Take the Full 30 Seconds

 

I was bowling in one of the district playdowns last week in Toronto, and sitting at the table next to me in the clubhouse, a coach from the Canadian National Bowls team was telling some competitors whom she was coaching to visualize the path of their contemplated delivery and not to deliver the bowl until this was clear in their minds.

This got me thinking: could a person improve performance simply by taking 25-30 seconds to prepare for each delivery?

 This would provide sufficient time for multiple visualizations that would move one’s gaze back and forth between a stare point (say at 3-5 meters in front of the mat) and the jack.

Doing this as part of a delivery routine would very likely dramatically improve proper concentration, and that would provide benefits to all the players with less than perfect discipline.

Take a Big Enough Backswing so your Subconscious has a Smooth Choice

By the time you have at least 6 full years of lawn bowling experience, your subconscious can be given responsibility for controlling the weight in your lawn bowling delivery. As David Bryant suggests in a useful video tutorial: you choose an aim line to bowl down; you take a stare point on that line; and then you look back and forth between this stare point and the target position (usually the jack) until you feel comfortable with the visualized trajectory. Then you let your mind go blank and send the bowl over your stare point.

Now, even though I have been bowling for 13 years, I have been playing rubbish bowls for the first few weeks since coming to Valverde LBC in Almancil Portugal, where I am spending the winter months.

What was going wrong? Usually, the most common error I make is failing to get my stepping foot planted before my arm swing delivers my bowl.

No— that wasn’t the problem. Maybe I wasn’t careful and methodical enough drawing my bowling arm back along the extension of the aim line behind the mat. No— checking that didn’t solve things.

Analyzing my bowl results suggested that the problem was related mostly to weight. For too many shots I found myself pushing out the bowl and applying too much energy at the end.

Well, I have now found the answer. Often, my backswing wasn’t high enough to smoothly propel my bowl the required distance and my subconscious was trying to compensate for this by over-accelerating my swing somewhat, trying to ‘steer’ the bowl and destroying smoothness from the motion.

In contrast, my subconscious had no difficulty slowing my arm motion down when bowling to a short jack even though my higher backswing would have permitted me to easily deliver to jacks at any length.

P.S. When you have less than 6 years of experience playing lawn bowls I have found you need to consciously control those elements of your swing that affect length (backswing length, crouch degree, step length, etc.) because your subconscious does not have a big enough ‘training set’ to do it itself. 

After Watching Paul Foster’s Bowls Delivery

 

Paul Foster MBE has won the World Indoor Lawn Bowls Championship five times.

I think I saw something useful by stopped-frame examination of Paul Foster’s delivery in a match against Michael Dawes in the 2015 World Championships on Youtube.

 I noticed that as Foster starts his backswing he advances his non-anchor foot with the toe decidedly up in the air so that he necessarily plants it heel first. When it is in the air his sole is at an angle of 45 degrees above the horizontal.  In this way, he can smoothly rock his weight forward; his weight transferring from heel to full sole contact, then to toes. Then following smoothly his anchor foot comes up off the ground as he walks off the mat with his body moving forward like a sprinter coming out of the blocks.

 
This form combines with the idea that the delivery should start with your weight almost entirely on your anchor foot, so that the step forward is not restricted and does not bear any significant weight.

This will make weight transfer always the same. It compels the bowler to make contact with the heel of the advancing foot to provide smooth, rocking, weight transfer.

Suggested Adjustments to their Delivery for Older Bowlers

 

• To improve balance, use the Shooters’ stance
• To improve core stability, brace your body with your free hand on your forward knee in the ready position.
• To make your forward stepping smoother, raise the toe of the foot you will be stepping forward with while still in your set position.
• To keep your weight from shifting sideways, walk forward off the mat after releasing your bowl.
• To spare neck muscles, choose your aim line and stare point standing behind the mat.
• Target your bowl to finish 1 meter beyond the jack thereby reducing the likelihood of being short.

Knowing How to Deliver Up-shots is Vital to Avoid Being Defeated by Long Jacks

The most popular strategy in lawn bowls is to consistently play long ends. The smallest deficiency in an opponent's bowling delivery is exaggerated when the shot that must be played is a heavy one. Moreover, many bowlers just don’t have the physical strength to bowl one long end after another.

The best defense is to get very good at rolling the jack very short and getting very good at drawing to very short jacks, to keep possession of the mat so you can make most ends short. But there is another element to this strategy that is too frequently ignored.

No matter how skilled your side may be, sometimes, even on a short end, your opponents will get the closer bowl(s). On these occasions, you must be able to dependably deliver a weighted shot to break up that head.

This is how to get it right!

First, delivering a weighted shot that disrupts a head does not demand great strength. When one tries to break up a head, especially those only 21-23 meters beyond the mat, as the ones we are talking about will be, most players swing too hard. The bowl then misses and finishes in the forward ditch. You should deliver the bowl that will disrupt a short end with the weight required to travel somewhere between 27- 32 meters, whatever is comfortable for you, BUT that weight, whichever you choose, must be precise and consistent.

Second, you must study, before you need the information, by what fraction you must narrow your normal draw angle so it crosses the center line at a distance of 21-23 beyond the mat. Depending on the playing surface, this will be between 1/3 and 1/4 of your normal draw angle.

Third, and least appreciated, and the cause of most failures, you should walk off the mat following your bowl. This is important because it forces you to keep your body weight moving smoothly forward along your aim line and eliminates any jerkiness that would throw off your line as you release the bowl. 

 Even with normal draw shots, I try to remember to walk off the mat, but it is the most frequent element of my delivery that I forget. When delivering a weighted shot to a short jack, it is crucial not to forget. 

Getting Weight Right: Standing on the Aim Line 2/3 of the Way to the Jack

I have discovered a way to avoid short bowling by my lawn bowling team members. I do not understand why it works, but it does seem to work with a variety of different subjects.

To do it you must learn the correct aim line for the bowler you wish to assist. The easiest way to do this is to make some deliveries with that team member’s bowls before the match starts and compare the draw with your own.

Then stand at a spot on that aim line, 2/3 of the way from the front of the mat to the jack, and ask the bowler on the mat to bowl at you. For some mysterious reason, the bowl gets delivered with a weight appropriate to get it to the position of the jack!

I don’t know why this works, but I can hypothesize. The bowler senses that at least a certain velocity is needed to take the bowl to you along the aim line without substantial bending away, and that is quite a good approximation to the velocity required for the bowl to curve towards the center line and arrive at the jack. 

 That is to say, your request asks two things of the bowler:

1. Bowl along the proper aim line, and
2. Bowl with sufficient weight that the bowl does not curve away from me very much

These two demands actually indirectly define the perfect draw path. The bowl must start out on the required aim line, and it must not curve to any substantial degree until it is 2/3 to 3/5 of the way down the rink!

If you adopt this methodology in a match, the opposing skip may claim that your positioning is illegal, and the rules require that you stand at all times behind the head. This is not correct. The applicable rule from The Laws of the Sport of Bowls, Crystal Mark Fourth Edition is:

12.1.3  As soon as a bowl is delivered, a player who is controlling play from a position that is either level with or in front of the jack must take their position as described in law 12.1.2.

12.1.2  Players at the head-end of the rink and who are not controlling play must stand: 

12.1.2.1 behind the jack if they are members of the team which is in possession of the rink; 

12.1.2.2 behind the jack and away from the head if they are members of the team which is not in  possession of the rink; 

12.1.2.3 on the surrounds of the green if the jack is in the ditch; or

12.1.2.4 well clear of the head if it is not possible to stand on the surrounds.

This means that once the bowler, whose play you are controlling, releases that bowl, you are required to move immediately to a position behind the jack and then, once that bowl stops, away from the head. 

The Disadvantages of Lawn Bowling from a Fixed Stance

 

No top-flight lawn bowler that I have seen, either professional or on a national squad, bowls from a fixed stance. By fixed stance, I mean delivering a bowl without taking a step forward of some length- small or large.  This suggests to me that this technique has some inherent disadvantages that cannot be completely overcome even by relentless practice.

Not all bowlers who use a fixed stance exhibit all the disadvantages and all of these bowlers do deliver many excellent shots. The problem comes from the inherent disadvantages of the technique causing increased inconsistency.

The first difficulty is that a fixed stance almost completely curtails the opportunity to contribute the body’s momentum to any shot. Every delivery depends upon arm strength for all the velocity transferred to the bowl. For this reason, extra effort is required to reach long jack placements.

Nevertheless, fixed stance bowlers often have excellent arm strength, so if you are trying to take advantage of this potential problem do it for best results at the end of a match or even better at the end of a full day of bowling.

The second shortcoming of fixed stance bowling is less obvious but cannot be overcome with strength. For a bowler who takes a stride as part of a delivery, the pendulum arc of that bowl has a greater amplitude than for a fixed stance delivery. By this I mean the length of the horizontal traverse of the bowl, from the top of the backswing to the point of release of the bowl from the hand, is longer for the person who takes a step. The increase in horizontal traverse corresponds to the length of the step. The result of this difference is that for any given deviation of the backswing away from the backward extension of the aim line, the error in bowling angle is less for the bowler who steps forward.

The result is that the bowler who takes a step makes smaller errors in the angle of delivery. This difference is most consequential in delivering to short jacks because with the necessarily shortened backswing, any step is a greater part of the horizontal traverse and the step contributes more to overall angle accuracy. So to take advantage of an opponent's fixed-stance delivery deliver short jacks!

I have tried to illustrate this in the Figure above wherein the fixed-stance bowler is right-handed and the stepping bowler left-handed to keep them out of each other's way in the figure. Each is trying to bowl the same line and each has the same magnitude error in the backswings.  

Laser Focus on your Stare Point at Lawn Bowls

  In lawn bowls terminology a stare point is a point on the surface of the lawn bowling rink that is from 3 to 5 meters in front of the front edge of the mat and on the aim line down which a bowl must start to roll to finish close to the target (which is usually the jack).

What does the word ‘stare’ mean? Is it no more than to consistently look in the direction of some object? Is it no more than positioning some target in the center of your visible field?

Well- if that is all staring means then I am not communicating adequately when I advise lawn bowlers to stare at the particular ‘stare point’ over which they wish to roll their lawn bowl. No- I am looking for much more than that! I want the person delivering a lawn bowl to focus his eyes so narrowly that the surrounding square meter of the rink goes out of focus. I am looking for that person to achieve such tunnel vision that if their eyes were shooting a beam of light like a laser they would ignite that spot. Yes- they should be laser-focused!

Why do I say this? Because I find that if you can do this, then you can much more dependably roll your bowl over that exact spot and the bowl so directed will be a better bowl.

The Lead Bowler in Triples

For the lead bowler delivering the first bowl in the end, it needs to be emphasized,: line is not the most important concern, weight is.  If you are within three feet on either side of the jack, that is probably not going to get you a reprimand, but being three feet short may. What one must emphasize is proper depth, and it is your first bowl in the end that is most likely to be wrongly weighted. It is OK to be a yard past the jack, and one should err on the side of being past rather than short. Four feet short is a bad bowl; four feet long can be useful for the development of the head. Four feet short cannot be promoted easily, so it is likely to stay out of the scoring, since the jack has an overwhelmingly greater chance of being moved backward rather than forward during the end. Grassing two bowls three feet past gives the vice and skip some things to work with in developing a scoring situation. A close bowl by a lead in triples rarely survives as the shot bowl. There are too many good bowlers to follow, and a bowl close to the jack makes an excellent target for up-shots. Even if both of the opposition lead’s bowls are 1^st and 2^nd shot, your side’s situation is not too bad so long as your lead bowls are behind the jack!  

True Shoulder & Imaginary Shoulder at Lawn Bowls

The true shoulder in a lawn bowl’s delivery is that point on the path of the lawn bowl at which it is furthest away from the center line. This is the point at which it ceases moving towards the rink boundary and starts returning towards center rink. A perfectly delivered bowl actually rolls over the point that is this ‘true shoulder.’

The imaginary shoulder is that spot on your aim line that is the same distance down the rink as the true shoulder. The imaginary shoulder is the stare point many players aim at when preparing to deliver a bowl from the mat.

This distinction had never been taught to me. The difference is taught in the following reference.

https://www.wivenhoebowls.club/bowls-tactics/

Heretofore, I have been taking as my stare point a location on my aim line from 3 to 5 meters in front of the mat line. I had been disregarding every teaching that one should choose as stare point the [true] shoulder of your imagined delivery path because I realized that doing so would cause narrow bowling. Choosing as stare point the imaginary shoulder, however, is consistent with theory and needs to be considered seriously.

Taking the imaginary shoulder as one’s stare point has the advantage that it makes visualization of the complete bowl’s path top of mind and so possibly improves weight control.

For several months at the end of 2024, I experimented with a stare point on the imaginary shoulder but returned to using a stare point at 3 to 5 meters out on my aim line because it gave better bowling angle control. 

The Strategy of Really Long Ends at Lawn Bowls

In the northern hemisphere, on slow rinks, the most frequently adopted strategy in lawn bowling contests is to deliver very long jacks when the opposing team seems to prefer something shorter. 

Even so many bowlers underestimate the effectiveness of this strategy because they do not realize how dramatically the average bowler’s line control falls off as the jack length increases. As jack length trends towards full length each additional meter of length is responsible for a greater and greater decline in accuracy. 

That is to say, many bowlers underestimate the significance of jack length because they confuse ‘longish ends’ with ‘really long ends’. I would characterize ‘really long ends’ as being only those within 1 meter or less of full length (T to T).  It is on these ‘really long ends’ that the performance of many bowlers falls off precipitously.

“Aha,” you may say, “but to gain the advantage you claim, your lead must be able to consistently deliver these ‘really long jacks.’ “

“Well,” I say, “practice it.”

 Delivering a small white ball to within 3 meters of the forward ditch without any substantial need for line control is really not very hard for anyone. Besides, all that happens if your side does ditch the jack is that the other side gets their chance, and from what I have seen they don’t pay much attention to their delivery at all!

So the situation is this. You get a chance to deliver the jack for a ‘really long end’ for which your side has trained or is naturally advantaged. If you succeed in getting the jack you desire, you are odds on to win the end and furthermore you retain the jack. On the other hand, if your side makes a mistake rolling the jack it suffers no significant penalty!

Where can you find odds like that?

When Your In-Match Performance Starts to Crumble— Do This

Suppose you are competing in a lawn bowling competition and doing fine when suddenly both your line control and weight control collapse all at once. What has happened? What should you do?

Don’t just push on, bear down, and try to concentrate harder mentally. This is a good way to continue losing— end after end. That is what I did last week. 

Don’t start telling yourself that you just don’t know how to bowl, and you should make a mental note to give up the game. No. You can play well. You were doing so just a few ends ago!

It is my experience that when your game just suddenly collapses, it is one of two things. Either (i) you have suddenly made a small change in your delivery motion or (ii) you have started leaving out steps in your predelivery routine.

I have already written blogs about the frequent mistake that I fall into with respect to delivery motion. For me, that mistake is failing to get my forward-stepping foot firmly grounded before I start my bowling arm’s swing forward.

Instead, when both weight control and line control fail suddenly in the middle of a match, the problem probably relates to a deviation from your pre-delivery routine.

The first thing to do is to slow everything down. Step off the mat. Signal that you need more information from the skip. Take off your jacket. Put on your jacket. Do something to give yourself time to mentally review all the individual items that are part of your pre-delivery routine. Then, slowly and methodically perform those individual steps.

For the purpose of example, I will list all the steps in my pre-delivery routine:

•  Standing about a meter behind the mat, I receive any instructions from the person controlling the head
• I identify an immovable object on or behind the forward bank that will mark one end of my imaginary aim-line
• I adjust my position depending upon the shot (forehand or backhand, or drive) so that I am standing on the aim line
• I check my bias
• Assuming a semi-squatting position (a la David Bryant) I look along the imaginary aim line that runs to the preselected object at the forward ditch, and I pick a point 3-5 meters in front of the mat on my aim line to be my stare point 
• I adopt the Shooter’s stance with my feet
• I grip the bowl comfortably with my regular grip
• I adjust the elevation of my body so my non-bowling hand can rest comfortably on the knee of my stepping leg
• I visualize the path of my bowl as it travels to its planned finishing point 
• Waggling my bowling arm, I make slight swinging motions along and over my aim line
• I relax the muscles in my bowling arm
• With my eyes, I stare fixedly at my stare point
• With my mind, I concentrate on drawing my bowling arm back along and over my aim line

As you can see, my predelivery routine is rather extensive. Perhaps that is why I am regarded as an annoyingly slow bowler. Perhaps you can find better advice that can simplify and accelerate your preparation. I can’t help there. What I can say is that by doing this recalibration, I have been able to get back into the groove required for consistent good bowling!

Do Average Lawn Bowlers Frequently Forget their Proper Aim Lines?

 

In one of my old blogs on this Greenbowler site, I admitted that in tournaments I often keep a business card in my pocket, and on the back of it I record my aim points on the forward banks for forehand and backhand deliveries in both directions. The reason-- too often I  have difficulty remembering these aim lines during a contest.

I thought perhaps that this was a unique failing of mine, but a situation arose today playing in a roll-up at Valverde LBC that seemed to increase the likelihood that others might be encountering the same forgetfulness.

We were playing on a rink that quite remarkably had very narrow aim lines on both the forehand and the backhand for the odd-numbered ends. While normally on the Valverde green, aim lines running to the boundary markers on each side of the rink are approximately correct, on this rink, in one of the directions, the aim line was 1/2 that. Since all the players were quite competent, it was quite apparent whenever someone forgot the proper aim line and reverted to the more regular target- the boundary markers. When anyone did that, their bowl finished glaringly wide.

What I observed was that when players delivered shots that they clearly intended to draw to the jack, many of these, from a plurality of the different players, finished very wide, indicating that those people had not remembered that this rink was distinctly narrow on both hands.

My conclusion is that more than just I might benefit from jotting down on a slip of paper in their pocket to remind themselves of the correct aim lines- forehand and backhand. 

“After Four a Meter More” at Lawn Bowls

The Greenbowler blog has recently researched the effects of rain and wind on the delivery and rolling characteristics of a lawn bowl. There is another environmental factor which has some importance but it does not depend upon the weather from day to day— it changes from hour to hour.

I was reminded of the significance of this factor while watching a video from the 2023 Australian Bowls calendar. The commentators noted during the match that the competitors were increasingly leaving their bowls a bit short. They quoted an Australian saying, “After four a meter more.”

I had never heard this but it encapsulates in a memorable way an important bit of lawn bowling lore. When the bowling surface cools down its resistance increases modestly but quickly and the weight that was perfect earlier in the day, when for example it was sunny, becomes insufficient.  Even in overcast conditions, the high temperature for the day often comes between 3 and 4 o’clock. After that time you need to instruct your subconscious control mechanism that a little extra push is required!