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 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?

Visualizing the Path of Your Lawn Bowl

 A number of years ago I attended a Canadian bowling delivery clinic and I asked Steve McKerihan, a perennial member of the Canadian Commonwealth team, whether he visualized the delivery before executing it. He told me, “Yes- but I visualize the delivery in reverse.”

What he meant was that he started with a picture of his bowl at rest in the location that was his target (usually right up against the jack) and then saw in his mind’s eye the bowl slowly move away from the jack and with gradually increasing speed back through its arcing path to his delivery hand on the mat.

Frankly, I had forgotten about this remark for quite a few years but recently realized that this ‘running the video backward’ can improve my visualization, particularly the last portion going into the head.

It is not enough to just get an impression of the possible arcing path of the incipient delivery; this last part of the course where the bowl enters the immediate vicinity of the jack must be part of it.

Imagining your bowl rolling along this complete path (whether forward or backward ) is how you teach your subconscious that this is what you want to do next.

Visualizing the complete path is best done standing up straight behind the mat. Holding the line and holding one’s stare point on it is done in the ready position which, depending upon individuality, may be a crouch. I have found that squatting just behind the mat helps me precisely pick a stare point.

When I release my bowl from my hand I immediately sense whether it is going to be a good shot. Why this feeling comes is still a personal mystery.

The Discipline of Pre-delivery Routine During Bowls Practice

 

In a good practice session, every bowl that you grass should be preceded by your consistent pre-delivery routine. If you are leaving out steps because it is just a repetition of your last bowl, then you are hard-wiring bad habits.

But let's be honest, if you get into the habit of delivering bowls one after the other to the same jack, at the same distance, from the same mat position; then, it is tempting to omit some of the steps of your pre-delivery routine because over that briefer period, your muscle memory can and will provide you an otherwise unavailable help getting your weight and line correct.

 Remember— you don’t get to grass bowl after bowl, in relatively quick succession in a game. An opponent alternates with you and not necessarily promptly!

It is better in practice to place two or more jacks (or flapjacks) at different positions on a rink and bowl to them alternately. This will cause you to follow your complete pre-delivery routine more faithfully since no two consecutive bowls will be aiming for the same target.

When I catch myself disregarding even a single element of my delivery protocol  I give myself a mental warning the first time it happens. I end my practice session if it happens again.

If you are not serious about practicing, let's agree to call what you are doing a pastime, because that's all you are doing-- passing time! 

A Balancing Exercise to Improve the Delivery of Lawn Bowlers

Lawn bowlers really don’t need a lot of strength. So long as the surface they play on is reasonably fast, the potential energy from allowing the bowl to descend to the bowling surface combined with the kinetic energy from a pendulum swing is sufficient to take a bowl the full length of the rink.

What lawn bowlers need, increasingly as they get older, is improved balance. Most delivery motions involve stepping forward with the advancing foot and a momentary brief balancing on the anchor foot alone. Brief as this is, a partial loss of balance by your entire body will cause deviations from the desired line and weight for your shot.

If you have been lawn bowling more or less regularly for six years or more, I think I can provide a little test that will demonstrate that your balance may be more important for your delivery than you think.

Take a bowl and stand in your ‘ready’ position to start your bowling delivery. Now raise your stepping foot slightly off the ground so that all your weight is supported on your anchor leg. Start counting: a thousand and one, a thousand and two, etc. stopping the count when you lose your balance. Now switch the bowl to the other hand and repeat, standing with all your weight supported on what would normally be the leg that steps forward. Again count. Repeat these two tests a few times. At least for me, I have much more enduring control of my balance standing on my normal 'anchor' leg. This, I hypothesize, is because my lawn bowling has provided some practice balancing on my anchor leg.

Doing this exercise, standing beside the back of a chair that you can reach out to when you lose your balance, you should, with practice, be able to stand alone on either leg for 20 seconds. When you can do this controlling your balance perfectly throughout your bowls delivery will be improved commensurate with whatever improvement you have made using the exercise.

 Try it!

Lawn Bowling Practice Game: Jacks Wild

 The Covid-19 Inspiration

Covid-19 restrictions have led lawn bowling clubs to organize play only on alternate rinks. This means there is essentially no interference with those on an adjacent rink when playing to off-center jacks. This in turn has made it possible to enjoy a new modified lawn bowls game which I have christened “Jacks Wild.” 

The Game

The game is designed to practice lawn bowling skills that are not given adequate attention during more common practice regimes. At the same time, it provides exciting competition between the participant players.

“Jacks Wild” is played using two jacks and eight bowls from two sets. It can be played as solitary practice in which a single player provides two sets of preferably matched bowls. When two people play together they use their own sets and deliver their bowls alternately. The object of the game, as in regular bowls, is to score points by delivering your bowls close to one of the jacks. Bowls that finish outside the rink are removed. Other rules analogous to regular bowls apply.

Each player delivers the jacks in alternate ends hence each player delivers jacks in only one direction on the rink. The player who starts the game places the mat centered and covering the T and delivers one after the other the two jacks. Each jack must finish within the designated rink space but one must be to the left of the center line and the other to the right. Each jack can finish anywhere on the rink that would be acceptable for a regular bowls game so long as each is on its designated side of the rink. In this game/exercise, however, neither jack gets centered. The jacks are played to at the spots where they finish. This means that jacks may even be close to the boundary lines or closer than two meters to the end ditch. This is why it is a good thing that Covid-19 is forcing us to have an empty rink between those that are being used! Otherwise, playing to jacks close to the boundaries could inconvenience other bowlers on adjacent rinks.

The player who has delivered both the jacks then delivers the first bowl trying to get as close as possible to whichever jack (s)he announces that (s)he will play towards. Then the second player uses a first bowl attempting to get close to the other jack. The two players then each get a second chance to deliver a second bowl towards their same targets. This simulates the normal bowls game in that each player gets a second bowl to correct on a first delivery.

The player who started the end delivering the jacks then delivers a bowl towards the other target not previously bowled at and the second bowler follows playing towards his/her new target. Each player then gets a chance to correct their deliveries towards each one’s second target. 

Bowls that finish closer to the jack that was not the intended target of that bowl are removed from play immediately; otherwise, confusion may arise in the scoring.

If, during play, one of the jacks is displaced bringing one or more of the bowls intended for the other jack closer to it, the bowls so changed, become part of this different head. 

To further avoid confusion, if a jack upon delivery finishes less than 2 meters distance from the other, the player who did not deliver these jacks can separate them by two meters by moving either one away from the other along the straight line that would run through the two of them.

 A tally is determined for each head and the net result is scored as the result of the end.

This is all repeated coming back on the green but this time the player who delivered the jacks and played the first bowl plays second.

The game is played to a predetermined number of ends.

Benefits of the Game

This game is much more difficult than the regular lawn bowls game.  Because the jacks are not placed on the center line, the aim lines change in every end. Furthermore, there is a forehand line and a backhand line that needs to be discovered for each of the two jacks. Because each participant only gets two bowls to deliver towards any one jack position, the pressure to get the proper correction for that second bowl is intense. In this respect, this is good practice for what is demanded in a regular game of fours.

Because the conditions change so quickly, the importance of having a rigid pre-delivery routine is multiplied. There are no extra chances. Full concentration is required for every delivery.

Because the game is so demanding the mat positions are fixed over the Ts. To make the game, even more, demanding the person delivering the jacks can be allowed to move the mat as in a regular game!

Covid-19 Provides the Opportunity to Practice Bowling to Severely Displaced Jacks

 

All over the world, Covid-19 restrictions have mandated that lawn bowlers must only play or practice on alternate rinks. Although there is much that this order prevents it does enable one thing. In our practice routines, we can all now include bowling to jacks that have been displaced to locations close to the side boundaries.

While play is normally permitted on all the available rinks practicing drawing to a jack near a boundary of one’s own rink frequently requires either bowling across a neighbor’s rink or delivering inside out bowls that end up out of bounds on that neighbor’s rink or interfering with a neighbor’s natural draw line as he/she tries to draw to a centered jack on that adjacent rink.

Now with the rinks on either side of your practice rink ordered empty by the Covid regulations, there are no neighbors to annoy. Let us therefore boldly seize this chance. It is my fervent wish that this opportunity will soon disappear and never return!

Lawn Bowling Skills Development Exercises

For the last two summers, I have run a clinic at Etobicoke LBC in Toronto Canada for lawn bowlers who are no longer beginners but still want to accelerate improvement in their bowling skills using some drills. I call it the Skills Development Challenge. I do not coach attendees although I remain on the green to answer questions or to help any new bowlers who show up.

 I set up 8 rinks each arranged to test a skill that if mastered can improve their game. I tell participants that it is a playground. They can start on any rink using their own bowls. They can try all or whichever challenges they want. They should just move from low rink numbers towards higher ones so they don’t collide with other participants. Each person gets a handout explaining what is going on at each rink site. In this blog, I attach the handouts for each of the four weekends. In my case, the green is open Sunday morning from 10:30am-12:01pm. 

SKILLS DEVELOPMENT CHALLENGE  2019 (1)

Rink 1 Deliver two jacks, one after the other, to between 21 and 23 meters (short jacks)

Then deliver two consecutive jacks to within 4 meters of the front ditch (long jacks).

Control of jack length is one of the two tools your side has to stay ahead. What is the other?

IMPORTANT FOR LEADS AND SINGLES BOWLERS_____________________________________

Rink 2 Deliver 4 bowls with the same weight over a single stare point marked with a beer coaster;

See whether you can pick up ALL 4  of your bowls from the green afterward without moving your feet from one place. The correct weight is 90% of the game; line is only 10%.

IMPORTANT FOR ALL BOWLERS______________________________________________________

Rink 3 Your opponent(s) have a very close shot bowl. Bowl 4 bowls so each of your 4 bowls finishes either within one mat length of the jack or ends up behind the jack; don’t be short. [When you’re down (in the head) be up!]

IMPORTANT FOR ALL BOWLERS______________________________________________________

Rink 4 Add or subtract length. Deliver your first 2 bowls trying to reach the length of your skip’s shoe, which is placed 1 meter beyond the jack; With your next two bowls try to subtract a meter.

The object is to avoid bowling short by first getting behind the jack and then correcting to get to the jack; avoid short bowls!

IMPORTANT FOR ALL BOWLERS_____________________________________________________

Rink 5 Draw around bowls to reach the jack; change where you stand on the mat if necessary. It isn’t necessary to change hands to avoid bowls in your line.

IMPORTANT FOR ALL BOWLERS _____________________________________________________

Rink 6 Remove a  single opposition bowl. Hit the shot bowl and move it back. Quite often the best way to score is to knock out an opposition bowl. Hitting a bowl is much easier than hitting a jack.

IMPORTANT FOR SKIPS ______________________________________________________________

Rink 7 Bowl between the two smaller markers with the weight to reach the large marker behind.

You can try with each of your bowls but don’t be short and block yourself.

IMPORTANT FOR VICES AND SKIPS ___________________________________________________

Rink 8 Draw to within 2 meters of the front ditch aiming towards a ditched jack. 

IMPORTANT FOR SKIPS ______________________________________________________________

SKILLS DEVELOPMENT CHALLENGE  2019 (2)

Rink 1 Deliver a jack and then immediately follow with a bowl delivering with the same rhythm speed. Rhythm speed is the combined swing of your arm and length of your step. Repeat- first jack then bowl. Delivering the jack first is one of the best ways for the lead to get the proper length.

IMPORTANT FOR LEADS AND SINGLES BOWLERS_____________________________________

Rink 2 Deliver 4 bowls with the same weight over a single stare point marked with a beer coaster;

See whether you can pick up ALL 4  of your bowls from the green afterward without moving your feet from one place. The correct weight is 90% of the game; line is only 10%.

IMPORTANT FOR ALL BOWLERS______________________________________________________

Rink 3 Your opponent(s) have a very close shot bowl. Bowl 4 bowls so each of your 4 bowls finishes either within one mat length of the jack or ends up behind the jack; don’t be short. [When you’re down (in the head) be up!]

IMPORTANT FOR ALL BOWLERS______________________________________________________

Rink 4 Deliver one bowl to each of four lengths marked by tennis balls. The correct weight is 90% of the game; line is only 10%.

IMPORTANT FOR ALL BOWLERS_____________________________________________________

Rink 5 On-shot through your team’s bowls in front of the jack. Promote your team’s short bowls.

IMPORTANT FOR VICES AND SKIPS________________________________________________

Rink 6 Remove a  single opposition bowl. Hit the shot bowl and move it back. Quite often the best way to score is to knock out an opposition bowl. Hitting a bowl is much easier than hitting a jack.

IMPORTANT FOR SKIPS ______________________________________________________________

Rink 7 Bowl between the two smaller markers with ‘ditch’ weight. You may need to break up a head when you are badly down. No more power is required than ‘ditch weight’. Extra power gives up accuracy.

IMPORTANT FOR VICES AND SKIPS ___________________________________________________

Rink 8 Push up one of your team’s short bowls.  A standing bowl is easier to move.

IMPORTANT FOR VICES & SKIPS ______________________________________________________

SKILLS DEVELOPMENT CHALLENGE  2019 (3)

Rink 1 Deliver a jack and then immediately follow with a bowl delivering with the same rhythm speed. Rhythm speed is the combined swing of your arm and length of your step. Repeat- first jack then bowl. Delivering the jack is one of the best ways for the lead to get proper length.

IMPORTANT FOR LEADS AND SINGLES BOWLERS_____________________________________

Rink 2 Deliver 4 bowls with the same weight over a single stare point marked with a beer coaster;

See whether you can pick up ALL 4  of your bowls from the green afterward without moving your feet from one place. The correct weight is 90% of the game; line is only 10%.

IMPORTANT FOR ALL BOWLERS______________________________________________________

Rink 3 Add or subtract length. Deliver your first 2 bowls trying to reach the length of your skip’s shoe, which is placed 1 meter beyond the jack; With your next two bowls try to subtract a meter.

The object is to avoid bowling short by first getting behind the jack and then correcting to get to the jack; avoid short bowls!

IMPORTANT FOR ALL BOWLERS_____________________________________________________

Rink 4 There are two jacks and two mats on this rink. Deliver 4 bowls from the back mat aiming to reach the jack at the hog line. Then deliver your 4 bowls from the forward mat to the jack at two meters from the front ditch. Does your aim change with the different mat positions? Does your weight change?

IMPORTANT FOR ALL BOWLERS_____________________________________________________

Rink 5 Remove both opposing bowls with a single delivery. This is one of the biggest easiest targets you will ever be given.

IMPORTANT FOR VICES AND SKIPS________________________________________________

Rink 6 Remove a  single opposition bowl. Hit the shot bowl and move it back. Quite often the best way to score is to knock out an opposition bowl. Hitting a bowl is much easier than hitting a jack.

IMPORTANT FOR SKIPS ______________________________________________________________

Rink 7 Deliver two blockers- one to protect against a forehand draw and the second to protect against a backhand draw. With your next two bowls deliver one forehand draw and then one backhand draw. Are your blockers effective? The best blockers against draw shots are just 14 meters from the mat.

IMPORTANT FOR VICES AND SKIPS ___________________________________________________

Rink 8 Draw to within 2 meters of the front ditch aiming towards a ditched jack. 

IMPORTANT FOR SKIPS ______________________________________________________________

SKILLS DEVELOPMENT CHALLENGE  2019 (4)

Rink 1 Deliver two bowls on your forehand and then two bowls on your backhand. Decide which is the more playable hand for you going in this direction. Now bowl two bowls on your forehand and two on your backhand coming back in the opposite direction. Again, for you, what is the more playable hand? Often , particularly on rinks that are not completely flat, one side is more forgiving of errors in line than the other and it is usually, but not always, the narrower side. Lead bowlers can often tell teammates the more playable side. 

IMPORTANT FOR LEADS AND SINGLES BOWLERS_____________________________________

Rink 2 The opposition has delivered a very close shot with their first bowl. Draw your side’s first bowl. Follow with three more good bowls.  It is even more important not to be short when the opposition has a very good shot bowl. As lead it is not your role to remove it. Try to deliver a good second best bowl; close but more importantly- behind the jack.

IMPORTANT FOR LEADS  AND SINGLES BOWLERS_____________________________________

Rink 3 Your side has delivered a very close bowl (6 inches).  Bowl 4 bowls so each of your bowls ends up behind the jack. Particularly, try not to bowl narrow; you do not want to separate your close bowl from the jack. The opposition will attack. The jack is very likely to move backward. 

IMPORTANT FOR ALL BOWLERS______________________________________________________

Rink 4 There are two jacks and two mats on this rink. Deliver 4 bowls from the back mat aiming to reach the jack at the hog line. Then deliver your 4 bowls from the forward mat to the jack at two meters from the front ditch. Does your aim change with the different mat positions? Does your weight change?

IMPORTANT FOR ALL BOWLERS_____________________________________________________

Rink 5 This is a test of measuring. Don’t bowl. Look at the head set-up. What do you measure? How many points does yellow score? Hint- After removing the uncontested bowls decide which is the best contesting bowl of the side that does not hold shot.

IMPORTANT FOR VICES AND SINGLES BOWLERS_______________________________________

Rink 6  Bowl to an off-center jack. This presents two problems: the possibility of ending out of bounds and estimating line & length over new grass.

IMPORTANT FOR ALL BOWLERS ______________________________________________________

Rink 7 Bowl your 4 bowls into this head and then count your score versus the bowls already behind the jack. Hint- If you touch the jack you can get in real trouble. If you bowl short you may block yourself. Try to rest your bowls on the opposing bowls behind or wick in off your own side bowls.

IMPORTANT FOR ALL BOWLERS ___________________________________________________

Rink 8 Bowl within two meters of the ditch because the jack is in the ditch. Be daring. The last two meters of grass is longer and the edge of the rink may have a small rise.

IMPORTANT FOR VICES & SKIPS______________________________________________________

You will notice that some challenges are repeated in different weeks while others appear only once. I emphasize that there is no need to come every week and no week is a prerequisite for later weeks.

War: A New Game Played with Lawn Bowls

War is a game I have devised that is played with lawn bowls on a lawn bowling rink. It develops skills that help in standard lawn bowls competitions but makes greater use of aggressive shots while deemphasizing the draw shot. When integrated into a practice routine, the game tactics emphasize drives, on-shots, blockers, and positional bowls. It is intended as a more boisterous game.

War was imagined as being played between two players each of whom delivers four bowls. Variants of the game can be imagined with teams and more bowls delivered per side. Unlike conventional bowls, however, an extra set of 4 bowls is involved in the game. These bowls are called the bodyguards. It speeds up the game if these four bowls are of a distinct color which is easily visible from the mat. In the picture, these bowls are solid yellow. At the beginning of each end the four ‘bodyguard bowls’ are grouped within a bowl length of the jack forming a tight rectangular box around the jack
 ( two slightly in front and two slightly behind it, as in the picture). The jack itself is centered at the hog line for the first two ends, then at a spot 3 meters behind the hog line for two ends, and finally 10 meters behind the hog line for two ends.

In alternate ends, a side either attacks the ‘king’(the jack) and his bodyguard bowls or defends them. The object is to end up with your side's bowls closer to the jack wherever it ends up. The scoring is as usual. In an end, the maximum score for the attacking side is four while for the defending side, the maximum is eight, since the bodyguard bowls count as defenders. The attacking side always throws the first bowl. If the jack is driven out of bounds, it is re-spotted centered 2 meters from the front ditch. Before the first bowl is rolled the defending side is lying 4 (the bodyguard bowls). Players alternate between playing attacker or defender.

The attacking side usually drives at or delivers a running shot through the head to break the jack away from the bodyguard bowls, although any strategy is permitted. The defending side usually tries to place blocking bowls in front, receiving bowls at the back, or covering bowls at the respot point. Again the strategy is up to the players.

When the head is seriously broken apart the game becomes a competition to draw closest to the new jack position.

Try it. You will get practice with many shots differing from just drawing to the jack.

The Problem of Bad Jack Delivery in Lawn Bowls

 

Alas, Good-bye Portugal 2018

Leads at lawn bowling clubs are usually the least experienced, most unskilled bowlers.

Singles players deliver their own jacks, but singles competitions are relatively rare except at the highest echelons of the sport.

As a consequence, you will rarely see any player practicing delivering jacks to precise distances. This is just the way the world is and I accept it. What I am ready to complain about is the increasingly common practice of skips that simply place the jack at a proper length when it is delivered too short or place it on the tee when it is delivered into the ditch. Yes- when a lead fumbles with the jack it is annoying and it slows down the game; but, to not return it for delivery by the opposing lead insults the contribution of leads in general and good leads in particular.

In the matches against touring English teams that  I have been playing in  these last few weeks at the Valverde Bowls Club (before returning to Canada), I have seen this three or four times. Only once was the jack returned, as required by the rules, to the opposing lead.

I will grant you that there may be some skips who are so frustrated by the inability of leads to deliver the jack the length called for, that they just give up on that part of the tactical game. On the other hand, I rarely hear a skip call out, “Good jack!” to his/her lead to encourage them. Dumbing down our game is not going to make it more popular.    

Lawn Bowling Practice:Quantifying Progress

The Author delivers

It is important to measure how you are doing with your lawn bowls. There are a number of methods of quantifying your draw bowling skill. I use a method I have devised called measuring the 'median of medians'. The method is described:

http://greenbowler.blogspot.ca/2013/04/median-of-medians-as-measure-of.html

I bowl three bowls to a centered jack at random lengths and measure the second-best bowl's distance from the jack. This is repeated between 9 and 15 times. The median value of these recorded bowls is the 'median of medians'. I just finished a test on the James Gardens synthetic surface which is running about 15 seconds. My 'median of medians' value was 49 inches or just about 4 feet. This is the second-best I have ever recorded. My best bowl in each end was approximately twice as good, meaning that a bowl better than two feet from the jack would usually be needed for an opponent to score.