Learn from the Bowls Delivery of Nicky Brett

Stance

Nicky Brett bowls from a stance with both feet parallel and side by side on the mat. This is the classic position. Most often both feet are initially completely on the mat. More recently bowlers are being taught that only the anchor foot need be on the mat. This is true of what are called center-line bowlers who are taught to deliver both forehand and backhand over the front center of the mat. Another more recent teaching is to have the foot that is going to step forward into the shot, slightly advanced. This style was first observed among South African bowlers but is now common throughout the world of bowls. Another difference very common today is the Shooters’ stance, popularized online by Nev Rodda from Australia. Indeed The Greenbowler author has adopted this footwork himself. Well, none of this for the present world champion; his stance is traditional and obviously it can be part of a successful style.

Nicky Brett’s Grip

If you want to observe the champion’s grip on YouTube you will need to run taped matches at the slowest speed (1/4 of normal) and stop the frames when he is adjusting his grip. Brett places only three fingers on the underside of the bowl. Although it is not completely clear it appears that he keeps his pinky finger well off the bowl. His thumb is plainly at the side of the bowl (not seen in the picture above) as in the traditional palm grip. Brett is the premier palm bowler in the game. He can be a model for palm bowlers, who are many because many club bowlers cannot use their thumbs to grip the bowl because of hand size, minor injuries, or health problems.

Although Brett’s overall delivery is speedy, the amount of time he takes to confirm that his finger positions are precise is longer than most. This is because, being a palm bowler, the bowl does indeed roll off his fingers and hence they need to be precisely positioned.

Brett’s Opposite Hand Position

The ‘opposite hand’ refers to the hand that does not do the bowling. This hand in the cases of most bowlers participates very little in a delivery. Brett uses this hand to steady the bowl on his palm. More than most other bowlers Brett quite stops his delivery and resets. Commentators say that this is because he sees motion in the audience in his peripheral vision. This may be true sometimes but I suspect that he feels his grip slip more often. What is dramatically characteristic (when it is carefully observed at all) is that his fingers and thumb are drawn together and point straight forward as if he were trying to put on a tight glove.

Different bowlers dispose their non-bowling arm in different ways during delivery. Many have no idea what is going on with this limb of theirs. Some rest their forearm on their thigh.

Some hang their arm loosely at their side, Some place theirs on their thigh and slide it down towards the knee as they step forward. I place my hand on my knee when taking my stance because I am already in a crouch. 
Completely avoiding contact with any part of their body is characteristic of the most excellent bowlers. Their balance needs no assistance. Ordinary mortals usually have some contact with the thigh or knee of the advancing foot. Club bowlers can often be seen with this free arm flailing in the air, trying to assist to maintain their balance.

Brett’s Back-Swing

Because he is a palm bowler Nikky needs a Bryant twist during his backswing to prevent his bowl from falling. Although the bowl’s running surface is completely parallel with his line at the beginning of the delivery and at the release point, his hand turns in at the top of his pendulum swing so that his thumb supports his bowl and prevents it from falling. The only alternative to this for a palm bowler is to use no backswing at all and just push the bowl out after lowering it straight down. In the picture above at the right one can just see the edge of the green bowl at the top of the backswing which is not much further back than his anchor foot position

Forward Stepping

Nick’s entire body moves forward with his bowl swing. His forward stepping foot first contacts the bowling surface heel first and then he rocks forward onto his toes. The illustration below shows him on the toes of his advancing foot with his arm outstretched following the bowl. Notice that his non-bowling arm is constrained but not interfering with his forward stepping. His eyes are still staring at his aim point.

That the knee of his anchor foot bends in behind the heel of his stepping foot is best seen in the left-most picture under backswing. People often wonder why this is done. The reason can be understood from the slow-motion delivery. Because Brett does a Bryant twist of his bowl on his backswing and his elbow is kept close to his side, if he doesn’t tuck his back knee in he might hit it as he swings through with his bowl still turned sideways.

Following Through

In the follow-through Brett's wrist remains locked straight and there is no flicking of his fingers.

Walking Off the Mat

Yes- he follows his bowl as he straightens up from the crouch from which he delivered but it is not particularly noticeable.

Positioning on the Mat

Nicky Brett does not move about the mat to the same extent as other top bowlers are seen to do.

Coronavirus Pandemic Update

James Gardens LBC Toronto 2020

My wife and I are Canadians. The Canadian government has called on all Canadians wintering overseas to come home because of the Coronavirus-19 pandemic. We have booked a flight scheduled to leave Portugal tomorrow rather than at the end of March as originally planned. This is good advice. Commercial airlines may soon stop flying. Many may declare bankruptcy! 

On the other hand, travelling in planes and passing through airports involves much closer proximity to other people than staying in our Portuguese rented condo and occasionally visiting the grocery store, pharmacy, and gas station. We are choosing to travel because this emergency could last many months. If we do get sick we will need friends who can leave stuff outside our living quarters. Community support is critical for everyone at this time.
 Bowlers- take this seriously. There will be a shortage of critical care equipment world-wide. Health professionals are going to become infected or exhausted. Our bowling community had better keep communicating. Check on your friends and acquaintances from the club. Your actions can save people you know. Laxity can kill people you know!
 I have faith in you! Good luck.

Safe Bowls in a Time of Pandemic

Bowling at a Happier Time

    As sports go, playing lawn bowls outside involves more social distancing and less inter-person contact than most others. On the other hand, bowlers themselves are more likely to be from the more-at-risk age groups.

 If you must bowl perhaps you could do the following:

 1.     Don’t congregate in the clubhouse; stay outdoors where the air is fresher.
2.     Do wash your hands vigorously with soap and water regularly for 20 seconds.
3.     Avoid touching your eyes, nose, or mouth.
4.     Don’t hug, kiss, or shake hands before or after a match.
5.      Don’t lick your fingers before gripping your bowl.
6.     Don’t pick up other people’s bowls.
7.     Only the leads should touch the jack with their hands.
8.     Only the leads should use the pushers.
9.     Preferably, don’t use the pushers; kick back the bowls like Australians do.
10.  Only the leads should touch the mats with their hands; others move the mats by foot.
11.  Don’t use scoreboards; have the skips keep scorecards.
12.  Center the jack with your foot, not your hand.
13.  Don’t lend your measure.

Stay safe!

Updating Controlling Weight at Lawn Bowls

About five years ago, at the Turramurra LBC near Sydney Australia, when I sought help to control the weight of my deliveries, Bob Hawtree, one of the coaches, told me to study closely the distance of the jack from the mat and in my head simply ask the question, “What does it feel like to bowl to a jack at this distance? I was told this will elicit a response from my muscle memory. Then, “I should simply bowl with that memory in my mind.”

Essentially this means don’t first try estimating the number of meters from mat to jack and then putting a number on it. Rather, let your internal computer take the data from your eyes and let it control your muscles directly.

I was not spending enough time just looking carefully at the distance of the jack from the mat and letting that feed to my ‘mental computer’.

This advice must, of course, be combined with a  reproducible delivery motion. Bob emphasized three things for me in this area: the position where the bowl is released (about 6 inches in front of the advancing foot; the point in one’s swing where the step out begins (the bottom of my backswing); and the height to which one raises one’s arm in the follow-through (not more than the height of the knee). 

Surprisingly to me, this worked amazingly well for a while! I dramatically upped my game. This was in fact the most significant improvement I had made in years!

 However, because I had not been playing long enough up to that time, my delivery had not been grooved and so the resulting inconsistency muddled the truth in what I had been told. Now years later, I only need add one thing to that wisdom: get your bowl away smoothly without dumping or wobble and the results will prove the intelligence of your subconscious knowledge of the correct weight.

 This extra nugget was reinforced by the words of a former Canadian champion playing with me at Valverde LBC here in Portugal just a couple of weeks ago.

Releasing the Lawn Bowl: Grips

Since the first day that I received instruction about lawn bowls I had been told that my middle finger should rest on the mid-point of the running surface because that long finger is the last part of my hand to contact my bowl as I released it onto the green. So…. if I didn’t want it to tip a bit on its side, that finger needed to be centered on the bowl’s running surface. Well-- if I imagine a bowl resting with my fingers under it, supporting it, and then rolling off of them horizontally, this seems pretty clear and indeed that is roughly how a bowl is delivered using the palm grip. 

However, the more popular lawn bowling grips are variations of the claw grip, where the thumb, placed on the top side of the bowl, clamps down on the bowl which rests on your fingers so that, even if you turn your hand over, the bowl remains securely held. In these grips, your hand is often bent back at the wrist so that it is your thumb that is parallel with your forearm and the bowl hangs down from your fingers with your thumb in front and your fingers behind the bowl. I show a picture of this above.

From this disposition, rather than rolling off your fingertips, the bowl's movement can be better described as falling a few millimeters from your ‘claw’ onto the green as you lower your whole body in the delivery motion.

Imagining what is actually going on based on this simplified ‘cartoon’, it is not nearly as clear that the last point of contact with the bowl is that middle finger.

But how does this matter? Well, when a bowl held as in my picture is released the part of the hand that retains contact with the bowl longest depends upon exactly how your hand lets go of that bowl. One way to release the bowl is to draw your fingers away from the bowl while holding your thumb steady. Another way is to raise your thumb tip off the bowl leaving your fingers fixed. A third way would be to draw both your fingers and thumb away from the bowl at the same time. In the first and third ways, because your fingers are moving, what remains in contact longest depends on how your fingers move. There is no certainty that your longest finger will linger until last on the bowl’s surface- it all depends on the coordination of those fingers.  Consider option two. If we just raise the tip of your thumb the claw will release. Your fingers don’t need to move at all. Your release surely will be more consistently uniform. If you grasp the bowl the same way each time the chance is excellent that it will be released the same. 

I don’t know if it will make an identifiable difference but I can’t imagine that it can be deleterious so that is what I am going to try to do.

If you are still in your first few years of lawn bowling, ignore all of this. You have bigger fish to fry. Grooving other aspects of the delivery motion will give guaranteed better returns for your effort but if you’ve got all that stuff down pat this is something to at least think about.

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.

The Rule about Playing Out of Turn at Lawn Bowls

Valverde Algarve Portugal 2019 Winter

The most common irregularity during play that I have so far witnessed in my seven years of lawn bowling is playing out of turn which is dealt with in Section 29.1 of the Laws of the Sport of Bowls Crystal Mark Third Edition.

Since it appears to be the most common such irregularity it is worthwhile knowing the exact rule which comprises several alternative choices offered to the skip who has been offended against.

Rule 29.1 reads:

29.1 Playing out of Turn

29.1.1 If a player plays out of turn, the opposing skip can stop the bowl and return it to the player to play it in the proper order.

29.1.2 If the bowl has come to rest and has not disturbed the head, the opposing skip must choose whether to:

29.1.2.1 Leave the head as it is and have your team play two bowls one after the other to get back to the proper order of play; or

29.1.2.2 Return the bowl and get back to the previous order of play.

29.1.3 If the bowl has disturbed the head, the opposing skip must choose whether to:

29.1.3.1 leave the disturbed head as it is and have their team play two bowls one after the other to get back to the proper order of play.

29.1.3.2 replace the head in its former position, return the bowl, and go back to the proper order of play.

29.1.3.3 declare the end dead.

First of all, I do not advise you ever to stop an opposing player’s bowl (as described in 29.1.1), even when you think it has been played out of turn because if you are wrong and the bowl is not out of turn, the penalty to your side is severe. The rule that applies, in this case, is 37.1.1.3.

Bowl displacement by another player

37.1.1.3 If the bowl is displaced by an opponent and it has not disturbed the head after it is displaced (this is the situation where the opposing skip would stop a bowl before it reached the head thinking it was out of turn: my italicized interjection) the skip of the team that played the bowl must choose whether to:

37.1.1.3.1. have the bowl replayed

37.1.1.3.2. place the bowl where the skip believes it would have come to rest; or

37.1.1.3.3 leave the bowl where it came to rest.

The second of the opposing skip’s choices is the most potentially damaging in this situation because the opposing skip has it in his power to place that bowl which you stopped anywhere and you cannot object.

Note that if you, as skip, see your own teammate bowl out of turn, you must not stop the bowl yourself because even though that bowl has been played out of turn, you will have interfered with your own team’s bowl and can have that bowl declared dead because Rule 37.1.1.1 applies.

37.1.1.1 If the bowl is displaced by a member of the team that delivered the bowl and it has not disturbed the head after it is displaced (such as when you stop the bowl before it reaches the head; my italicized interjection), the opposing skip must declare the bowl dead.

This rule seems intuitively unfair. You are preventing a bowl that should never have been delivered in the first place from interfering with the match and yet you are penalized. I have wondered why this is so. I can imagine one scenario where without this rule misplaying could yield an advantage. There are probably some others. Suppose, for example, your side has bowled a legitimate bowl that has displaced the jack to the edge of the rink. You would like to know the weight and direction for your next shot which will have to be played over an unfamiliar part of the rink. Suppose you immediately, and unsportingly, took another bowl and delivered it along a possible line.  Because of this breach of rules, you get a good clue how to play your next shot and, so long as your skip stops your bowl before it disturbs the head, you would suffer no penalty if all that happened was that that bowl was returned to you and play continued in the proper order.

To summarize, if your side bowls out of turn, for sure don't stop the bowl yourself, call on your opposing skip to stop that bowl. He or she shouldn’t comply (it would be better to get the choice of penalty against you), but (s)he might.

What about that most common situation where a bowler plays out of turn? This happens when one lead delivers the jack out of bounds and the opposite lead delivers a good jack but then, by mistake, delivers the first bowl. As before, if it is your lead who plays out of turn, do not stop the bowl. Call on your opposing skip to stop it. If he or she does, it is returned without penalty and the correct order of play follows. If neither skip touches the bowl, the choices are as stated in 29.1.2.1 or 29.1.2.2.

Since in this most common instance it is the first bowl delivered, it can only disturb the head by touching and moving the jack. If the jack is moved 29.1.3.1, 29.1.3.2, or 29.1.3.3 apply. In this situation, 29.1.3.3 would never be chosen since it is equivalent to starting over. 

Note: this is not a ‘dead end’ in the sense that the end was ‘burnt’ (the jack has not been driven out of bounds), so the jack is not re-spotted at the forward T (centered 2 meters from the front ditch).