* A Positive Mental Attitude is Essential

Is Attitude important to your bowling? How important is it? What attitude should you take towards bowling?

This phrase kind of sums it all up: Your Attitude Is What Counts!

Attitude is probably the most important part of your bowling game. I have been told that if you were to weigh the two main aspects of bowling (physical & mental), your mental game has to get better over time. Usually we look at it this way: when you start bowling it is 15% mental and 85% physical, as you get better the scales switch and it becomes much more mental than physical.

Your physical game is the actual physical control of the ball (i.e. the pushout, the pendulum, the slide, etc.. (this is all covered in my article “4 Step vs 5 Step Approach”). Your mental game is how you view the results of your physical game. This can (and will!) change from frame to frame. It is important that you realize where your attitude is, negative or positive and manage it accordingly.

If you have a negative attitude it will cause you to bowl worse. The worse your attitude gets, the worse your bowling gets. If you throw a bad ball, or get a bad break on the lanes (i.e. a 7-10 or 8-10 split), you have to shake it off and not let it impact your bowling. That is much harder than it seems.

If you keep your attitude positive, it will help you to bowl better. By keeping a positive attitude, you can improve your average or at least maintain it. If you are having a "bad" night (i.e. not bowling your average), keeping your attitude positive will allow you to bowl the best score that you can on the condition that you face, thus keeping your average higher in the long run.

If you have a bad night, you want it to be as good as you can possibly make it so that it doesn't affect your average too much. After all, if you keep your pin count up, your average won't suffer as much.

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