Laser Focus on your Stare Point

 What is a stare point in lawn bowling 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 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 so precisely directed a 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 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, 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 that distance 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 will probably be moved backward during the end. Grassing two bowls three feet past gives the second and skip some things to work with in developing a scoring situation. A close bowl by a lead in triples rarely survives as shot bowl. There are too many good bowlers to follow and a bowl close to the jack makes an excellent target for run-through 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 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 displaced 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 one aims 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 an imaginary spot on my imaginary 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 keeps the jack in your field of vision, makes visualization of the complete bowl’s path top of mind and so possibly improves weight control. 

Who is the Greatest Lawn Bowler Ever?

A popular choice would be David Bryant.

What is interesting to me about this, is that from everything I have observed in my 12 years playing bowls in Canada, the USA, Portugal, Malaysia, and Australia I have never seen a single bowler who has modeled his/her delivery style after him. Neither have I ever found a book recommending his form or met a coach teaching his style.

The reason for this becomes apparent if you try to imitate. To achieve it would require you to have the skill of a gymnast!  

If you have never seen David Bryant bowl, there is a famous YouTube video of his world championship match against Chok at

 

youtube.com/watch?v=HtLLDKIhQ7M&t=169s 

As you can see David Bryant squats on the mat to take his aim line. He then delivers his bowl not by lowering his body from an erect position but as he rises from his squat. He then takes a substantial step forward and releases his bowl substantially further ahead of this stepping foot. Then finally in his follow through he raises his anchor foot completely off but high above the mat! All these features seem to me to be unique.

The Strategy of Really Long Ends at Lawn Bowls

In the northern hemisphere, on slow rinks, the most frequently adopted strategy in lawn bowling contests is to deliver very long jacks when the opposing team seems to prefer something shorter. 

Even so many bowlers underestimate the effectiveness of this strategy because they do not realize how dramatically the average bowler’s line control falls off as the jack length increases. As jack length trends towards full length each additional meter of length is responsible for a greater and greater decline in accuracy. 

That is to say, many bowlers underestimate the significance of jack length because they confuse ‘longish ends’ with ‘really long ends’. I would characterize ‘really long ends’ as being only those within 1 meter or less of full length (T to T).  It is on these ‘really long ends’ that the performance of many bowlers falls off precipitously.

“Aha,” you may say, “but to gain the advantage you claim, your lead must be able to consistently deliver these ‘really long jacks.’ “

“Well,” I say, “practice it.”

 Delivering a small white ball to within 3 meters of the forward ditch without any substantial need for line control is really not very hard for anyone. Besides, all that happens if your side does ditch the jack is that the other side gets their chance, and from what I have seen they don’t pay much attention to their delivery at all!

So the situation is this. You get a chance to deliver the jack for a ‘really long end’ for which your side has trained or is naturally advantaged. If you succeed in getting the jack you desire, you are odds on to win the end and furthermore you retain the jack. On the other hand, if your side makes a mistake rolling the jack it suffers no significant penalty!

Where can you find odds like that?

When Your In-Match Performance Starts to Crumble— Do This

Suppose you are competing in a lawn bowling competition and doing fine when suddenly both your line control and weight control collapse all at once. What has happened? What should you do?

Don’t just push on, bear down, and try to concentrate harder mentally. This is a good way to continue losing— end after end. That is what I did last week. 

Don’t start telling yourself that you just don’t know how to bowl and you should make a mental note to give up the game. No. You can play well. You were doing so just a few ends ago!

It is my experience that when your game just suddenly collapses, it is one of two things. Either (i) you have suddenly made a small change in your delivery motion or (ii) you have started leaving out steps in your predelivery routine.

I have already written blogs about the frequent mistake that I fall into  respecting delivery motion. For me, that mistake is failing to get my forward-stepping foot firmly grounded before I start my bowling arm’s swing forward.

Instead, when both weight control and line control both fail suddenly in the middle of a match, the problem probably relates to a deviation in your pre-delivery routine.

The first thing to do is to slow everything down. Step off the mat. Signal that you need more information from the skip. Take off your jacket. Put on your jacket. Do something to give yourself time to mentally review all the individual items that are part of your pre-delivery routine. Then slowly and methodically perform those individual steps.

For the purpose of example, I will list all the steps in my pre-delivery routine:

 standing about a meter behind the mat, I receive any instructions from the person controlling the head

I identify an immovable object on or behind the forward bank that will mark one end of my imaginary aim-line

I adjust my position depending upon the shot (forehand or backhand or drive) so that I am standing on the aim line

I check my bias

assuming a semi-squatting position (a la David Bryant) I look along the imaginary aim line that runs to the preselected object at the forward ditch and I pick a point on my aim line to be my stare point 

I adopt the Shooter’s stance with my feet

I grip the bowl comfortably with my regular grip

I adjust the elevation my body so my non-bowling hand can rest comfortably on the knee of my stepping leg

I visualize the path of my bowl as it travels to its planned finishing point 

Waggling my bowling arm I make slight swinging motions along and over my aim line

I relax the muscles in my bowling arm

With my eyes stare fixedly at my stare point

With my mind I concentrate on drawing my bowling arm back along and over my aim line

As you can see my predelivery routine is rather extensive. Perhaps that is why I am regarded as an annoyingly slow bowler. Perhaps you can find other better advice that can simplify and accelerate your preparation. I can’t help there. What I can say is that doing this recalibration, I have been able to get back into the groove required for consistent good bowling!

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 angle 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 some jotting on a slip of paper in their pocket reminding them of the correct aim lines- forehand and backhand.