The Delivery at Lawn Bowls: Controlling Weight

My Bowls are Yellow

Controlling weight is the most popular topic of inquiry on this blog; therefore I add the following.

There is a lot of confusing advice about how to control the distance a bowl travels after you release it from the mat. I discern that one big reason for this is that the answer needs to be different depending on how long the questioner has been bowling.

What I have found is that until you have bowled for about six seasons your subconscious does not have enough experience to know how to deliver the correct ‘weight’ on its own.  That is, it is not intuitive. You need to think about each delivery and adjust elements of your physical delivery consciously. You have to think about changing something: your bowl elevation, length of step, degree of crouching, whatever. When you read advice to make these specific adjustments, you need to understand that this advice is for newer bowlers who are just learning the game or bowlers who have made significant changes in their physical delivery.

Once you have been bowling for some time, (for me it was six years bowling year-round), these instructions do not apply. In fact, they are harmful. 

Your delivery should have become grooved by then. There is now another group of advice articles that apply. They will tell you something like the following:

 

You need to flood your subconscious mind with confident messages. Your body should relax. Let your conscious mind deliver reliable data to your subconscious (the wind, the green speed, the position you want the bowl to stop). Consciously set yourself properly on the mat; visualize the path for the bowl; then as you begin your delivery turn control over to your subconscious. Your conscious mind should go blank. You are ‘in the groove’. Your body spontaneously just does the required thing!

Until the delivery has become as natural as walking or driving a car, these latter instructions are madness. For newer bowlers, they just confuse and lengthen the learning process. For bowlers who have grooved their deliveries thinking about the physical mechanics, trying to control weight with the conscious mind blocks progress.