Oh, those precious minutes of practice before league! There are so many things you need to do with them. You’ve got to get your drink, fight for your table, shuffle the cards, greet everybody, and oh yeah, find the shot. The strategy for this is one of my favorite subjects!
I am, of course, assuming that you are being treated like an athlete and the center/tournament recognizes that bowling is a sport and therefore you have adequate time to warm up your body and prepare for competition. This truly is not the time to do all those things in the first paragraph. That should have happened long before you hear the call, “Good evening and welcome to the members of the Up Your Average League.”
You have a lot to do before that announcement so you’ve got to get to the center early enough to do it all. You must check all of your equipment to be sure it fits tonight and place the ones you intend to use first on the ball return. The others are close by so when you need to go to them in practice, they are available and not in the garage. You have your shoes on and have checked the approaches properly, your towel is in place, and your drinking water is ready. You have dynamically warmed up instead of stretching since you know stretching is inappropriate for cold muscles. You’ve allowed one of those well-fitting balls to swing your arm several times.
Let’s talk about that “checked all of your equipment to be sure it fits” comment. Just like you are wise enough to know you must go with whatever game you brought with you tonight, you also should know that whatever adjustments you have made to the fit by adding or removing ...
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