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Thursday, May 23, 2024

Getting Your Weight Right: Using the 2/3 Rule at Lawn Bowls

 


Delivering your lawn bowl the same distance as the jack is the most difficult skill in lawn bowls. Visualization of the path that your bowl is going to travel is the most common method taught for achieving this; but, I have found, that most players need about 6 years of experience to get this right.


For new bowlers, I have found a simpler approach called the two-thirds (2/3) rule.


As always the first step is to decide on the correct aim line. The aim line is an imaginary straight line that runs from the center of the front edge of the mat and ends at some spot on or behind the forward ditch. The new step is to focus or stare at (as best you can) a section of that aim line 2/3 of the distance towards the jack. Then deliver your bowl as if trying to roll your bowl over that spot by delivering it down your aim line.


What will happen is that your bowl should travel without much deceleration as far as this stare point, passes it on the inside, and slows down from that point on to arrive at the jack length!


Why this works I have no idea. Perhaps our ancestral caveman intuition for how to throw projectiles controls our muscles once the target is 14-21 meters away. What we do learn from bowling experience is that a well-delivered bowl starts to slow down visibly once it is 2/3 to 3/5 the way towards the jack and continues rolling and curving in towards the target for the last 1/3 to 2/5 of its journey.


The downside of this trick is that you must give up using a stare point at 3-5 meters in front of the mat. As a consequence, it will be harder to recognize when you have chosen an incorrect aim line. 

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