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 George Freeman's Expert Bowling Tips
Look, Don't Aim 8/26/2000 - By George Freeman
When targeting, whether you use the dots, arrows, or pins, the idea is to hit what you are looking at. The trick is to stay loose enough so your natural flow can bring the ball to your target. When you start aiming, the muscles tend to tense up, disrupting your swing and can cause you to pull the ball, or throw it harder, or any number of other things. Anytime you try harder, you put more pressure on yourself, which in turn makes the job your muscles have to do that much tougher.
First off, relax. No one hits the same mark every single time (contrary to what some people will tell you). When you get up on the lane, look at what you want to hit, but don't put too much thought into actually hitting it. Remember, thought gets in the way of motion. Your muscles will naturally try to hit what your eyes are looking at, so you need to put as little conscious thought into actually doing it as possible.
Think of your brain as a pool of water. Think of thoughts as pebbles in the water. When the water is calm, you can see your reflection rather clearly. When you start dropping pebbles into the water, what happens? The water starts to ripple, and the picture gets distorted. The more pebbles, the more ripples--pretty soon, you can't tell what the reflection actually is. Bowling is the same thing--the fewer thoughts, the clearer the picture. So do your best to not actually try to aim at your target, just look at it, and let your body do the rest.
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