One Minute With Macca

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Tough Practice

As we progress nearer to another season of Pennants, I wonder how many of us are thinking of

going out of our comfort zone and perhaps changing or adding to our practice routine?

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Playing and practicing draw bowls all through winter isn't all bad, but are we prepared to play the weighted

shots we're sometimes asked, the difficult draw on the wide hand or having to suddenly

draw to the ditch after the opposition have had a successful drive ?

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Now is the time to take it up a notch or two, stop worrying about who's holding the mat after you've all played 4 draw bowls and instead nominate a shot, and more importantly, play that shot with intent and confidence...examples:

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Finish your session by bringing the mat up, jack on the tee and have 4 full-blooded drives at the pesky little white thing.

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Play the wide hand for 30 minutes on B green with the wind howling through the tennis courts, ie: learn your grass for your Home games.

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Deliberately aim to sit a bowl out ( nominate it first )

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Move the mat and jack around, no point in playing the same length for an hour...any opposition skip with half a brain will change the length if someone is plonking them on.

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Don't worry about maybe being watched by Selectors etc...missing 3 attempted upshots is OK, the 4th one that connects is what gets noted.

 

Hats off to the Ladies here as I've recently noticed numbers doing the ‘circuit’ practice covering 5 or 6rinks.....differing lengths, and more

importantly deliberately practising draw shots on different hands as well as weighted bowls, etc, etc (it's easy to set your own rink challenges as well).

 

A couple of guys have mentioned they enjoyed this some 5years ago when I ran something similar, and have asked if I'll run it again, so here's the really good news....YOU CAN SET IT UP YOURSELF.....all you need is,

One rink and 8 corporate bowls setup in diamond formation near the jack on 2 varying lengths so you're going

2 meters shorter one way....start bowling and grab a couple of others and away you go. Up and back 5 times equals 40 bowls, the hard part is keeping an honest assessment of how many bowls ended up

INSIDE the diamond.....(if you get 25+, better come and see me.)

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If we don't practice the full gambit of shots, how can you confidently play the shots the Skips call to have a go at? 

 

Please don't be thinking “I play Lead or 2nd and never get asked“ ...... firstly, one day you will be asked, secondly it's useful for when your playing Club Championships, particularly singles, and thirdly it enhances your chances of maybe playing back-end because your teammates know you can play that particular shot.

 

Only two months left till things start getting serious, so start bowling with confidence and use those 10 seconds you have on the mat to visualize where your bowl will finish.

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Cheers Bernie.

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