Professional Bowling: A Personal Reflection on Participation and Enrichment

This article is a personal reflection on participation and enrichment in professional bowling as a leisure time occupation. It discusses the process of learning bowling, how to locate resources, and how it enriched the author's life. The article also highlights how bowling helped the author fulfill personal goals and improve skills in social participation, patience, and physical fitness.

Running head: PROFESSIONAL BOWLING
Independent Project Bowling
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

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According to Foubert-Samier et al. (2012), all human beings engage in occupation
either for professional gain or for personal gain. The following assignment is about my own
reflection of personal participation in professional bowling as a part of my leisure time
occupation. The reflection will mostly highlight the reasons behind why I choose bowling
above other games; how it enriched my life and the process, which I went through to learn
this new occupation. I will also try to highlight how I located the resources or the tools,
which are required to undertake the occupation, my learning experience, my personal
thoughts and how this occupation helped to fulfill my personal goals and the skills, which I
have developed eventually while taking part in professional bowling.
Professional Bowling as Occupation
As a 41 years old man with a family of three kids, I have many financial
responsibilities on my shoulders. My daily work profession as a phone technician was
gradually increasing my sedentary mode of life and along with monotony. I was gradually
gaining weight and I was slowly becoming addicted towards smoking in order to fight against
my stress. Therefore, when the idea came to engage in some new occupation, which will
bring new excitement in my otherwise monotonous life and will cut-short my sedentary
period, I choose bowling. I opted for a sports occupation because since childhood I was
addicted towards sports and used to love playing games (soccer) however, as I grew old,
responsibility increased and I became workaholic with no time for myself. So, selection for a
leisure occupation will help to get back my past fulfilled days. However, my selection of

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bowling as a new learning activity in the midst of other popular sports like cricket, rugby,
soccer, badminton and tennis was mostly driven by age bracket and the date back history of
bowling in sports. The sport bowling as mainly gained popularity under the influence of
German immigrants (International Bowling Museum, 2017). Since I was fascinated about the
history since childhood, I readily connected with the traditional history of bowling and opted
for the same. Moreover, according to Gilmour (2012), participation in the group activities
helps in social inclusion along while strengthening communications skills. Since my job role
offers gamut public interaction, bowling participation will help me to refine my interpersonal
skills. Bowling also suited best for me keeping into consideration of my age, as it does not
demand rigorous physical activity in comparison to other popular sports. Moreover, bowling
is not a seasonal sport and can be played throughout the year while staying indoors.
Therefore, via taking into consideration about these above mentioned facts, I opted to
bowling.
How bowling enriched my life
For the majority of people, sports is just like any other silly game or past time but for
me bowling became a way to connect with others and to gauge my interpersonal relationship
skills. While taking part in bowling and learning the process, I came closer to several groups
of people from different communities and it helped me to gain detailed insight about different
people from differed ethnic group living in US and their way of thinking in life. This in turn
helped me to gain my skills in cultural competence. It also helped me to indulge in healthy

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competition. Nailing the art of bowling and taking active participation helped me to improve
my overall health. According to Eime et al. (2013), overall health incorporates the physical,
metal and social domains of life. Adapting skills of professional bowling helped me to
increase my performance skills like motor skills. It increased my hand eye co-ordination and
physical endurance and thereby making myself physically fit. Eime et al. (2013) further
opined that taking active participation in the physical activity as sports help a person to
address comprehensive domains of health including social health. Apart from increasing my
social participation, taking active participation in bowling advocated my leisure time while
giving a wide range of health related benefits.
Process I went through to learn the bowling
The main process, which I went through before becoming agile in the field of bowling
is, a mandatory stretching program and other training activities. First, I used go through 15
minutes warm up. This helped me to activate my otherwise sedentary muscles. After the
warm up sessions, there used to occur the main training for bowling. This training mainly
involved stretching of different parts of the body, which are required during bowling. The
main area of target for flexibility and stretching exercises include wrists, arms, upper back,
upper legs and shoulders. These were basic stretching skills, which help to gain flexibility of
my muscles, and prevented me from being injured through muscle cramps. Flexibility gained
via stretching helped me to maximize my bowling skills. Apart from gaining the physical
flexibility and endurance, I gradually learn to grip, hold and lift the ball. When my fingers

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were able to tolerate the load of the ball, I started learning how to roll the ball over bowling
alley and then targeting the ball via maintaining the body balance to bet a strike. My friend,
Peter whom I took to Yonkers, guided me through this basis stretching exercise. He also
taught me few tricks of bowling like gripping the ball with three centered fingers, using
powder in order to protect slippage and maintaining the elbow angle for proper positioning of
the ball. He also taught me how to release the ball and told me at what location should I
release the ball in order to achieve the jackpot. Upon following his advice, I was able to hit 9
pins in a single go.
How I located resources
As mentioned earlier, a fun loving friend of mine, named Peter taught art of bowling.
Peter is a fitness addict and love to participate in numerous sports. He is a member of a
bowling club and under his recommendation; I earned membership in that bowling club.
Upon registering to this bowling club, I noticed that they are fully equipped with all the
equipment along with the indoor set up that is crucial to conduct professional bowling
activity. They supplied me all the equipment and the tools, which are important to learn,
bowling as a sport, and this include bowling ball, bowling pins and bowling alley. Apart from
these main bowling tools, another important element of bowling kit is bowling shoes.
Bowling alleys are flat, free from debris and moderately slick. Such that, normal shoes may
stick to the floor and causing injury while getting momentum and such accidental falls may
cause harm to my ankles, wrists and back fracture or injuries. Bowling shoes are

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manufactured with special soles one is specified for sliding and other is for braking (Unites
States Bowling Congress, 2017). Upon being accustomed with the bowling program, I order a
customized pair of bowling shoes that helped to me provide optimized traction along with
sliding.
Additional Equipment used for bowling
Wrist guard
Finger Tapes
Powder to smoothen the fingers while holding the ball
Microfiber cloth to wipe the ball
Ankle and elbow bend which acts as shock absorber to prevent injury
(Source: Unites States Bowling Congress, 2017)
Personal thoughts and experience
My entire learning experience of bowling helped to gain information about several
aspects of life. Every time I have slipped my feet inside the bowling shoes, I learned new
things. Success was never a huge concern of me, what I focused is improving my skills in
bowling like finger grip, maintaining accurate body posture while releasing the bowling,
proper hand eye co-ordination and traction of feet. My first few rolls in the bowling alley just

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jumped out of the track making me look foolish but as the day passed by, my concentration
and stamina increased and hitting the bowling pins in a single go became a regular practice.
Apart from setting my zone of target, I also faced hard time in gripping the six-pound ball.
Initially I used to grip the ball with both of my hands but my instructor told me to grip the
ball with single hands and this changed my whole balance. Moreover, my fingers became
swollen and my wrist ached. However, use of wristband and regular practice helped me to
overcome this pain and thereby helping me to grip the ball effortlessly. Overall, it was a great
learning experience; I now feel far more confident in bowling and more practice would
eventually make me comfortable to provide coach to the students.
Fulfillment of personal goal
One of my therapeutic benefits of bowling is it helped me to work on my patience. In
bowling, a player is required to wait until the sweeper arm is done with its job before
initiating the second the turn. Moreover, the ball needs to make its return to the respective
player through the automatic system and this demands time. According to the reports
published by De Ridder et al. (2012), taking stock of self-control helps in the reduction of the
impulsive behavior. In bowling, you are required to control your sense of excitement and wait
patiently until your turn arrives unlike and this help in reducing the impulsive behavior.
Many of my co-players with whom I practiced have difficulty in waiting for their turn as they
become anxious shortly in the anticipation of hitting all the bowling pins. Thus, practicing
bowling helped me to decrease my impulsive behavior, one of important personal goals. Of

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late I was suffering from extremely impulsive behavior for example, I was rushing through
activities without properly completing them or starting a new activity altogether without
having a clear scenario of the consequences. Moreover, I was speaking impulsively without
realizing that the comments might be inappropriate, getting impatient with tolerating the
boredom and was having difficulty in keeping secrets when asked. All these impulsiveness
were affecting my professional life, which in turn was affecting my personal life. Thus,
practicing patience through the occupation of bowling helped me attain stability in life via
reducing my impulsive attitudes.
How I felt while performing the occupation
Everyone will tell that while practicing bowling the first skill that they have learnt is
maintenance of physical endurance and hand eye co-ordination. However, for me it was an
experience for life and was far behind gaining skills of physical fitness. Upon joining the
class, I was first asked to use the arrows and guides on the floor, which are known as
“dovetails” to line the balls. This task helped me to increasing my problem solving skills
along with skills for making strategy. However, I will not overlook the physical fitness
quotient, which I have achieved while practicing bowling. Other than using eyes, bowling
helped me gain muscle strength making it more flexible. While releasing the ball, the arm is
required to keep in straight alignment. Under this posture, the elbow is bent and the ball is
released. Since the ball is heavy, the griping and releasing the ball helped me developing
strength in my arm muscles. Apart from upper body strength, bowling also taught me how to

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maintain the body balance. When I walked through the bowling alley, I was taught to
traditionally throw the leg behind the other (trail leg). This helped me to maintain the balance
to overcome the force that is applied to the ball and thereby improving the body posture.
Greater muscle strength and defined body posture helped to gain personal confidence and
thereby improving my rate of social participation. Before taking part in bowling class, I used
to suffer from poor recognition of self and hate to participate in the community activities as I
thought, I was not physically fit enough to perform. However, practicing bowling improved
my physical fitness along with body posture which overall uplifted my inner confidence.
Moreover, bowling also helped me to build and maintain friendships and taught me how to
work as a group and taking active participation in perspective conversation with the team
members. This learning experience changed my life altogether as it helped me improve my
personality.
Occupation and Personal life
As the bread-earner of the family, it is my personal life role to be the leader, provider,
protector and a teacher of my family members. Bowling as an occupation helped me to
evolve more as a better leader. I am now more patient, more courageous and do not fear risks
any more, I now take the way as it comes. While playing as a team, it is the duty of the team
leader to take determining steps in game planning. Similarly as the leader of the family, I am
required to take some important decisions like nature of extent of financial investment in the
domain of children education and care or other financial planning. So, in this category, the

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role of my new occupation fits typically with my personal roles. Moreover, in my
professional life, it is my duty to interact with my customers, understands their needs act
according. Though it is not directly related with the skills required in bowling game, framing
strategy with the team members requires strategic communication and this refinement of
strategic communication aligns with my professional role.
Thus in the summary, I want to conclude that bowling as an occupation helped me to
attain refinement in the social participation skills, while helping to gain patience and physical
fitness. All these cumulative effect helped me perform better both in my professional and
personal life.

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References
De Ridder, D. T., Lensvelt-Mulders, G., Finkenauer, C., Stok, F. M., &Baumeister, R. F.
(2012).Taking stock of self-control: A meta-analysis of how trait self-control relates
to a wide range of behaviors. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 16(1), 76-
99.
Eime, R.M., Young, J.A., Harvey, J.T., Charity, M.J. and Payne, W.R., 2013. A systematic
review of the psychological and social benefits of participation in sport for children
and adolescents: informing development of a conceptual model of health through
sport. International Journal of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity, 10(1),
p.98.
Foubert-Samier, A., Catheline, G., Amieva, H., Dilharreguy, B., Helmer, C., Allard, M.,
&Dartigues, J. F. (2012).Education, occupation, leisure activities, and brain reserve: a
population-based study. Neurobiology of aging, 33(2), 423-e15.
Gilmour, H. (2012). Social participation and the health and well-being of Canadian
seniors. Health reports, 23(4), 1B.
International Bowling Museum., (2017). History of Bowling in the US. Access date: 30th
March 2018. Retrieved from: History of Bowling in
US.http://www.bowlingmuseum.com/Visit/Online-Exhibits/History-of-Bowling-in-
the-US
Unites States Bowling Congress., (2017). Equipment 101 for Bowling. Access date: 30th
March 2018. Retrieved from:
https://www.bowl.com/Welcome/Welcome_Home/Equipment_101/

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