I’m Mediocre At a Lot of Sports

I’ve played several different sports in my life, bar sports included, and I’m pretty mediocre at a lot of them. Two of the ones that I’ve played for many years once a week is bowling and pool. I’m about a 160-170 bowler. For the average person, that’s pretty decent, but I’ve been a 160-170 bowler for a long time. I don’t seem to be getting any better. Some nights, like last night, I feel like I’m getting worse. And of course other nights I feel like I’ve gotten everything figured out. Pool on the other hand, I’m a little less than mediocre. A lot of people off the streets who don’t play in a league could probably beat me. I was 5-1 last season and 2-1 this season but that’s against pretty mediocre competition. I usually just play other low level people.

I played tennis in high school and was extremely mediocre. I made the varsity team for a few seasons but not a ton of people tried out for the tennis team. I played soccer in middle school and was also nothing special. I was into Jujitsu for 2 years and was very good as a beginner but fell into mediocrity when I became a blue belt. I play basketball once a week with my friends and of course I’m medicore at that. I used to play golf once a week and was just bad at that.

For all of these sports, I’m good enough to have fun at it but not good enough to compete at a whole nubba level. There are a couple of things that all of these sports have in common.

1. I don’t practice or compete at any of these things more than once a week.

2. I don’t have a coach showing me fundamentals or how to improve. I had a great teacher in Jujitsu but my main problem in that is that I would just go once a week. I also could never attend the advanced class due to my schedule.

So what is there to do at 35? Give up? Try harder?

I think the thing that would be easiest for me to improve upon is bowling. I’m actually above average in bowling but just barely. To actually break through my plateau in bowling, I would actually have to break down my entire form and rebuild it. Even though I would have to do that, experience in bowling in my old crappy form would still be very valuable because I understand lane conditions.

Mandy and I are thinking about taking some private tennis lessons. I found a teacher that would teach 2 people an hour for 15 dollars a piece. I think that would be fun. The only problem with tennis is that it would be hard to practice enough. If I’m not playing against Mandy or against an opponent, I wonder if there are many effective drills? I don’t feel like hitting against a wall is that great a drill. I know that I when I hit against the ping pong table it doesn’t really simulate a real game.

I wanted to get better at Jujitsu but that’s another sport where you can’t really practice much by yourself. You can work on your cardio and stuff but mat time is mat time and would probably require me to go to a class at least 3 times a week. I still haven’t given up on this but I’m still trying to figure out a good schedule for this.

I can’t get much better at pool because the only way I could get enough practice with that is to have a pool table at home. I don’t really want a 2000 lb pool table in my house that I can’t move when I need to.

I think I should just break down and take those bowling lessons. I’ve always wanted to get good enough at something to enter tournaments. Back when I was a kid I used to enter TKD tournaments. I medaled and trophied a few times but TKD is kind of a tall person’s sport. It’s like boxers with a long reach typically do better than boxers with stumpy arms.

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