wrist brace contraption. Sounds like it's going to keep me from being the full roller that I am, which will immensely help my game. He didn't put me into it right away because that's a big step to go to. I guess it basically forces/holds my hand into the proper position. That being said, my stuff will no longer be drilled properly for me so Dan said that if we get to that point he might be able to just give me a ball so that we don't have to plug and re-drill everything. To me it's not the end of the world, but when it comes to tournaments it could probably make a difference, since there's "foreign" substances in the ball now, it would change the overall reaction of the ball a bit I guess. So we'll figure that out when we get there, but it sounds promising for next year.

Oh also, I was comparing last year's average(s) to this year's and I actually didn't fall back to badly. Tournament scores had a significant difference I was -5 from last year, and that was even with averaging 206 in the scholarship tourney... League average was -2 and Monday sparing I went +4 (but I had less games played this year so that doesn't mean a whole bunch). Overall I am -3, averaging 183 throughout the year (even though I haven't factored in CNCs like I did last year, it would probably be about the same). So really, it's not that bad.. it's just disappointing that I didn't improve my average, especially after averaging 190+ during the summer. But that IS a totally different environment so I guess that's not much of an argument... haha, whatever.

Alrighty, 14 days!