Well that was a fun 5 weeks. I went from the bottom division, to being in the promotional championship, dominated that championship match, got matched up with the overall champion by chance, won that by 20 points or so and was the first person in the history of our DUMBO league to ever get promoted and win the overall championship the following week. I was on cloud nine and as you may recall I couldn't even point out what it was that I had changed. The following week I had to defend the championship belt against arguably the best player DUMBO has ever had, and demolished him. I won by over 100 points with scores of 178, 204, and 191. It was a blowout and I appeared as though I had found my form and was going to dominate for while.
Unfortunately, the following weeks were less than ideal and it appeared as though my moment of excellence was slowly but surely coming to an end. I lost in my 2nd title defense, not by a lot but by 50 or so. It was convincing enough and it was to the guy who I took the belt off of 2 weeks prior. I didn't get any "bye" weeks during my reign at the top.
The next week I bowled decently but wasn't in any sort of competition other than getting a high enough score to stay in the top division. Each week the lowest high-score of 2 games gets relegated to the 2nd division and the person who wins the 2nd division promotion gets the white belt and enters the top tier.
I BARELY stayed up in my one week after losing the belt, with a high score out of two games of 138. The next week unfortunately, I just couldn't make anything work.
I dont know what it is but sometimes I get up there and release the ball and things go right and other times it seems as though I have no control over what is going on. The worst part about this last week was that I kept missing single pin spares that honestly, you have to make if you are going to play in the top league. I ended the day with a high score of a mere 120 points.
As has become a bit typical of me when I am in a slump, I was constantly knocking down 9 on ball one and then missing the remaining pin most of the time by a lot. I need to do better than this.
So now I am getting sent back down to the 2nd division where I will not be eligible to crawl my way out for at least 2 more weeks. I think I am going to go and practice next week not to try to get a high score but to try my damndest to figure the hell out what it is that makes me throw well, and what it is that makes me just miss single pins all the time. The ability to hit a single pin is absolutely essential to bowling and if you can't do that, well, you need to figure that out before you are ever going to get anything decent on the scorecards.
My overall ranking based on averages looked like I was going to get into the top 3, but now I am ranked 5th of out 26 people. Not bad I guess, but I don't like doing worse than I can do!