After 6 Years Bowling: The Status of Weight Control

For more than five years, since I took up lawn bowls, I have been consciously trying to control the weight of my deliveries, based on the reported jack length. Such was my lack of confidence concerning my visual estimation of the length of the jack that I would ask my skip each end to call out to me how far past the hog line the jack was sitting. When I was skipping, I could be quiet. I had the advantage that I could pace off this distance on my way to the mat to deliver my bowls! When I delivered a bowl, I would consciously try to control the length of my back-swing in proportion with the distance to the jack. This is not best practice!!! It is just what I thought I had to do.  I didn’t believe I could depend upon the subconscious or the intuitive to help. Well the good news is: I was wrong. Even better news is: you don’t have to worry about it. So long as you take the time, standing on or just behind the mat to visualize the expected track of the bowl you are about to deliver, then, with experience, any attempt at conscious control of your arm speed will just fade away. If my experience has any generality, you will just one day say to yourself, “Gee, I’m not doing that anymore.” I still quite regularly ask how many meters the jack is past the hog line, but now it is just to give corroborating or more precise data to my subconscious control system. The caveat is the importance of imagining and visualizing, as best you can, the path of the bowl.