Sunday 3 July 2016

Backswing brainstorm

On holiday over the next week. Returning to club competition fixtures which can get me into more quarter finals. Last chance for a solo practice before heading off to Hunstanton. The nearest I'll get to playing bowls is mooning over the two sea front greens, watching any action.

One of my fixtures is against the club's best bowler, so I've selected his favourite rink one. He also unnerves opponents by moving the mat up the green and playing a very short length jack, so I'm playing lots of those. But the first end is my normal medium length. Wow! The green is really fast tonight. My first bowl ends up in the ditch.

Really struggling even on my favourite length jack. I'm getting the line right every time and my delivery seems to be the right length, but as it approaches the jack my bowl just keeps on rolling. Then I overcompensate. The result is too many short bowls, too many far behind the jack. Even worse when I start playing the really short ends. Seems mission impossible for me to calibrate my standard backswing. Takes me twelve ends to get a bowl within a foot of the jack.

It's only on the sixteenth end that I have my backswing epiphany. Bit like golf. In that sport, the aim is to keep the swing the same for all shots and to change the club to vary length. In bowls you can't change your bowl. Seems really hard to keep the same length backswing but to change its speed. Upsets the balance of the delivery. The answer seems to be to change the length of the backswing.

On the short ends I just give the bowl a little push. Not even any forward body movement. Magic! Seems to work perfectly. Get all three bowls within a yard. Only two more ends, but all works perfectly.

Feel I've had a bit of an epiphany. Seems so simple now, to vary the backswing length and keep everything else the same. Can't wait to try to out against an opponent in a full match. Have I found a potent weapon, to play a very short length jack and a high mat? I'll try it in my first club competition fixture on return from holiday, next Sunday evening against a tricky B Team colleague. 

Here's the solo practice scorecard and current status.

2 comments:

  1. On Canadian grass greens (as opposed to synthetic carpet surfaces) I use no backswing but a normal length step and a natural swing velocity. I have three other lengths of backswing, the greatest works for T to T bowls. Many books advise against this saying your internal sense system should make the adjustment but I guess I have limited internal sense!

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    1. Not sure if we get more heavy greens here in England, but I'm not sure I'd get to a full length jack on a damp day without something of a heave, requiring a full backswing.

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