Evidence of Expiration: Lessons Anyone?

Ever seen anyone get a bowling lesson? Me neither, and I'm a USBC coach.

That is a touch misleading. I have given lessons here and there. Maybe twenty-five total in the six years that I have been a Bronze level coach. That is absurdly low for a skill sport that relies on technique, skill, and repetition.

Worse yet, not many bowlers even ask about lessons. Somehow success in this activity is just supposed to fall from the sky? Gifted to you by the deity of your choosing? Just a matter of doing it enough? WTF?

Go to any golf course or driving range and you will find someone qualified to teach you. You know what else you'll find? At least one other person who wants a lesson as well. Golf, because it has not cowed to its participants, is supposed to be hard. It mandates that you ask someone for assistance to get better. Golfers expect to work hard to improve. And they sure as hell don't complain about the difficulty of the course to the front desk.

Bowlers? They pull off the unthinkable hat trick -- most never practice, most never even ask for a lesson, and the majority will complain endlessly about not having the tools necessary to compete. and god forbid you tweak the oil pattern.

(...and, deep breath.)

Thank you for your tolerance, I've been holding that one in for a while.

There is another side to this, that those who would be teachers in this sport have not stepped up to the plate, ever. As long as I have been around bowling, unless you live next to a pro, are a child in a youth league, or close to a state-of-the-art training center, you are on your own. Most pro shops are not coaches nor are they particularly interested. My opinion is most good bowlers are not interested in making anyone else better because it's too costly in the long run. Make a bowler better and they will kill you on league night or in the brackets.

You may think this a vain reason but trust me, it sucks to help out a low-average bowler, only to have that same bowler destroy your team a week later. This usually happens after I drill someone a new ball and has spawned what I call the "Team 8 Rule", which states that I have the right to not drill your ball if my team bowls your team within twenty-four hours of the act. It is obviously named after a team whose members did exactly what I described many times. They can also burn in hell.

(By the way, is anybody else irritated by teams that can't get their creative shit together to name themselves? Drives me crazy. If I ran the USBC, unnamed teams would have names decided for them, such as "The Lady-men" and "Ball Bag Sniffers".)

Wow, I am angry today. Good thing I don't feel like writing about the handicapping system.