Solo practise... going backwards!

Now feeling somewhat deflated after my poor showing at this afternoon's second solo practise. Thought the idea was to see steady progress, with increasing woods within one metre of the jack and decreasing numbers played short. And after the first end things certainly were looking better, so that by the fifth end I was almost even.

Think that was the point when a member from the rink next door helpfully suggested I needed to keep my arm straight when bowling. He described the perfect follow through as ending up giving two fingers to the skip at the other end. He was right... I'd been pulling my arm across and losing power. But in focusing on doing the right thing I banged in ten short bowls over the next four ends and the score line was beginning to look decidedly poor.

Added to that I was on rink six playing away from the clubhouse. Seemed impossible to bowl a long end on the gully side to the correct line without ending up in the gully.

So I've gone backwards from a score of -13 in the first solo practise to -19 in this latest one. And very definitely long ends are not my forte!

It's all very confusing. The bowls book certainly does say to keep your follow through straight and pointing along the line of the bowl. It goes on to say a whole lot of other things about method too, but then finishes up by stating just about every player has their own idiosyncrasies and what works for you is in the end best. So should I just continue with my natural style? No surprise I'm somewhat less confident about my singles quarter finals match this Friday!