Do Not Stress Over Your Competition

Stan Popovich

Many athletes sometimes get anxious when they play against a tough opponent. They get nervous on who they are competing with and they get so worked up that they lose focus on playing their sport. In the end, they make mistakes and end up beating themselves up if they do not win. As a result, here is a list of techniques that an athlete can use to help manage the stress of playing against the competition.

The first step is to learn as much as you can on your opponent. Although this may seem obvious, some athletes may think they already know what they need to know. Remember there is always something to learn about your competition. Read the reports about your opponent and watch him or her performance. Try to figure out an angle on how you can beat your competition. The more you know about your competition the better your chances are you will win. This will also help to reduce your worries in the future.

Do not assume anything about your competition whether they are stronger or weaker than you. Every athlete has his good and bad times and just because you may be facing a stronger opponent does not mean that you will lose. Remember that you and your opponent both have an equal chance of winning. You are both starting from scratch. This should help you to give you confidence going into your next event.

Focus on how you can best strive for perfection in your own event instead of worrying about your opponent. For instance, you are going against the number one athlete in the tournament and you are nervous. Instead of focusing on how good your competition is, focus on your performance. Concentrate on how you can perform your event and how you can best improve on your problem areas.

Realize that you can't win all of the time and that also includes your competition. You may be the best athlete in the world, however you will still sometimes lose. No one can win all of the time. When facing a tough competitor, use this fact to your advantage. Even the best athletes will make some mistakes.

It is not uncommon to get nervous when you go against a better opponent. All you can do is to focus on your skill sets and do the best you can. This will help you in the long run.

BIOGRAPHY

Stan Popovich is the author of "A Layman's Guide to Managing Fear Using Psychology, Christianity and Non Resistant Methods" - an easy to read book that presents a general overview of techniques that are effective in managing persistent fears and anxieties. For additional information go to: http://www.managingfear.com

MANAGING YOUR ANXIETIES IN YOUR BOWLING

Stanley Popovich

At times, our worries and anxieties can overwhelm us. In addition, our worries can distort our perception of what is reality and what is not. As a result, this may interfere with your bowling. Here is a brief list of techniques that a bowler can use to help gain a better perspective on things during their anxious moments.

Sometimes we get stressed out when everything happens all at once. When this happens, a person should take a deep breath and try to find something to do for a few minutes to get their mind off of the problem. A person could read the newspaper, listen to some music or do an activity that will give them a fresh perspective on things. This is a great technique to use right before your next game.

Remember that our fearful thoughts are exaggerated and can make the problem worse. A good way to manage your worry is to challenge your negative thinking with positive statements and realistic thinking. When encountering thoughts that make you fearful or anxious, challenge those thoughts by asking yourself questions that will maintain objectivity and common sense.

Remember that all the worrying in the world will not change anything. Most of what we worry about never comes true. Instead of worrying about something that probably won’t happen, concentrate on what you are able to do.

Another technique that is very helpful is to have a small notebook of positive statements that you can carry around with you. Whenever you come across an affirmation that makes you feel good, write it down in a small notebook that you can carry around with you. Whenever you feel stressed before your event, open up your small notebook and read those statements. This will help to manage your negative thinking.

In every anxiety-related situation you experience, begin to learn what works, what doesn’t work, and what you need to improve on in managing your fears and anxieties. For instance, you have a lot of anxiety before your event and you decide to take a walk to help you feel better. The next time you feel anxious you can remind yourself that you got through it the last time by taking a walk. This will give you the confidence to manage your anxiety the next time around.

Take advantage of the help that is available around you. If possible, talk to a professional who can help you manage your fears and anxieties. They will be able to provide you with additional advice and insights on how to deal with your current problem. By talking to a professional, a person will be helping themselves in the long run because they will become better able to deal with their problems in the future. Remember that it never hurts to ask for help.

It is not easy to deal with all of our fears and worries. When your fears and anxieties have the best of you, try to calm down and then get the facts of the situation. The key is to take it slow. All you can do is to do your best each day, hope for the best, and when something does happen, take it in stride. Take it one step at a time and things will work out.

BIOGRAPHY:

Stan Popovich is the author of “A Layman’s Guide to Managing Fear Using Psychology, Christianity and Non Resistant Methods” – an easy to read book that presents a general overview of techniques that are effective in managing persistent fears and anxieties. For additional information go to: http://www.managingfear.com/

The unusual bowling in college story

Did you watch the Tennessee Volunteers upset #3 Pittsburgh in college basket ball on Saturday, December 11? It pains me as an alum of the Memphis Tigers to see Tennessee do well in basketball. One player on Tennessee's roster was not eligible for this game. He is forward Jeronne Maymon. Maymon transferred to Tennessee from Marquette. Maymon is ready to join the team after sitting out his NCAA mandated year due to transfer. However, he was not cleared to play because he was still waiting on one class to post his grade. That class was bowling.

Maymon took and says he passed five classes in the fall semester; the final grade he's waiting to get posted and make his eligibility official is a bowling class that ended in October.

Please, no jock jokes on types of classes. I took bowling as a PE class at Memphis State in 1983. Yes, it was an easy A. I knew how to keep score. I knew the history of the American Bowling Congress. I was already a 185-190 average bowler, so averaging a 130 in class for an A was a piece of cake. Besides trying to boost my GPA with an already loaded engineering curriculum, I now had practice time. The Tennessee state tournament was going to be held in Memphis that year. One of the houses hosting the tournament was also the house hosting the bowling PE class. I had a whole semester of practice at the tournament host site for no charge. Well, there was a charge. It was buried in my tuition.

That kind of rationalization can still work today. I see businesses doing corporate outings for team building exercises. Maybe I can organize a team building event at the local bowling center hosting the city tournament this year.

They moved the fences in.

Jason Thomas had an excellent article on pba.com concerning the changes he has noticed in softball as the seasons roll on over time. As it was on a bowling web site, reading the story had me thinking of the current softball season as an allegory to the current state of bowling leagues. I'm pretty sure that was the author's intention.

It was not a great game to play or to watch being played, one team getting mauled and the other circling the bases regularly with no real effort. How fun was it on the other side? No strategy, no base running, only which guy can jack the ball over the fence the farthest seemed to matter. Is that really why we play the game now?

I've been 'retired' from softball for ten years now. We were all growing older and our kids were now starting their activities. Softball became a lower priority. However, I remember the waning days of my softball career. Our team was composed of primarily engineers by trade. We were a bunch of desk jockeys or meeting attendees. The teams we played were sponsored by air conditioning companies or plumbing companies. These guys did manual labor. Their forearms were bigger than my thighs.

I have played for Coach on Monday nights for 31 years now, from wood bats to aluminum bats to carbon bats to exotic composite material bats.

Yep, these huge guys were swinging the newest technology also. The newest softball bats now cost as much as your high-end reactive resin bowling ball. An extra $250 in my pocket is going for a new bowling ball, not a new bat. With livelier softballs, I started to fear for my life when I had to pitch. Bowling gave me some slow pitch softball skills as I could put some serious arc on a pitch. The pitch may be called illegal for how high it went, but I could drop it in for a strike. No one else wanted to pitch as a flat pitch was going to be hit solidly....HARD...turning it into a lethal projectile.

If we went back to wood bats and didn’t do anything to the ball, the game would be much more fun to watch and much more fun to play. Singles and doubles would matter again, off center swats would be ground balls or pop flies instead of gappers or home runs. Good pitching, timely hitting and tight defense would settle ball games, not a tape measure.

Aren't we really discussing tougher lane conditions, spare shooting, timely adjustments, and a solid mental game? If we go the extreme, this could be a discussion on more rigid equipment specifications. Since I have already written on that subject, I won't rehash it here.

The question you have to ask yourself is do you want to be competitive in every bowling center, or just string strikes with no real measure of your true ability? If the latter, the proprietors have a bat, ball, and short fences for your enjoyment.

Lamentations of a League Secretary/Treasurer

As the fall/winter leagues end, my job as a league secretary/treasurer has ended for the season. I was the secretary/treasurer of the Huntsville All Star League. I had done this previously many years ago. The bowling center did this job in the previous years, with no charge to the league. However, difficulties arose over the years as many people trying to keep the records and books for one league led to many errors. They wanted a league member to resume these duties.

During the league meeting, I was nominated for the position. Knowing there was a demand with no other person wanting the job, I accepted provided the fee of $1/person/week was accepted. Ladies and gentlemen, this is Economics 101. Low supply with high demand leads to high prices. Maybe I should have asked for more. Why? Computers and league secretary software do all the work. Why can you command such a salary?

By my calculations, I think holding this particular office cost me 5-8 pins in average. Pin Palace was the lowest scoring house in the Huntsville USBC last season. Only 4 people averaged over 220 in the whole bowling center last season. Walking to the line and having 8 boards of area would allow me to think about where that extra $25 went. A huge contrast compared to the other centers in the association. Concentration was required on my game instead of counting funds and ensuring accurate league fund record keeping.

Let me be clear. I would be league secretary for no expense. The league is paying for my duties as league treasurer. This is the job for which I can be suspended by the USBC for any irregularities. League secretary software is easy to manipulate averages, games, wins, etc. I require all this data anyway to update the Huntsville All Star League website. I had the bowling center provide me with the league files in the previous years to maintain the website. The treasurer side of the software is adequate once you have collected the funds. This is the 'pain in the a**' part of bowling nights. Some bowlers seem to think that they can bowl without paying. What other industry provides a service for a promise to pay at a later date? I ask, beg, command for late league fees. Some teams even forget to deliver the pay envelope to me. I would like to bowl also. I don't want to spend the evening counting funds, and ensuring accurate records of each team's pay envelope.

Here is a personal pet peeve about team fees. I only care about the team t0tal payment, not each individual's weekly payment. I talk to the team captain about whether the team is ahead or behind in payment. I would think it is his responsibility to interpret this information for use to divide among the team members. I get a question from one bowler concerning their payment history and I have to interpret their pay envelope when it is hardly entered neat and legible. I try to anticipate this at the beginning of the year by interpreting each team's record keeping system. This is done so I can prove whether a bowler is $20 or $50 behind in league payments.

The other part of being a league secretary that makes me very nervous is the end of year payouts. Yes, I am taking the entire leagues' prize fund as one check and cashing it. I walk out of the bank with over $20,000. I am on edge until the prize fund is paid out.

It is stressful. The All Star League is competitive and I would very much want to be in the midst of the competition. Like the other members, I want to bowl. I don't want to count money, find the miscalculation, and pay the bowling center. I want to bowl well. If the league members get into a nice rhythm of accurate record keeping, and timely delivery of the pay envelope, I could reduce my fee for the less stress and work. However, I charge for my time and frustration. I'm thinking about raising my rates next year.

Any one else have a league secretary/treasurer story?