Table Of ContentBowling
Psychology
Dean Hinitz
Human Kinetics
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Hinitz, Dean R., author.
Title: Bowling psychology / Dean Hinitz, PhD.
Other titles: Focused for bowling.
Description: Champaign, IL : Human Kinetics, [2016] | Includes
bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2015049770 | ISBN 9781492504085 (print)
Subjects: LCSH: Bowling--Psychological aspects.
Classification: LCC GV903 .H56 2016 | DDC 794.6--dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.
gov/2015049770
Copyright © 2016 by Dean Hinitz
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Notice: Permission to reproduce the following material is granted to instructors and agencies who have
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is expressly forbidden by the above copyright notice. Persons or agencies who have not purchased
Bowling Psychology may not reproduce any material.
This book is a revised edition of Focused for Bowling, published in 2003 by Dean Hinitz.
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E6412
To those who enter and walk on the path of mastery,
it is no easy trek.
The trolls are often disguised, and the guides and teachers
are commonly in hidden form as well.
The journey is challenging.
But beyond the periodic pain and discouragement
is a payoff that has been lauded throughout the ages.
The journey really is the destination.
This book is dedicated to all of you who take it on.
You are in special company.
Contents
Foreword by Jason Belmonte ....................................................................................vi
Acknowledgments ......................................................................................................x
Introduction: The Road to Championship Play ...........................................................xi
Chapter 1 Goal Setting and Self-Assessment ........................1
Learn the essentials of goal setting and the ingredients to craft
a clear vision for your game.
Chapter 2 Thinking Like a Champion ...................................20
Explore the secrets of a champion mindset. Learn to develop
the traits, personality characteristics, and thinking modes of
championship players.
Chapter 3 Establishing Your Preshot Routine .......................37
Learn to design and implement a powerful, effective preshot
routine.
Chapter 4 The Shot Cycle: One Shot for the Money ...........49
Dial in the essential elements for delivering your best shot
under any circumstance. Learn the keys to managing
excitement and mastering the competition to create your
customized shot cycle.
Chapter 5 Toughness to Overcome Adversity ....................70
Develop mental toughness, and take an inventory to see where
you stand. Learn to autograph your shot in the heat of
competition.
iv
Chapter 6 Mental Secrets to Making Spares ........................94
Learn to be a great spare shooter. Absorb detailed tips, strategies,
and systems to make spare shooting work for you.
Chapter 7 Raising Peaks and Filling Valleys ........................116
Bust your slumps by fighting your way through tough times.
Discover ways to come out on top of any challenging situation.
Chapter 8 Team Building .....................................................151
Learn what makes a world-class team, how to train like world-class
teams, and the best strategies for improved teamwork and
communication.
Chapter 9 Coaching and Raising a Champion ...................171
Read the cardinal features of successful coaching and effective
parenting for athletes.
Chapter 10 Putting It All Together to Play Boldly ...............194
Combine all you’ve learned to play boldly at will. Overcome the
seven deadly sins of bowling on your way to becoming a bomb-proof
bowler.
Bibliography ...........................................................................................................224
Index ......................................................................................................................226
About the Author ...................................................................................................232
v
Foreword
Welcome to Bowling Psychology. You’re about to join me on a journey with
Dr. Dean Hinitz. Each of you reading this is on your own championship path.
And much like me, you’ll have to carve out the individual footsteps toward
your goals.
Your mental game is as individual as your fingerprints. Clarifying, enhanc-
ing, and honing it is a significant part of the ticket to championship play. I
have known Dr. Dean since I came to the United States to play on the PBA
Tour. As much as I have enjoyed our discourses over the years, I know that
you’re going value your time with him in this book as well.
A champion’s story is written on the pages of your practices, your chal-
lenges, your resilience, and your resolve. In this book, Dr. Dean will help you
to author the outcomes you intend to have. This book is an invitation to join
me in exploring how one transforms into a champion.
People are often curious about the origins of my two-handed delivery,
and the path of my championship journey. In truth, a journey that has been
extraordinary has pretty ordinary roots.
My bowling story started very simply. My parents built a bowling center
when I was barely six weeks old. They were not bowlers. In fact, neither
had ever rolled a bowling ball. Rather, they built the center as a business
opportunity. There I was, an 18-month-old, with nothing better to do than
to try to roll a bowling ball. Of course, I was not strong enough to hoist the
ball in a conventional fashion. So I intuitively did the only thing that remained
to me. I learned to roll and control the ball with two hands.
I did not know right from left or one hand from two at that age. And no
one told me that I could not play that way. And no one told me that I was
doing anything wrong. That would come later. I was 19 years old before I
learned that there was another two-handed player out there (PBA and World
Ranking Masters champion Osku Palermaa).
I did have success early. By the time I was four years old I was playing
competitively with older kids. That is when my mum and dad started to
receive pressure to have me bowl conventionally. Thank goodness, what
mattered most to them was that I was having fun, and that I was out of their
hair in the bowling center. No one had a plan for me to be a tour player. They
just made sure that I was having a good time.
Everything changed shortly thereafter. From the time I was five years
old, up into my teens, I heard every day that I was throwing the ball wrong
and that I would never be any good unless I changed. There are those who
vi
Foreword vii
certainly tried to coach me out of my style of play. In fact, I tried to bowl
one handed a couple of times, but the ball just went dead straight, and it
wasn’t fun for me.
Although there was pressure to change, there was no logical reason for me
to do so other than to look like everyone else, and to be normal. Fortunately,
I am stubborn. I’m not going to listen to anyone if I’m not clear that what
he or she has to offer might help me. If someone tells me to do something
different just because the way I do it isn’t normal, I resist that. I think that
great champions, leaders, and winners of anything have a similar quality.
Being effective is more important than garnering the approval of everyone
around you.
In the early part of my career, I had no aspirations to be the best bowler in
the world. I was having fun and enjoying myself. But things sort of took off. I
won my first doubles tournament at age 4. When I was 12 or 13, I was giving
adults a run for their money. At age 14, I started playing for the adult Orange
city team. We played other towns within a few hours’ drive of Orange, and
I was beating people 20 years or more older than me.
As far as I knew, I was the only one in the world playing the way I did.
Certainly no one locally bowled with two hands. And not even anyone in
Australia. Then I started to play internationally. At a youth tournament in
Thailand I saw Osku Palermaa. By then, I was always the guy who hooked
the ball the most, and who threw the most powerful messenger pins. I was
shocked out of that reality. Simply put, Osku did everything more and better
than I did. If not for Osku, I might not have progressed as I have.
I had to ask myself what I had to do to compete with him. We did become
friends, and we developed a friendly rivalry. My bowling IQ went up. I no
longer wanted to be the best two-hander in the world. I wanted to be the
best bowler in the world.
There’s an entire chapter in this book on goal setting. I have always set
goals, and the goal to be the best in the world drove my work ethic. The
question became “Whom do I have to beat, and what do I have to learn to
beat him?” I believe that it is important to have goals. Mine was to be the
best in the world. What’s higher than that? Once I became player of the year,
the goal advanced to retaining that. I have won three United States Bowl-
ing Congress (USBC) Masters titles in a row, yet I know that I have to learn
more, and to not be satisfied with the place that I am in.
Dr. Hinitz teaches about mental toughness, and there have certainly been
dark parts of my journey. I do something that used to be really unusual and
different, and it still is. It was only when I had international and PBA success
that more and more people tried bowling with two hands. Very early on, I had
the support of my friends. But with success came resentment. People said
that I was cheating. I had to sit down with the rule book and read it cover to
cover to make sure I wasn’t doing anything wrong.
Other issues came up. People suggested that my father put out an easy
shot for me at our bowling center. I even had to check with my dad to make
viii Foreword
sure it was not true. Ironically, we had such an old simple lane-oiling machine
that he couldn’t have put a special shot out for anyone. When I won in other
bowling centers, they had to find other reasons that I was winning. At 17
years old, I started running people over in national tournaments. But it was
when I started to have success on the national level that I really felt resent-
ment expressed toward me.
I have learned something about achieving goals and succeeding. When
you come in last, people don’t care about you. When you win some of the
time, they notice you. When you win more, they start to care. If you really
start to do well, the negativity then becomes intense and challenging.
I have had to hear derogatory quips and comments throughout my career.
It didn’t matter whatever I did sometimes. People couldn’t make sense of
how well I was doing. They didn’t look at the immense amount of hard work
I was putting in, or the effort I was putting into improving my mental game. It
didn’t seem to matter what I did—some would always assume I was doing
something wrong.
At a deep level, it was difficult to be viewed in that manner. It hurt my
soul. But if I could give anything away to up and coming players, it would be
for an athlete to play to his or her own heart. You have to keep your focus
on the game. I attended to the support I received among a special group
that included my wife, my kids, my friends, and my fans. I had to let go of
trying to impress or influence anyone else. And I certainly had to hold on to
my sense of humor.
When I came onto the PBA Tour I was surprised in the beginning. I had
thought that the lifestyle would be an easy transition from the European Tour.
I was leaving a place where I had a lot of friends. Osku had already broken
the ice in terms of two-handed play. I was given feedback that I would be
a flash in the pan. I was told that after two or three events I would likely go
and stay home, or that I would be a gimmick used only to generate publicity.
Well, I am no gimmick, and I didn’t stay home. Far and away the most
difficult thing for me has been to be apart from my family in Australia. But
after that, it’s not the nerves, it’s not the financial pressure, it’s the negativity
that the worldcan deliver if you let it, that can be so challenging.
In Bowling Psychology, the essentials of thinking like a champion are seeded
throughout the book. Here’s one of the most important elements that one
has to learn. There comes a point when you know yourself. There’s a point
when no matter what anyone says or does, you still bring the best version
of the player you really are. I know how hard you have to work to make it out
here. That is what you have to trust and to fall back on.
I strongly endorse setting goals. I have won the last three Masters Tour-
naments and the last two Tournaments of Champions. I won consecutive
Player of the Year honors. Being the best player in the world is a lot to handle
mentally sometimes. Now where is the bar? I’m the first person under that
bar, so it is up to me to push it upward. There is no coasting. I have to make
sure that if someone is going to beat me, they have to earn it.
Foreword ix
This book guides you in becoming a champion. You have to understand
that there is a part of the mental game that becomes part of your character.
My story embodies it.
• You must be willing to go where you’re going to go without any
evidence that it can be done. This takes a profound belief in yourself.
• You have to reach for the stars even if no one agrees that you can do it.
• You have to persevere with or without the approval of others.
• The only authority you need in order to go forward is your own.
You can do what I have done. The arenas, the titles, the leagues, and so
on might be different, but the path is the same. In this book you’ll find tools
and strategies as well as suggestions from great champions on how to
achieve your goals. Whether the sun shines on you, or you have blood and
tears on your face, never give up. I will be the first one there to congratulate
you when you cross the finish line.
Jason Belmonte
Winner of 12 PBA titles, including six major tournaments, three-time PBA
Player of the Year, two-time winner of the ESPY for Best Bowler
Acknowledgments
I wish to thank the hundreds of coaches, players, friends, and loved ones
who contributed to Bowling Psychology. This book was written through
me much more than by me. Rather than a formal focused effort, much
of the material for Bowling Psychology was generated near ball returns,
in between competition blocks, and in excited conversations about what
does and does not work in competition.
I want to give special thanks to Fred Borden and Jeri Edwards for
giving me a chance and a start with Team USA and to Rod Ross and Kim
Kearney for our continued alliance with the national team. I am extremely
appreciative of the sharing and friendship I have had over the years with
coaches Gordon Vadakin, Mark Lewis, Dale Lehman, Del Warren, Randy
Stoughton, Susie Minshew, Ron Hoppe, Sharon Brummell, Ken Yokobosky,
Brian O’Keefe, Lou Marquez, Richard Shockley, Brent Sims, Kenny McPartlin,
and Ron Bruner.
There are more players, league mates, coaches, and friends in the bowl-
ing universe than I could reasonably thank here. Many of you gave direct
quotes and interviews in this book. I sincerely hope all of you recognize
yourselves in these pages.
The staff at Human Kinetics instructed, guided, and prompted the com-
pletion of this work. Special thanks to Tom Heine and Amy Stahl.
My mom annoyed me my entire life with her insistence on proper
grammar, proper speech, and overall etiquette. Now, of course, I am pro-
foundly grateful to her. Her grace and wisdom have become like compass
points for me. The memory of my father, David, is still the North Star with
respect to integrity issues. My sisters Jill and Connie are like safety nets in
the stormy seas of daily life.
Steve Graybar and Gary Atkinson should bill me for all of the consulta-
tion, sharing, and friendship I have exacted from them. Anne Archer has
been perhaps my greatest teacher, helping me to relearn who I am and to
see beyond “the matrix” in order to live authentically.
x
