Median of Medians as a Measure of Improvement for Lawn Bowls Practice

What one does not measure one does not consistently improve. This is because without measurement there is no feedback to quantitatively identify better versus worse performance. For measuring the accuracy of draw shots in lawn bowls several methods have been suggested.

 http://www.suncitylawnbowls.com/files/judson_accuracy.pdf

I am working on a method that should minimize the amount of measuring that needs to be done and so is the quickest way to integrate quantitative measurements into regular practice. Three bowls are thrown, one after the other, towards a position marked by a tennis ball or other small object. Several of these balls can be set out at different distances in both directions on the rink. The position of each tennis ball is marked on the green with a chalk X so it can be returned to the same position if displaced. After the three bowls have been grassed only the bowl 2^nd closest to the target has its distance from the jack recorded. A target at a different length is then selected for the three bowls going back down the rink in the other direction. Again one takes the measurement for the middle (median) bowl. After bowling an odd number of ends and collecting an odd number of distances, the set of lengths is ordered and the middle one is identified from this set. This is the median of medians distance from the target that you have bowled. The object is to improve this number with practice and experience.

What do you do if two bowls collide? Nothing -it is just as likely that the collision improves your median length as deteriorates it. If you can improve your scoring by promoting your bowls this should be measured as an improvement.

You might ask what do I do with my fourth bowl when performing this test. I direct mine at one of the alternate targets after I have thrown my three test bowls. Choose this new target to minimize any possibility of colliding with your test bowls.

Over time this measure should give a pretty good indication of whether you are improving or just maintaining the status quo.

The Delivery at Lawn Bowls: Plant that Forward Stepping Foot

The other day I was working on my draw shot as a good novice lead bowler should.
 My left-right accuracy was not as good as it had been the day before. It wasn’t because I did not have as good a stare point . Both days I had laid down a  3-4 meter long string on the surface of the rink from the mat towards the head and was attempting to lay my bowl right down the length of that string. The problem was that the previous day I was for some reason  just more consistently right on top of that line. If there had been no string I would not have noticed that the two days differed by how close I was coming to my aim line because that difference was often no more than two centimeters. Some experimentation, focusing on different aspects of my deliver, identified the key difference: I was not firmly planting the foot with which I stepped forward before starting the forward pendulum motion of my delivery arm. When I made sure that my stepping forward was complete before the forward swing began it made that slight difference in accuracy following the aim line and the bowls returned to being more consistently close to the target.
From now on making sure my forward foot is well planted will be the first thing I check when things start to go wrong

Thanks to the Likas Lawn Bowling Complex in Sabah, Malaysia

To avoid the winter ice and snow of Canada, I spent January through March of 2013 in Kota Kinabalu, Sabah, Malaysia.  This is in the tropics on the island of Borneo in what we westerners used to call the East Indies. Malaysia has a big program teaching lawn bowling to young people and I witnessed the skill of these students while playing at the Likas Lawn Bowling Complex in Kota Kinabalu. I was welcomed enthusiastically to play at this facility and for this I would like to particularly thank the President, Ladislaus Maluda, who answered my questions in advance by e-mail  and facilitated my introductions to players once there.

The Likas facility has two greens. They were both damaged by flooding. One green has been completely replaced and newly it reopened in February while I was there. To my surprise the surface is a sand-packed synthetic plastic material  exactly  like that at my Canadian home club,  James Gardens, in West Toronto.

 There are differences in the greens. At Likas, the center lines of  the rinks are permanently marked. This has the advantage that it speeds up the placement of the mat and the jack. The disadvantage is that as the rinks wear with heavy use some depressions may form along the center line where there will be more foot traffic. When the rinks are not marked, they can be moved from side-to-side by shifting the rink boundary markers to give more even wear.

A difference in the progress of play is that in all my time at Likas I never saw a rake. Players pick up their bowls or kick them back preparatory to playing the next end.

I also noticed a difference in the social aspect of the game. In friendly play, even when there are unused rinks available, it seems tobe standard for a singles game to morph into a pairs game and then to morph again into a triples contest as new players arrive at the club. This emphasizes the casual friendly nature of play and gives a new player a chance to meet everyone faster.
I
t seems that everywhere in the world, lawn bowlers are the most welcoming people around!  

When do You Need to Change the Distance of the Jack in Lawn Bowls?

The simplest tactical rule is: change things when you are losing and keep things the same when you are winning. Most game players judge winning or losing by the score, but I think this is simplistic and leads to poorer as often as to better tactical decisions. If we look at any run of three or four consecutive ends in a lawn bowling match, luck as much as anything else may determine the difference in points scored because you do not score anything unless you have the shot bowl. Perhaps a more revealing indication of whether you are bowling better or worse than an opponent is what proportion of the best four bowls in each end of the series are yours! Even if the opponents score shot, if for example you have the second, third, and fourth shots you are doing very well and with any reasonable luck will eventually outscore your opponents.
Shifting to the opposite perspective, just because you have had the shot in each of three consecutive ends, the opposition could have had eight of the twelve closest bowls in those ends. If so, you are being out-bowled and ought to change tactics. I would not want to bet on you  winning the match if things continue as they are going in this situation. As things stand when your luck changes’ those opponents are going to have some multi-point ends. It is good tactics to try to improve your chances now by changing some combination of mat placement and jack length, trying to disrupt your opponents’ good bowling consistency before it leads to a scoring spree.   

When is a Lead’s Bowl Short?

There is a maxim addressed to leads at lawn bowls that says, “When you are down shot, don’t be short.” Other sources instruct leads more simply; just don’t bowl short at all. When the opposition has shot very close to the jack, it makes sense not to blockade your teammates’ path to removing it.

But what actually constitutes a short bowl?  Is a bowl one foot immediately in front of the jack short? How about two feet or three feet directly in front? Where does short start? Does it depend on how wide of the jack that bowl is?  It seems to me that a resting bowl should not be a problem if it is close enough to the jack that it can be easily promoted. In that case, wouldn’t 'short' depend upon the surface, because that would control how much a stationary bowl could be rolled up?

If the offending ‘short’ bowl is a meter or more to one side or the other of the jack, I can see that it is a problem, no matter what distance in front of the jack, but in this situation it is not so much the problem of an opponent potentially wicking off it (my side can use the same opportunity), it is simply that, if the jack gets moved backwards during the subsequent play, that bowl will become increasingly irrelevant to the count.

Why not bowl ‘around the clock’ on fast synthetic surfaces?

I often play as lead on a team with a more experienced player, who because of a slight physical handicap, prefers to bowl on the forehand. He is right handed. I am left handed. Although I do not have a preference respecting hands, would it be advantageous for him if I also bowled ‘around the clock’ on my forehand? This would tend, perhaps, to keep his forehand side of the rink less cluttered.

What exactly is the rationale for the rule against bowling ‘around the clock’? Some coaching sources say that it gives a better control of length; but length changes each end as the jack and mat positions change. Some sources say it is so the speed of the green doesn’t vary as much or the path length from mat to jack remains more constant.  The former reason would really apply more to slow natural grass surfaces and not hardly at all to homogeneous synthetic ones. The latter reason would only apply when a standard length is being bowled end after end. I can understand the prescription not to change hands during a particular end but cannot understand why a change between ends should be a problem.  

The Benefits of the Skip Delivering a Block Shot

Because the better bowlers deliver their bowls later in an end and because the jack is often moved during the end, the bowls of the early players are less frequently involved in the count. The junior members of a team are keenly aware when their bowls are involved and particularly when one of their bowls is shot. In a social game, when the skip goes to bowl and his inexperienced lead's bowl is shot , I think consideration should be given to trying to protect that shot rather than adding to the score. Nothing is more disheartening to a beginning player than to have his own skip err and displace ‘his’ shot bowl with the side’s last bowl. Perhaps if the skip  bowls so as not to disturb a winning position, s(he) should consider playing a block to protect, or at least make more challenging, the opposing skip’s attempt to displace that shot, disrupt the head, or blank the end. This action like no other would inspire and motivate a novice teammate.

Delivering a Short Block Shot

Lawn bowling tyros, like myself, get to be skip in occasional club or practice games. When holding shot and with the second last bowl to play, I am anxious not to disrupt the head and lose our advantage. In such a situation I am thinking a block shot seems appropriate. It will not disrupt the head. It will leave us with shot and, if the block is well placed, it will reduce the options for the opposing skip’s last bowl.

The most effective position to place a block shot is 14 meters in front of the mat. Fourteen meters is the minimum distance that a bowl must move to be a legal bowl. A block  is more effective the closer it is to the mat because it appears larger to the opposing bowler and possible routes to the jack cannot accommodate much variation in the initial part of the path.

I have found that the best block shot is delivered from a crouch position with the leg which ordinarily steps forward already a small step in front of the foot on the mat. The bowl is held with the arm hanging  vertical. With no backswing and no stepping, the bowl is pushed along the aiming line. The delivery  should be inside out. If one is trying to interfere with a draw or run-through shot, the aim line should be one-half a division (a quarter of a lane) off-center towards the opposite side from where you want the bowl positioned. If one anticipates a drive, the line should be the normal one to give a centrally positioned bowl.  

Using this method the bowl went 14-18 meters from the mat on a fast artificial surface. There is no weight transfer and no elevation of the bowl to provide energy. Only the arm muscle provides impetus and then only briefly. It is for this reason that the bowl is very short.

A blocking bowl is most effective on a slow surface because there is less flexibility with the delivery angle. On a slow green, however, you will need a different technique to send a bowl 14-18 meters.