And, bowlers go into slumps as well. A slump is a period of time during which you are habitually underperforming, and there are two kinds of slumps that bowlers fall into.
In one, your entire game is simply out of sync. I think any time you have more than two weeks of performing well below your average for an entire night, it would be con- sidered a slump.
The second is when you continually fail in a particular situation, despite otherwise bowling well.
The fi rst tends to be physical at the start and becomes more of a mental issue over time. The second is almost completely mental.
In both cases, however the slump breeds frustration, which ultimately compounds the problem.
The start of a weeks-long slump usually stems from a physical fl aw…bad timing, an inconsistent release, a muscled swing. The reality is that you are not executing in a way you are familiar with. So much of bowling is repeatability, and your movements become almost second nature. You don’t think about them.
Once you start failing, however, your confi dence fades, and your anxiety builds. Your ability to recognize the physical fl aws that are causing your poor results gets a little clouded. When that happens, your attempts to change your game result in yet more problems.
Head Case: Slumps start with a physical fl aw, but can quickly get into your head.
Slumps often become nothing more than a lack of trust in what you already know your body can do, and what your body has done thousands of times before. Instead of your body moving naturally, you try to direct it.
Take the baseball hitter, for example. You constantly read and hear that so-and-so is in a 2-for-35 slump. This is the same hitter who has a lifetime batting average of nearly .300. Clearly he has not forgotten how to hit a baseball. But over the course of a few weeks he just isn’t hitting. The problem, at the start, is clearly physical. But by the time his “slump” reached 20 at bats, the problem is creeping into his head. The anxiety of wanting to break out of his slump is caus- ing him to think during each at bat. In this
Slump Busting by Dean Hinitz, Ph.D. J
ust about every bowler who competes even semi-seriously will eventually run into some sort of slump. Slumping is the experience of declining performance that does not seem to get better with any of your standard quick fi x techniques. Simply put, you are bowling badly; it lasts;
you don’t know what to do about it. If this is you, your slump is either mental, or it is physical. However, if the slump lasts long enough, it will inevitably contain both components. As Einstein once noted, you cannot solve your problems using the same consciousness that got you into them. If your slump is based on physical problems, you have to risk changing your approach, taking coaching, trying technique changes and focusing on execution as a priority over immediate results. If your problem is at least partly
mental, then you have to address your spirit, your attitude, your perfectionism, and your need for things to turn around right away. The way you go about working through this is a refl ection of the way you see yourself. Defi ne yourself as a committed athlete fi rst and foremost, one who can work through anything. Learn to shift to an approach of “excellence,” versus having to execute perfectly every time. Lastly, trust the process of taking feedback through great coaching, and having the courage to stick with it. Your bowling will get better. It’s almost guaranteed!!