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. 

Controlling Weight at Lawn Bowls When You Take a Stare Point at 5 or more Meters

 

For a decade I worked with a stare point on my aim line 3 to 5 meters out from the front edge of the mat. This blog article is directed towards players who do this. If you take your stare point as the theoretical shoulder on the visualized path of your bowl, then this blog is not for you!

Using a stare point between 3 and 5 meters out along your aim line has the very significant advantage that you will know definitively after your bowl has been delivered whether you missed rolling the bowl over your stare point or whether it is your aim line that is wrong.

The disadvantage of the method is that you will have no instantaneous visual clue to help you get your weight correct. That will be entirely up to your recollection of the entire visualized path from a few moments before.

About 10 years ago I was in a roll-up at Broadbeach Bowls Club in Queensland Australia and a skip visiting from Melbourne gave me a tip about controlling weight when you use a stare point near the mat. He told me that if I was trying to deliver a bowl to a short jack my stare point should be no more than 3 meters out along my aim line, but if I wanted greater length I should be choosing a stare point 5 or 7 meters out.

At the time I tried following this advice and I remember my weight control did improve but I paid attention to it less and less thereafter, mainly because it didn’t make sense; why should it work?

Recently, during a practice session, a possible reason dawned on me.

If you are delivering a bowl to a short jack at 21-23 meters and you apply enough weight to get your bowl to travel along the aim line and over a stare point at 5 or more meters the bowl will be delivered too heavy. To roll straight along your aim line and over your stare point you have forced yourself to use too much weight. Instead, with a stare point only 3 meters away, you can bowl along your aim line, over your stare point, and still only apply the correct weight needed to reach the shorter jack.

In the alternative, if you are trying to roll your bowl straight along the aim line and over your stare point 5-7 meters out, that forces you to apply more weight and forces you not to be short!

Pertinent Definitions

An ‘aim line’ is the imaginary straight line that runs from the intersection of the rink’s center line and the front edge of the mat to a selected point on the front bank of the green. The bowler selects an aim line.

A ‘stare point’ is an imagined spot on an aim line over which the bowler tries to roll a bowl. 

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. 

Teaching and Learning Lawn Bowls Badly

I made a mistake this spring when teaching new bowlers how to deliver lawn bowls.

I told them that the only requirement mandated by the Laws of Bowls was that when one released a bowl at least a part of one foot must be on or over the mat. This was true.

I also told them that lawn bowls was a game where consistency determined good performance; that is to say, although anyone, experienced or inexperienced, can occasionally deliver a perfect bowl using any manner of delivery, a simple delivery like we would be teaching, is the easiest to do consistently. Which is also true.

But what I ought to have also said— but failed to say, was that if one doesn’t adopt a delivery style mimicking a top-flight player, the kind one can watch competing on YouTube for example, one’s ability to improve is going to be limited. To put it another way, the reason there are almost no champion players bowling with unusual styles is that, no matter how much these styles are practiced, they have inherent limitations that cannot be overcome.

What I also ought to have said— but didn’t, was that a new bowler should perfect a style that he or she could continue to deliver for an entire bowling career. 

I remember well that I started bowling delivering from a severe crouch. See the blurred image above of me in those days taken from a publicity poster. A coach at the Turramurra Bowls Club in Sydney Australia, where I was spending the winter, asked me, “How long do you plan on playing bowls?”

“’ Til I’m over 90“ I replied.

“Well,” he said, “You're not going to be able to squat like that when you’re 90. Better change it now.”

So, I should teach, and new bowlers should learn, a delivery that will last their entire bowling life!

Suggestions for New Bowlers

 

New bowlers tend to be particularly enthusiastic. They want to know whether their team is doing well and particularly if their bowls are in the count. Consequently, they have a tendency to stand around when measurements are being taken and even an inclination to offer suggestions about which bowls are likely important in the count. This is understandable but is simply not acceptable bowling etiquette. 

Leads are supposed both to keep quiet and to leave the determination of outcomes to others. Instead, get ready with the rake to bring the bowls together for the next end if your side is going to lose the end. The lead on the side winning the end should get the mat ready and be prepared to throw the next jack. I found it useful when playing lead not to worry about the score and just concentrate on my own bowling.

During every game when I am playing lead [I play lead in interclub tournaments] I keep a bowl in my hands continually once the jack is in place until all my bowls have been delivered. That way, I am immediately ready to receive instructions from the skip and make my delivery. That way, even if I take more time setting up for my delivery, I don’t unnecessarily slow down the game.

Leads, more than other players, are very often permitted to roll whichever hand they prefer because there are fewer interfering bowls in the head. 

You may have a preference for one hand over the other based simply on a better stare point because of a fortuitously located inhomogeneity on the rink. 

You should not change hands unless specifically requested by your skip. If there is a bowl that seems to be in the way of a delivery your skip is calling for, shifting the position of your anchor foot on the mat by a few inches can increase the likelihood that your bowl will reach the head and not suffer collision while still not defying your skip.  

Teaching the Correct Bias to Beginners

 I just finished teaching some new bowlers how to deliver lawn bowls at the James Gardens LBC Open House.

I was incorrectly teaching them how to avoid wrong biases and as a result, there were a lot of wrong biases. I was telling them the same thing I was taught 12 years ago. That is “ The small circle needs to be closest to the centre line of the rink.”

This doesn’t work!! The students are confused. I think it would be clearer if we said, “Make sure the bigger emblem on your bowl faces the side of the rink you will be bowling on.” That is, if you are bowling down closer to the left boundary, the big emblem should be on the left; if bowling closer to the right boundary, the big emblem should be on the right.

The boundaries are easier to recognise than the centre line. Particularly because the centre line is not marked in Canada and many other jurisdictions.

Delivering wrong-biased bowls is embarrassing. Let’s make it less likely to happen during these critical moments when new bowlers are deciding whether to take up our game! 

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. 

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. 

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’.