Half Hour Late
A couple of weeks ago, I practised bowling with a new member.
We had fun during the practise, so I asked him if he wanted to practise next week.
He said: “Sure, but I might be a half hour late.”
The following week he shows up right on on time, and we practised, this time he plays left- handed.
I asked him if he wanted to practise again next week.
He replied: “Sure but I might be a half hour late.”
I then asked him :”How come some times you play right- handed and other times, left-handed.”
He said :”When I wake up in the morning and my wife is sleeping on her left side, I play left- handed and if she is on her right side, then I play right- handed.”
I then ask ;”So,what if she is laying flat on her back?” “That’s when I’ll be a half hour late!” he
replied.
How was your bowling game?
How was your bowling game, dear?” asked Jack’s wife Tracy.
“Well, I was bowling well, but my eyesight’s gotten so bad I couldn’t see where the bowl went.”
“But you’re seventy-five years old, Jack!” admonished his wife, “Why don’t you take my brother Scott along?” “But he’s eighty-five and doesn’t even bowl anymore,” protested Jack.
“But he’s got perfect eyesight. He could watch your bowl,” Tracy pointed out. The next day Jack bowled with Scott looking on. Jack bowled to a long jack. “Do you see it?” asked Jack.
“Yes,” Scott answered. “Well, where is it?” yelled Jack, peering up the green.
“I forgot.”
Not Mine.
An old man called Barry, practises Bowls with his pals each week, has just purchased a new pair of glasses.
On the first end, he draws four touchers. His friends are amazed. Again, on the 2nd and 3rd ends ‘4 touchers.
“Hey, Barry”, one friend asks, “what’s your secret? You’ve never bowled so well.’
‘ “Well guys, its these new bifocals. I see a small jack and a big jack.
I aim for the large one, and the rest is history.”
A few ends later, Barry needs to relieve himself so off to the toilets he goes.
When he returns, his trousers are drenched. `
`What happened Barry”
Barry, in confused voice, “I reached in and looked down, I saw a big one and a little one. I knew the big one wasn’t mine, so I put it back!”
Wednesday, September 19, 2012
Tuesday, September 18, 2012
Kopklappers in Cape Town
Lawn Bowls Tactical Training
Hi All.
I came across this quite interesting article, and thought it had some very good pointers... Its a bit long though, so make some time for some intense reading...
This article is an introduction and guide to the field of tactical programming and training in lawn bowls, the art and science of excellence, derived from studying how teams in different levels of lawn bowls obtain their outstanding results. These skills can be learnt by anyone to improve their effectiveness both personally and professionally. More importantly, this provides an up-to-date introduction and overview incorporating the latest developments in the field and revealing important parts of tactical training.
I came across this quite interesting article, and thought it had some very good pointers... Its a bit long though, so make some time for some intense reading...
This article is an introduction and guide to the field of tactical programming and training in lawn bowls, the art and science of excellence, derived from studying how teams in different levels of lawn bowls obtain their outstanding results. These skills can be learnt by anyone to improve their effectiveness both personally and professionally. More importantly, this provides an up-to-date introduction and overview incorporating the latest developments in the field and revealing important parts of tactical training.
TRAINING: There are four areas of tactical training that should take place if your desire is to improve the present standard of your team or yourself as a singles player:
Performance skills:This is the first step in tactical training and deals with the perfection of playing any of the lawn bowls shots from the draw shot to drive. Poor performance in this area within the game will reflect badly on the team or the individual performance which relates to tactical play. Training should be supervised by a registered coach and the practice of the shots only should be strictly adhered to. The best result is produced by getting to know each other and training together as a team. Never fall for the trap of playing together in the atmosphere of a friendly game, because the only one who gets anything out of it is the strongest player in that group. It is imperative that each member knows the team’s strengths and weaknesses. This preparation psychologically reduces the shock of finding out weaknesses during the game.
Training drills: The purpose of training drills is vital to setting up the head to prevent the opposition from getting shot or converting from an unfavourable position to a favourable one. Overall the drills cover defence, attack and recovery, are set play and deal with obtaining and protecting the shot or recovering it from the opposition. The practice of these lawn bowling drills give you a better understanding of what the skipper may require you to do or what they are about to do. This training should also be supervised by a registered national coach.
Study of set play: Set plays are drills designed around defence, attack and recovery to prevent the opposition from obtaining or maintaining the shot or to convert your own tactical circumstances from an unfavourable position to a favourable one. These drills or play are taught by lawn bowls coaches or tacticians who delineate the advantages and disadvantages of shots played to a particular laid out head e.g. draw shot, on-shots, running or drive shots.
Psychological skills: This sets a context and maps out the main ideas of constructing tactics; how we get from our present reality to where we want to go, communication and outcomes, how to gain rapport, and how we build unique ways of understanding the game of lawn bowls. It also deals with our state of mind, how they are evoked, and how we can use these stimuli or anchors to gain access to our resourceful state of mind at will. These psychological skills are interwoven into the following paragraph “Psychological Preparation.”
PSYCHOLOGICAL PREPARATIONAdvantage and effect: Psychological preparation is presented in sequence acting in accordance with rules which accord with other team’s experiences and allows future teams to access their own conscious resources. Within its application there is a section on metaphor, another on changing the meaning of experience, and a third on how we subjectively perceive the game. This is about thinking in terms of order and a comprehensive assemblage of facts, principles, doctrine or the like in a particular field of knowledge or thought, rather than waiting for incidents of simple cause and effect to occur. It contains insight into how the team’s environment, behaviour, capability, belief and identity fit together.Understanding: Tactics vary greatly and can be controversial. They depend greatly on the skipper’s and/or individual’s ability to plan and prepare for each competitive performance.Object: The employment of psychological preparation in lawn bowls has but one tactical objective; “To prevent the opposition from getting shot or converting from an unfavourable position to a favourable one.” If you understand the object of tactics in a competitive situation then all you need to do is follow six golden rules;
Rule 1: Prior to the game, and as early as possible (months, weeks or days ahead) construct a game plan so that every member of the team knows and rehearses the performance standard required and the tactical manoeuvres that may be used in the game e.g. training drills, set play etc.
Rule 2: Prior to and during the game; sum up and assess the relative strength or weakness of the opposition. This will also influence tactics and the type of shot to be played. In a team game it is the skipper who decides the shot to be played and the tactics to be used. Their decision should never be questioned by other members of the team.
Rule 3: When in making a tactical decision always consider the respective abilities of each member of your own team as well as that of the opponent, and whenever possible exploit the strength of your team.
Rule 4: Always assume that the opposition will be successful in the shot they are attempting, then to assess the results of that shot for the team, and thereby tactically place a bowl to nullify the success of the attempted shot.
Rule 5: At completion or as soon as possible after the game (must be done within 72 hours or the emphasis will be lost); the team must conduct a debriefing on the team’s performance skills and the employment of tactics throughout that game. Do not look for blame nor cast shame, but look for improvement and counter measures that will raise the team’s performance to a higher level of play.
Rule 6: Collate the information from the debriefing and prepare your next game plan, and as soon as possible train together as a team to correct the team’s weaknesses before the next game.
Warning: Debriefing psychologically after 72 hours team members will either overrate or underrate their own or the team’s strengths and weaknesses e.g. if the team has won the details of weaknesses, occurrences or circumstances observed becomes lost in the afterimage of the game. Should they lose, blame and shame intends to rears its ugly head.
THE FIVE MINUTE TACTICAL SEMINAR
If tactics were ever to be presented in a five minute seminar, it would go something like this. The presenter would walk up to the lectern and say; Ladies and gentlemen, to be successful in tactics you need only remember three things;
· Firstly, know what you want; have a clear idea of your outcome in any situation.
· Secondly, be alert and keep your senses open so that you notice what is happening,
· Thirdly, have the choice to keep changing what you do until you get what you want.
He would then write on the board;
Outcome: first is the skill of knowing your outcome. If you don’t know where you are going, it makes it hard to get there.
An important part of tactics is training and where to place your attention and how to change and enlarge your filters so that you notice things that you had not noticed previously. It is present moment awareness. When communicating with others, this means noticing the small but crucial signals that let you know how they are responding. When thinking, that is, communicating with yourself, it means heightened awareness of your internal images sounds and feelings
Alert: You need the acuity or sensitivity to notice if what you are doing is getting you what you want. If what you are doing is not working, do something else, anything else. You need to hear, see and feel what is happening and have a choice of response.
Choice: Tactics aim to give bowlers more choice about what they do. Having only one way of doing things is no choice at all. Sometimes it will work and sometimes it won’t, so there will always be situations you cannot cope with. One choice will put you in a dilemma. Having a choice means being able to use a minimum of three approaches. In any interaction, the person who has the most choices of what to do, the greatest flexibility of behaviour, will be in control of the situation. The more choices, the more chances of success. You can change your outcome at any point within the game, enjoy it and learn something on the way. Very rarely is there an absolutely clear straight path to success, it changes every end.
LEARNING
This is an area covered by many writers of learning and I believe there are more articles to come, each expanding on the knowledge of the time, but there is one proverb that we all must consider
“There is a sense in which you cannot teach anyone anything. You can, however, create a context to draw out their desire to learn.”
Variables: Although we can consciously take in only a very small amount of the tactical information this article offers us, we notice and respond to much more without being aware. Our conscious mind is very limited and seems able to keep track of a maximum of seven variables or pieces of information at one time.
Habitual and unconscious: These pieces of information do not have a fixed size. They can be anything from the delivery, timing of the draw shot to filling out the score card. One way we learn is by consciously mastering small pieces of behaviour, and combining them into larger chunks, so they become habitual and unconscious. We form habits so we are free to notice other things. The traditional view is that learning a skill divides into four stages as follows;
Stage 1: The first stage is you are unconscious of your incompetence. Not only do you not know how to do something, but you don’t know you don’t know. For example, never having been a skip before, you have, no idea what it is like, and doubting know- all bowlers don’t give you much encouragement.
Stage 2: So you begin to learn. You very soon discover your limitations. You have some lessons and consciously read up material, attend lectures, ask questions, and watch many games. It demands all your attention, you are not yet competent, and you may keep in the background as much as possible or go to the extreme and expound your knowledge to all far and wide across the green. This is the stage of being conscious of your incompetence particularly when you make strange decisions, oversteer and nearly give bowlers heart attacks. Although this stage is uncomfortable (especially for other bowlers), it is the stage when you learn the most.
Stage 3: This leads you to the stage of being conscious of your competence. You can skip a team, but it takes all your concentration. You have learned the skill, but have not yet mastered it (this also requires a stage of caution because every know-all bowler gives you very strange advice on how to do the job).
Stage 4: Lastly, you have reached your goal you are unconscious of your competence. All those little patterns that you have learned so painstakingly blend together into one smooth unit of behaviour. Your conscious mind set the outcome and leaves it to your unconscious mind to carry it out, freeing your attention for other things (a word of caution might be added here if you don’t wish to cop the wrath of your team; don’t listen to your ear piece radio, rave about absolute garbage on your hand phone, gaze about enjoying the scenery or at the top of your voice hold a distant conversation three rinks away, tell everyone in earshot how to play the game, and at the same time try to do the skip’s job).
UNLEARNING & RELEARNING
If you practice something for long enough you will reach the fourth stage and form habits. At this point the skill has become unconscious. However, the habit may not be the most effective ones for the task. Our filters may have caused us to miss some important information en route to unconscious competence. Suppose you play a passable game of bowls, and wish to improve. The coach would probably watch you play, then start changing such things as your delivery timing, how you hold the bowl, and the way you flick the bowl at the release point. In other words he would take what was for you one piece of your behaviour e.g. poor delivery timing, break it down into some of its component parts and then rebuild it so you deliver with good align and length. You would go backwards through the learning stages to conscious incompetence and you would be unlearning before relearning. The only reason to do this is to build in new choices, more efficient patterns
PSYCHOLOGICAL PREPARATIONAdvantage and effect: Psychological preparation is presented in sequence acting in accordance with rules which accord with other team’s experiences and allows future teams to access their own conscious resources. Within its application there is a section on metaphor, another on changing the meaning of experience, and a third on how we subjectively perceive the game. This is about thinking in terms of order and a comprehensive assemblage of facts, principles, doctrine or the like in a particular field of knowledge or thought, rather than waiting for incidents of simple cause and effect to occur. It contains insight into how the team’s environment, behaviour, capability, belief and identity fit together.Understanding: Tactics vary greatly and can be controversial. They depend greatly on the skipper’s and/or individual’s ability to plan and prepare for each competitive performance.Object: The employment of psychological preparation in lawn bowls has but one tactical objective; “To prevent the opposition from getting shot or converting from an unfavourable position to a favourable one.” If you understand the object of tactics in a competitive situation then all you need to do is follow six golden rules;
Rule 1: Prior to the game, and as early as possible (months, weeks or days ahead) construct a game plan so that every member of the team knows and rehearses the performance standard required and the tactical manoeuvres that may be used in the game e.g. training drills, set play etc.
Rule 2: Prior to and during the game; sum up and assess the relative strength or weakness of the opposition. This will also influence tactics and the type of shot to be played. In a team game it is the skipper who decides the shot to be played and the tactics to be used. Their decision should never be questioned by other members of the team.
Rule 3: When in making a tactical decision always consider the respective abilities of each member of your own team as well as that of the opponent, and whenever possible exploit the strength of your team.
Rule 4: Always assume that the opposition will be successful in the shot they are attempting, then to assess the results of that shot for the team, and thereby tactically place a bowl to nullify the success of the attempted shot.
Rule 5: At completion or as soon as possible after the game (must be done within 72 hours or the emphasis will be lost); the team must conduct a debriefing on the team’s performance skills and the employment of tactics throughout that game. Do not look for blame nor cast shame, but look for improvement and counter measures that will raise the team’s performance to a higher level of play.
Rule 6: Collate the information from the debriefing and prepare your next game plan, and as soon as possible train together as a team to correct the team’s weaknesses before the next game.
Warning: Debriefing psychologically after 72 hours team members will either overrate or underrate their own or the team’s strengths and weaknesses e.g. if the team has won the details of weaknesses, occurrences or circumstances observed becomes lost in the afterimage of the game. Should they lose, blame and shame intends to rears its ugly head.
THE FIVE MINUTE TACTICAL SEMINAR
If tactics were ever to be presented in a five minute seminar, it would go something like this. The presenter would walk up to the lectern and say; Ladies and gentlemen, to be successful in tactics you need only remember three things;
· Firstly, know what you want; have a clear idea of your outcome in any situation.
· Secondly, be alert and keep your senses open so that you notice what is happening,
· Thirdly, have the choice to keep changing what you do until you get what you want.
He would then write on the board;
KNOW YOUR OUTCOME
BE ALERT
HAVE THE CHOICE OF CHANGE
then walk out of the lecture room. End of the seminar.Outcome: first is the skill of knowing your outcome. If you don’t know where you are going, it makes it hard to get there.
An important part of tactics is training and where to place your attention and how to change and enlarge your filters so that you notice things that you had not noticed previously. It is present moment awareness. When communicating with others, this means noticing the small but crucial signals that let you know how they are responding. When thinking, that is, communicating with yourself, it means heightened awareness of your internal images sounds and feelings
Alert: You need the acuity or sensitivity to notice if what you are doing is getting you what you want. If what you are doing is not working, do something else, anything else. You need to hear, see and feel what is happening and have a choice of response.
Choice: Tactics aim to give bowlers more choice about what they do. Having only one way of doing things is no choice at all. Sometimes it will work and sometimes it won’t, so there will always be situations you cannot cope with. One choice will put you in a dilemma. Having a choice means being able to use a minimum of three approaches. In any interaction, the person who has the most choices of what to do, the greatest flexibility of behaviour, will be in control of the situation. The more choices, the more chances of success. You can change your outcome at any point within the game, enjoy it and learn something on the way. Very rarely is there an absolutely clear straight path to success, it changes every end.
LEARNING
This is an area covered by many writers of learning and I believe there are more articles to come, each expanding on the knowledge of the time, but there is one proverb that we all must consider
“There is a sense in which you cannot teach anyone anything. You can, however, create a context to draw out their desire to learn.”
Variables: Although we can consciously take in only a very small amount of the tactical information this article offers us, we notice and respond to much more without being aware. Our conscious mind is very limited and seems able to keep track of a maximum of seven variables or pieces of information at one time.
Habitual and unconscious: These pieces of information do not have a fixed size. They can be anything from the delivery, timing of the draw shot to filling out the score card. One way we learn is by consciously mastering small pieces of behaviour, and combining them into larger chunks, so they become habitual and unconscious. We form habits so we are free to notice other things. The traditional view is that learning a skill divides into four stages as follows;
Stage 1: The first stage is you are unconscious of your incompetence. Not only do you not know how to do something, but you don’t know you don’t know. For example, never having been a skip before, you have, no idea what it is like, and doubting know- all bowlers don’t give you much encouragement.
Stage 2: So you begin to learn. You very soon discover your limitations. You have some lessons and consciously read up material, attend lectures, ask questions, and watch many games. It demands all your attention, you are not yet competent, and you may keep in the background as much as possible or go to the extreme and expound your knowledge to all far and wide across the green. This is the stage of being conscious of your incompetence particularly when you make strange decisions, oversteer and nearly give bowlers heart attacks. Although this stage is uncomfortable (especially for other bowlers), it is the stage when you learn the most.
Stage 3: This leads you to the stage of being conscious of your competence. You can skip a team, but it takes all your concentration. You have learned the skill, but have not yet mastered it (this also requires a stage of caution because every know-all bowler gives you very strange advice on how to do the job).
Stage 4: Lastly, you have reached your goal you are unconscious of your competence. All those little patterns that you have learned so painstakingly blend together into one smooth unit of behaviour. Your conscious mind set the outcome and leaves it to your unconscious mind to carry it out, freeing your attention for other things (a word of caution might be added here if you don’t wish to cop the wrath of your team; don’t listen to your ear piece radio, rave about absolute garbage on your hand phone, gaze about enjoying the scenery or at the top of your voice hold a distant conversation three rinks away, tell everyone in earshot how to play the game, and at the same time try to do the skip’s job).
UNLEARNING & RELEARNING
If you practice something for long enough you will reach the fourth stage and form habits. At this point the skill has become unconscious. However, the habit may not be the most effective ones for the task. Our filters may have caused us to miss some important information en route to unconscious competence. Suppose you play a passable game of bowls, and wish to improve. The coach would probably watch you play, then start changing such things as your delivery timing, how you hold the bowl, and the way you flick the bowl at the release point. In other words he would take what was for you one piece of your behaviour e.g. poor delivery timing, break it down into some of its component parts and then rebuild it so you deliver with good align and length. You would go backwards through the learning stages to conscious incompetence and you would be unlearning before relearning. The only reason to do this is to build in new choices, more efficient patterns
Monday, September 17, 2012
Selecting a bowl that suits you...
Selecting a bowl is a very personal thing. There are quite a few things to consider when making your choice such as size, weight, bias and grip. A key determinant that has is green speed where you will be playing. If you don't already know what this is, you can ask the coach at your local bowling club about this. Greens at the coast tend to run slower than those more inland in South Africa. A faster green means that the bowl needs to be rolled to take a lot of grass (rolled toward the jack in a wide curve ) which makes the bowl take 14 - 19 seconds to reach the jack. Conversely on slower greens the bowl should be rolled to take much less green (in a slight curve), which means the bowls take less time to reach the jack say 10 - 14 seconds.
One way to get the right size, shape and weight is to wrap both of your hands around the widest running surface of a bowl so that your middle fingers touch at the bottom and if your thumbs touch at the top that is your size. If, when bowling, the bowl slips out of your hand or the bowl drops onto the grass then you should move down in size until you are comfortably in control of your bowls.
One way to get the right size, shape and weight is to wrap both of your hands around the widest running surface of a bowl so that your middle fingers touch at the bottom and if your thumbs touch at the top that is your size. If, when bowling, the bowl slips out of your hand or the bowl drops onto the grass then you should move down in size until you are comfortably in control of your bowls.
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