Teaching Beginners Lawn Bowls a New & Better Way

I have discovered a new approach to teaching new lawn bowlers.

From what I have seen, this method leads more quickly to an effective, consistent paradigm that works for fast and slow surfaces, different body types, and different ages.

It starts with what is most familiar to beginners and adapts that to the more unfamiliar elements.

It starts by having the students roll jacks from a standing position on the mat aiming to send them smoothly down the center line of the rink over a chalk mark three meters in advance of the front edge of the mat. The jack is perfectly round, no different from objects these people are already familiar with such as baseballs, golf balls, or tennis balls. The goal is familiar also— precisely directing the ball along a desired path.

All that needs to be added to the instructions is the request that the jack travel between 21 and 30 meters and that it not be bounced on the bowling surface. The distance requirement will enforce the need for some backswing and the requirement for rolling will require the lowering of the body to bring a hand near to the rolling surface.

For the teacher, an added advantage of starting with jacks is that there are usually many more of them available for instruction and one does not need to start out struggling with different size bowls. All students can roll from the same collection of jacks. At this stage, it doesn’t even matter if some jacks are the heavier ones for playing on synthetic surfaces while others are the smaller lighter ones for playing on grass. 

If you fancy it, the teacher can at first let everyone experiment with how they get a jack smoothly past 21 meters down the center line. Once they recognize how difficult this is to reproducibly do, then you can demonstrate how you propose they learn to execute it! The reason we bowl the way we do is because it works better than other styles. It isn’t just convention or tradition!

Once your students can properly roll the jack, only then is it time to introduce the bowl itself.

Messing Up with the Jack at Lawn Bowls

 

In a sixteen-end triples match recently, the opposing lead bowler four times delivered the jack out of bounds and once put it into the forward ditch. Although apparently he didn’t think much of it, his team was trying to play long jacks while our side wanted short ones. These errors led substantially to our win and their defeat.

Too many casual bowlers just chuck the jack down the rink when it should be delivered with exactly the same delivery motion as a bowl. The privilege to deliver the jack and almost immediately follow it with the first bowl of the end provides a lead with an enormous assist in getting the correct weight from their very first bowl.

It is shocking how many beginner and even more experienced players can deliver a bowl reasonably well but frequently mess up delivering the jack.

Perhaps coaches should begin by teaching the delivery with that small white ball and only when the correct form is mastered move on to rolling a bowl with bias.

When You Can’t Hit your Line at Lawn Bowls Do this!

 If you have been reading the Greenbowler blog for a while you could be expected to know the answer to this question: If you are missing your line— that is failing to roll your bowl over your stare point, usually a spot about five meters in front of the mat — and consequently either leaving your bowl wide of the jack or having it cross over the center line and end up a distance away on the other side, what is the most likely problem with your delivery?

If you author that blog, you would be even more likely to think by now, after more than 10 years of lawn bowling, that surely that guy would quickly analyze what was going wrong and correct it within a few ends.

No such thing! For 36 ends, here in Portugal, bowling first at Valverde LBC and then the following day at Balaia LBC, my deliveries were all over the place and I was left scratching my head, wondering what was going wrong. My weight was fine but I was wide sometimes and narrow other times.

I should have reread my own blogs! If one fails to get one’s forward stepping foot firmly on the ground before one’s forward swing is well underway, the chance to deliver a bowl along the proper path to the jack is seriously degraded. What was infuriating— well not quite, it is only a game— was that I have written at least five blog articles emphasizing this— more than about any other aspect of the delivery.

Anyway, my bowling today confirms it; that was the problem. I hope my readers catch on faster than I did when they encounter the same problem!

Removing Strain from your Lawn Bowls Delivery

 

Every so often I deliver a very wobbly bowl often called a ‘pineapple’ or sometimes a ‘cucumber’. I ascribe this error to having too tense an arm and pushing out the bowl aggressively just at release.

In one video of a great YouTube series from the ‘Delivery Doctor’  Bowls Delivery Sequence 04 The No Backswing Backswing, he prescribes at one point the solution to this problem. The Doctor says that in the pre-delivery set-up position, the bowler should support the bowl with his free hand by placing it under that hand thereby cupping both bowl and the bowling hand. With this support by the free hand the bowling arm can then be completely relaxed since all the weight of the bowl is being supported externally. This cupping support is put in place after completing a few practice swings along the chosen aim line and just before the actual backswing is started.

Now with the bowling arm completely relaxed, the supporting hand is withdrawn and the bowling arm is allowed to naturally fall and then swing back to whatever amount flows naturally propelled by the simple force of gravity. Being set up correctly assists and even enforces the arm swing to stay over the chosen aim line. The forward swing is then subconsciously directed according to the length of the required bowl’s path, as visualized moments before during the set-up for the delivery.

Although my own delivery differs from that taught by the Delivery Doctor in some respects, this cupping of the delivery hand allowing the delivering arm to become totally relaxed is an effective modification of delivery that promotes a smoother launch of a bowl. 

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!

My Last Secret for Consistently Hitting Your Stare Point

In 2020, I published a blog describing the bowling delivery that I have evolved during my previous 8 years of lawn bowling.

At one point this month just passed, I was teaching a new bowler this delivery and during the instruction, I hit upon a concept that radically improved my own capacity to roll a bowl precisely and consistently over a stare point 3-5 meters out on the green. Further testing and practice have shown that indeed this change can be an improvement.

Over and over again, in my blog articles, I have emphasized the importance of getting one’s advancing foot down on the green before swinging your bowling arm through to deliver a bowl. I have now found that not only is it important that the heel of one’s advancing foot touch the surface of the green but one’s weight needs to have been transferred forward onto the ball of that foot before starting the downward swing of the bowl if one wants to more dependably roll your bowl over your stare point.

So great is the improvement that follows from this change that I am repeating my earlier blog with this change printed in a red typeface below.

I bowl from the Shooters’ stance. My anchor foot is positioned at an angle of 45 degrees to the line of delivery. I have chosen this because it provides less side-to-side tilting during my stepping when I am on one foot only. For the set-up, I use the South African foot positioning which places the stepping foot one-half a stride in front of the anchor foot. This reduces the length of the forward stride and thereby reduces the time that I'm standing on one leg. I expect this increases my stability. In my set position, I have my non-bowling hand resting on the knee of my forward leg. This keeps my center of gravity lower than it would  be in a completely erect posture; again trying to minimize sway. My hand on knee locks in that stability. My weight is essentially completely on my anchor foot in this 'set' position so that my forward stepping will provide a consistent momentum accompanying a consistent forward velocity. 

My wrist is no longer cocked. I abandoned this experiment because it was inconsistent with having a more relaxed arm. The biggest change from previous years is that I now hold my bowl tilted, (the plane of the rolling surface not parallel with the aim line) even in the ready position so that no  Bryant twist is required during the backswing. This follows the observed practice of Stuart Andersen, a world bowls champion. This angle reflects the natural position of my hand when it hangs loosely at my side.  Previously,as I twisted my wrist when I was using a Bryant twist in my backswing I felt that the bowl’s changing center of gravity was throwing off the smooth line of my backswing. Starting with the wrist off-center as Andersen does eliminates this perception. Bringing my wrist back into line, so the bowl’s running surface coincides with the aim line, occurs in my forward swinging and I do not feel it.

My grip for a draw or running (run through) shot is best described as having the “C” formed by my thumb and index finger on the bowl’s grip marks. (Since I use Aero Zig-Zag Grooved bowls, there is an actual channel for my thumb and finger.) My middle fingertip is centered on the running surface of my bowl. In contrast, for a drive, all four of my fingers are on the bowl with my index finger on one grip and my baby finger on the other.  My two middle fingers are near the center of the running surface. Putting all four fingers behind the bowl seems to improve my power while preserving accuracy.

Following David Bryant’s teaching, holding the bowl in a proper grip and standing in my set position, I look back and forth alternating between my stare point, over which I must roll my bowl to get the proper bias swing, and the jack location, whose distance I need to internalize to get the proper weight. At the same time, I make a few abbreviated practice swings along the proposed line, and then when I feel comfortable I begin my backswing.

My backswing is slow and measured; like an archer drawing his bow or a pool player lining up his cue. My mind is focused on keeping my backswing on top of the extension of my aim line out behind me. My eyes stare at the ‘stare point’ on my aim line which I want my bowl to traverse.

I do not start my forward stepping until the completion of my backswing. This backswing along the extension of my aim line is done to the internal count of “a thousand and one.”

On the measured, unhurried count of “a thousand and two” I step forward and bring my stepping foot, heel first, down onto the rink. My bowling arm does not start swinging forward during this step. Doing so would lead to some at least partial loss of balance that would make rolling the bowl over my ‘stare point’ more difficult. Nevertheless, although I do not start my arm swing the bowl moves forward somewhat because my body moves forward during this stepping out.

Then on “a thousand and three” as my body rocks forward and my weight transfers from my heel to the ball of my foot then onward to my toes, my arm swings forward. Thus the bowl is being accelerated both by my arm and body movement at the point when I draw back my fingers and release the bowl just in front of my planted advanced foot.

At this point, my body dips slightly to bring my bowl closer to the ground. I release my bowl just in front of my forward foot. During the forward stepping and forward swinging, my mind is blank—in order to commit complete control to my subconscious. Once the bowl is released, I consciously observe whether I have rolled the bowl over my stare point so that I will know whether I need to correct my line or simply do a better job of hitting it!

It is important, I think, to be sure that one completely transfers one’s body weight forward onto one’s stepping foot. This is achieved by actually walking off the mat or at least raising one's anchor lag above the mat.  I have so far failed to consistently follow this, so it is a work in progress. I am also trying to vigorously draw my fingers and thumb off the bowl as I release it so that there is no last-minute deflection from the line; but, this so far is also just a hoped-for outcome. Since I am trying to leave the forward swing to my subconscious it is difficult to consciously control the bowl’s release.

 

A Novel Way to Introduce Beginners to Competitive Play at Lawn Bowls: Retaining New Bowlers

 

We must be doing something wrong. The middle to older demographic, whom we expect to be interested in taking up lawn bowls has yet to arrive.  Bowls clubs are closing.

My hypothesis is that the instructing period is too long, we need to get new bowlers into real games more quickly. It is taking too long for initiates to pick up what is needed to fit into a game with more experienced bowlers.

To address this I propose a very slightly modified game that enables one experienced bowler on each team to be with the beginning bowler, coaching and encouraging throughout the play.

The setup is just a game of fours with the difference that the tyro leads each deliver three bowls. Thus it is a standard game of fours with the difference that nine bowls are delivered by each side in an end.

Why will this provide more support for the starting bowler and enable him or her to get actually playing a game sooner? In the fours game, the lead and second are physically together all the time. If the person playing second, quietly coaches the new lead throughout the match—“Now you center the mat.” “Now you deliver the jack and guide skip to center it.” “The aim line is about the number sign on the adjacent rink.” “Check to see whether your bowl is inside or outside the rink.” etc. then the lead will feel more at ease and will be less likely to be criticized by other irritated players who want to play faster games.  With someone dedicated to keeping the new bowler aware of both aspects of a good delivery and their team duties, they can begin actually playing games after less instruction and practice.

This may work or may not. What is certain is something has to change or our great game is a goner!  

The Magic of Finding a Distinct Stare Point to Control Bias at Bowls

 

Writing a blog about lawn bowling brings one back over and over to the same subjects- things I have talked about before. But these are so important and yet in my own practicing I find I lose sight of their importance and fall into those same bad habits and then wonder why I have a streak of bad bowling.

So when I let something important slip I assume that the same can happen for my readers and perhaps it is worth a reminder.

Here in Toronto Canada, the lockdown is ending and bowling clubs are opening their greens for practice alone and for singles. There are still lots of precautions even though most of the bowlers who are going to show up have been fully vaccinated.

I was out on the outside carpet at James Gardens LBC today. It was lovely sunshine and I was safely alone, locked inside the fence-enclosed green. I had just received my second dose of the Pfizer vaccine that very morning.

My weight control was good but my line control was appalling. What was going wrong? As it turned out I was having trouble holding my stare point. Earlier in the season, the green had been dotted with maple seeds so it was easy to pick a visible stare point. Now, they had all been blown away into the ditches, and because the carpet is so consistently uniform I was having trouble picking out some physical discontinuity to use as a stare point.

This reminded me that I had already written a blog teaching how, if one had control of the mat, one could place it at a distance up the green so that some remaining distinctive spotting could become a visible stare point. When I did this and combined it with a complete pre-delivery routine good bowling magically returned! 

Best Delivery Style for New Bowlers

 

After 7 years of playing lawn bowls I am generally happy with my delivery; happy with my weight control, happy with my line control, and happy with my consistency. The way I now bowl is substantially different from what I was originally taught. What introductory coaches teach can only serve as a standard starting point for the evolution of each player’s particular style. 

Nevertheless, it is fair to ask, “Could there be a better single form from which individual players could better evolve?”

I think the answer is yes there is. A better base for beginning bowlers would be the Shooters’ Stance because it is inherently more stable and accommodates more body types. Having the anchor foot angled to the aim line reduces upper body instability during those seconds when the bowler is supported on one leg as the forward step is taken. Angling the anchor foot also moves the bowler’s hips out of the way so the swing of the bowling arm is unimpeded in all cases.

The stepping foot on the other hand should point down the rink along the aim line or point at the stare point 3-5 meters ahead of the mat if you are teaching an aim point on the rink. This is so you can come down with your heel, rock forward onto the ball of your foot, and then walk through as if following your bowl. Walking off the mat is optional but the complete transfer of weight from your anchor foot is essential. 

The degree your stepping foot is initially positioned in advance of your anchor foot will depend upon how you set up your upper body. 

So far I have only spoken about foot orientations. The positions of each foot determine how you will support your body. Grip positions determine how you will hold your bowl. There are all kinds of advice concerning grip on the bowl. What is most comfortable for the individual is best for the individual. If there is any common element it is that the tip of your longest finger should rest on the center line of the running surface of the bowl so the bowl is released without unreproducible wobbling. The position of the thumb will depend upon the characteristics, size, and strength of your hand. Most introductory coaches and most coaching videos teach some variation of a claw grip to the degree that they call for the thumb to be somewhat opposite the fingers where it can squeeze the bowl so that it does not fall even when you turn your hand over so that only your thumb is under the bowl. Such a grip in my opinion is preferred if it can be executed comfortably but it is not mandatory. Some world-class bowlers use a palm grip where the thumb rests on the side of the bowl. Some persons, particularly older players, have arthritic thumbs or other handicaps that make a claw-type grip uncomfortable or impossible.

Even as I make this suggestion, I want to remind everyone that a bowls lesson should not be a person’s first experience with lawn bowling. That first exposure should not be a pedagogic opportunity; rather, it is a marketing opportunity. The goal is to fascinate, not to improve. The most fascinating aspect of bowls is that a bowl follows a beautiful predictable curved path; hence, tyros it is hoped will first pick up how to take grass and draw towards a jack.

This is a problem for actual teaching because the most important element of performance is really getting the correct ‘weight’.

Avoid Dropping your Bowl: A Back Swing for Palm Bowlers

 

Bowlers who use a palm grip have a special problem; because they do not position their thumb on top of the bowl they cannot squeeze the bowl firmly and so cannot dependably hang on to the bowl if they want to deliver with any significant backswing.

This isn’t always a matter of choice. Many bowlers, whether because of the length of their fingers or because of medical deficiencies, cannot grip with their thumbs. Not having any significant backswing can make delivering a bowl to longer jacks, for them, either challenging or impossible.

I believe I have stumbled upon a way to overcome this problem. While studying the deliveries of the best indoor lawn bowlers for blog articles about them, I noticed that Stuart Anderson holds his bowl with its running surface at an angle to the delivery line throughout his backswing. He then straightens his wrist either at the top of his backswing or during his forward swing and releases it with the bowl’s running surface parallel with his aim line. This differs from what is taught to most beginning bowlers who are taught either a straight backswing or a drawing back combined with a Bryant twist.  Anderson uses a claw grip so why he does this very individualistic thing is unclear. What is very clear is that it does not subtract from his efficacy. Anderson won the World Indoor Bowls championship in 2019!

What I came to realize however was that if palm bowlers adopted this change they could have a secure backswing in their deliveries without any complicating coordination of swinging and twisting their wrists as is so often taught in Australia and New Zealand. The reason this works is that if you align your hand like Anderson does when you take your backswing, your thumb, if it is at the side of the bowl, will end up under the bowl and hold it more securely in your hand!

I, myself, use a claw grip but even without practice, I was able to switch to a palm grip and still retain the same pendulum swing which I had become part of my standard grooved delivery.

Why One Aims with the Advancing Foot Bowling from the Shooters’ Stance

 

It makes a lot of sense to place your anchor foot at 45 degrees to the aim line for a lawn bowling delivery. Placed at an angle rather than parallel to the aim line gives more stability when all your weight is on one foot as one steps forward. But why should one step out with one’s advancing foot toe pointing at your stare point on your aim line as also recommended by New Rodda?

 

Following the same argument wouldn’t it give an even more stable base to have that advancing foot also come down firmly at an angle to the aim line? 

I couldn’t understand the difference until recently when I was thinking about a different problem. How could I bowl smoothly if my stepping foot landed with a jolt as I set it firmly down in my delivery? The answer appears to be that I would need to come down on my forward stepping heel and rock forward transferring my weight from heel to sole and finally to my toes as I walked off the mat. But this is only possible if one points the advancing foot  somewhat parallel to the aim line. 

So that is the real reason why Nev Rodda  says to use the advancing foot to aim: the purpose is not really to enhance your aim (as he says, “This is how I like to explain it.”) but rather to smoothly transfer weight from the anchor foot to the advancing foot!

The Delivery at Lawn Bowls: Backswing Like a Pool Player

I have blogged about the importance of a slow methodical backswing as part of an accurate lawn bowling delivery. In another earlier blog I have compared this to an archer slowly drawing back the bow string. I think having a useful analogy for a physical action can highlight its most important elements.

Once more I would like to emphasize the importance of a backswing exactly along the extension of your aim line for the bowl’s delivery. Instead of archery I think an even better way to think about it is to compare it with billiards. The hand holding the cue must be precisely on the aim line that the billiard ball is to take. Also it is briefly stationary before the commencement of the forward push of the cue or the forward swing of the arm when a lawn bowl is grassed.

I find that mentally concentrating on a careful draw back of the bowl both improves one’s success hitting the aim line and takes one’s conscious mind off the question of weight and lets one’s subconscious take take care of that!

The Delivery at Lawn Bowls: Creating a Distinct Stare Point on your Aim Line

Apparently, most bowlers choose their aim line by looking for an aim point on or behind the forward bank. I also gauge the bias for my delivery using such a distant point, but then I go further and imagine a line from that point back to the centre of the mat and choose as my stare point a spot on that imaginary line about 5 metres in front of the mat line. I do this so that when I release my bowl I can clearly see whether I have managed to roll my bowl over that chosen stare point or whether I have been either wide or narrow of it. Based on where my bowl ends up I then know, when it is an unacceptable result, whether that poor result arose because I missed my stare point or alternatively because my stare point was itself just incorrect!

This post is directed to those who use a stare point that is close to the mat like I do. 

I have found that my consistency in rolling my bowl over a stare point about 5 metres in front of the mat line is improved if there is a real visible mark at that spot. A well-maintained green does not have many clearly visible marks on it; however, there are two ways that even a single mark on the rink can be used.

First, if there is a mark about 5 metres out but it does not fall on your aim line, moving your foot position on the mat can sometimes bring that spot onto your aim line and it can become your stare point. This is illustrated by (A) in the Figure.

The second method is more flexible. Suppose you can see a clearly visible mark on the green but it is too far forward to work as your stare point. When you get possession of the mat you can move the mat so that this visible stare point, your aim point on or beyond the front ditch, and the centre of the mat line fall on a straight line. This is illustrated by (B) in the Figure.

Using one of these tricks can make your stare point visible.

A Streak of Rubbish Bowls

When I took up lawn bowling I read that this game was at least 90% mental and only 10% or less physical skill. Mostly, I have continued to struggle with the supposed 10% but now that I have run into a run of ‘rubbish bowls’ I begin to understand the supreme importance of confidence to playing good bowls.

Since the beginning of January my wife and I have been playing bowls either at the Valverde LBC in Almancil or at the Balaia LBC which is located on the grounds of the Balaia Golf Village just east of Albufeira, both in the Algarve in Portugal.

The weather here has been great; however, my bowling has been aweful. That is:  I am full of awe at exactly how consistently bad it has been. But, this gives me the opportunity to write about how I handled a streak of poor performance.

 I did not handle it well! Instead of accepting that rough spots can arise from time to time and that one’s subconscious muscle memory will likely soon assert itself and the problem will disappear as mysteriously as it arose, I regularly panic and conclude that I am just not cut out for this sport and that  I have wasted more than a half-dozen years of my retirement trying to improve.

If possible the problem should be addressed during the game in which it first arises. You should have conducted in advance a self-analysis of your delivery that has identified a personal list of the most frequent deterioration in your ideal delivery. In my case I have found two that I have identified more than twice. By far the most frequent is not getting my forward stepping foot firmly planted before swinging my arm forward to launch my bowl. I have written about this problem repeatedly in my blogs. When this happens one cannot consistently pass near a stare point.

  The second  deviation that I have identified more than once is selecting a stare point more than 5 meters up the green with the result that my bowl has started to curl even before it passes this point and consequently I become confused about the proper line.

My difficulty during this last ‘rubbish bowls’ period was more complicated. At the same time as I was consistently missing rolling my bowl over my stare point I was all over the place with regard to weight. As it turned out I was suffering from two deviations from proper delivery at the same time and the interplay of these caused this random erring.  How did I diagnose what was going wrong? I reread my own blog articles describing my proper delivery. The line missing was as usual attributable to stepping out late-after I had already begun my arm swing. The error in length was not caused by my failure to mentally imagine the path of the bowl from hand to jack (this is the most frequent  cause) but  by me bending my elbow as I released the bowl giving it a slight spin as it came out of my hand. For me, my arm should remain straight as I release my bowl and remain pointing at a 45 degree angle towards the ground as I step forward off the mat. This is modelled after Alex Marshall MBE.

Nevertheless, even if you cannot identify what is causing a run of bad bowls so long as you have been bowling for several years your muscle memory will most likely correct any delivery defect in future matches so long as you don’t dwell on the problem and over-think it. This over-thinking is my cross to bear!