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GRIPS - THE CLAW
24 GRIPS - THE CLAW
Basically, the claw grip is where the fingers are spread apart under-
neath the bowl as in photo 5, usually with your outer two fingers partly
up the side of the bowl. Your thumb would be more or less on top of
the bowl somewhere near the centre (photo 6 and 7), or on the top
rings or grips as in photo 8.
Alternatives to this would be the spread fingers and a thumb
very high up the side e.g. on the rings of the bowl near the top. With
this type of grip you really are gripping the bowl and you could turn
5 5 your hand over and the bowl would not fall out of your hand. In short
if you kept your fingers and thumbs in the same position and removed
the bowl the shape of your hand would look like a claw.
With this type of grip unless you have huge hands the bowl will
not sit in the palm of your hand as it would with the cradle grip. You
will generally find that the bowl with either sit on the mounds at the
base of your fingers or more usually on the lower portions of your fin-
gers. The above sums up the basic two grips that apply to bowls, both
indoor and out. In reality of course there are many different “grips”
but they are mostly variations of either the cradle or the claw.
OK so what is best for short mat bowls? This now comes down

6 6 to opinion and my answer is “if you were starting from scratch and
you had never held a bowl before then for various reasons I would be
100% behind the cradle grip”.
The first main reason is that most players can physically hold a
much bigger bowl with the cradle grip than they can with the claw
grip. Considering that my personal advice is to play with nothing
smaller than a size 3 and that 5’s or perhaps 4’ are the best sizes for
short mat bowls.
WHAT!!! I can hear the ladies often say “I’ve only got small
hands and I’m not strong enough to hold anything bigger than a 1”.
However, I have converted a number of ladies to the cradle grip and

7 7 to bigger bowls, as they were fed up having their marbles knocked
around the mat.
By all means continue with your existing bowls and your game
will continue as before but if you need or want to change then bigger
is better. If you don’t need to change then stay as you are.
As for my second main reason, to choose the cradle, on balance
I believe you can get a smoother delivery. I’ve noticed over the years
that more often than not, wobblers are delivered by people using the
claw grip not the cradle grip.
At this point please remember if it ain’t broke don’t fix it. It’s
easy to tie yourself up in knots with theories and changes in order to
improve your game but if you don’t have a genuine problem then don’t
8 8 change anything.
It would appear there are continuing discussions on what is and isn’t

a foot fault. I thought that this was clear with most people but to “finalise” matters I am currently in the
process of preparing an article on delivering bowls and foot-faulting, with a number of photos. These will
clearly show legitimate and non-legitimate delivery positions and will also discuss the two main delivery
methods for our short mat game, either a step forward or the various fixed stances. If you have any questions
or want any other topics discussed then please contact me.
BobbyWeaf