Bowling - not one kind of a game

Bang! You just slipped the ball backward. Luckily the 6-year-old next lane eluded from the K.O.! Obfuscated, embarrassed, and lost, you gathered yourself and got the ball again to fix the botch. Oh, you made it - to feed the gutter. Yummy!

Sound familiar?

Without proper instruction, Bowling IS a tough game. What's more dishearening is that the one next to you seems to posess alchemy. His ball goes in banana like path. X! You try hard to emulate but the glutters exploit your hard work.

Also, unlike other real-time competing sports like soccer or basketball, there is no interaction from your teammates nor contestants. In Bowling, 10 cold pins are all you have to deal with. So, what's so fancy about the game?

In a nutshell, bowling is a personal mind game.

Well, it doesn't mean you don't need to move your limbs. Yet even with the most precise calculation and intensive practice, only the performance at the moment counts. Put it this way, the score is an instant measurement of WHAT YOU ARE. Your body coordination, analysis of the lane condition, judgements, and the mentality at the moment you throw the ball make your score. So before you bowl, you must be determined to strike.

Even more fascinated, in a competition, you are the only limelight. No 2 bowlers will bowl simultaneously. In other sports, for example, saucer gunshot, there's only one player at a time. But don't forget there really isn't the crowd, or that the crowd is so distant you don't actually "feel" it. Therefore, the ability to handle the crowd is crucial. Imagine this, Wu Siu Hong, HK best known bowler just threw a glutter ball. He must have been resilent enough to continue the match.

Another fun part of bowling is the thunderous noise resulted from clear strike. Clear strike does give you confidence to play even better. Once the ball is released, you pretty much know if it will strike or not. If it is going to do so, you might just close your eyes and wait for the sound of joy and excitment!

So, bowling ostensibly is kind of a stupid and lonely game. Yet there is much to enjoy if you can see it from a different perspective.