Paul's Bowling Place - Bowling Home
Paul's Lifetime Bowling Passion
Bowling has been a life passion for me. I have been bowling in one form or another for most of my life. It is a great competitive outlet, stress reliever and also a way of making new friends and socializing with existing ones ("a night out with the boys").
Tenpin and Duckpin Bowling
While there are many different types of bowling, I have mainly competed in two types: tenpin and duckpin. The two bowling centers that I bowl leagues at have both tenpin and duckpin lanes. What follows is my personal history of bowling in these two games.
Tenpin Bowling
Some Recent Honor Scores!
I have been bowling tenpins since my mid-twenties. I dabbled with it a little as a teen after I stopped duckpin bowling, but never took it seriously and mostly just bowled recreationally. My wife and I were looking for something that we could do together, we both enjoyed bowling and decided to start bowling on mixed leagues together. It was a fun time and we really enjoyed it. After a few years, I realized that I was getting pretty good and had a desire to get even better. I bowled on several men's teams, tried "scratch" leagues and received some coaching to improve my game and before you know it, here I am a competitive bowler!
If you really want to learn the game properly and improve yourself, professional coaching is the best way to go. It took me years to learn some things that I could have learned in weeks if only I had gotten lessons from a coach.
Being analytically inclined, I love the technology that goes into bowling balls and cannot get enough information about ball dynamics and movement and the general physics of how and why a bowling ball hooks like it does.
The last three years I have been the youth coordinator and coach of a local bowling center's youth program. This has proven to be a "full-time" part-time job, as we have three leagues on Saturday.
I have been certified at the "Bronze level" by the USBC. Even though I am certified and could charge for lessons I do not get paid to coach youth bowlers, I volunteer my time because I want to share my knowledge and love of the sport, especially with children - they are the future of this sport!
Duckpin Bowling
I bowled duck pins as a youth...it is still pretty popular in the Baltimore / DC area, but not as much as when I was young. I bowled with my grandmother in youth / adult leagues growing up. It was fun and frustrating all at the same time.
The best averages in the game are in the 140-150 range, so that will give you an idea as to how much harder it is than tenpins, where the best averages can be 240 or even better.
As far as I know, there has never been a perfect game in duck pins either. The balls are 3 to 4 pounds and so small that they will fit in between the 2 and 3 pins, in other words, you can chop out the 1-5 and leave everything else standing...this is more common than you would think.
You get three balls per turn and everything is manually controlled by the bowler - clearing deadwood and resetting the rack.
