Page 28 - Autumn 2018 Final

Page 28_Layout 1 28/08/2018 08:48 Page 1

SHORT MAT COACHING
SHORT MAT COACHING
28

THE TEACHERS DILEMMA
THE TEACHERS DILEMMA

Someone who had lost their back issue (Winter 2014) has asked me to repeat my Coaching article. People have
previously asked me why I have not done any coaching articles in the magazine, especially as they knew I designed
and ran coaching courses for several years. Coaching is perhaps the most difficult thing to do in many sports. My
weekend residential course operated for several years through the early to mid 90's in Bournemouth, mostly with
my late and very much missed friend Roy Stokes. I never did get around to writing the follow up article but here
is my opening shot.
I have found over my 33 years of short mat bowling that a large number of people (like me), have short at-
tention spans. They only want tips that are an instant add water solution that will cure their difficulties in 10 seconds
flat with no effort on their part. The odd person might be lucky enough to get away with something like this but
most people won’t.
I had a great deal of very positive feedback from all the courses but I always felt that I too learned something,
the most important of which was "minds are like parachutes, they function best when they are open". That is to
say some people came with a relatively open mind and tried to change and thus rid themselves of some of their
bad habits. Others on the courses tried something once or twice and then dismissed it as not working. A number of
people fit into the latter category and apart from my lack of available writing time, this above all else has put me
off writing about coaching. Quite often there’s no gain without pain.
Bad habits are the easiest thing to acquire and the hardest
Bad habits are the easiest thing to acquire and the hardest
thing to lose, if you can't work at it then don't read on!
thing to lose, if you can't work at it then don't read on!
I make no excuses for waffling on at the beginning as the underlying ground rules about coaching are very impor-
tant. I have no patience with those who say they are serious about changing their game (assuming of course they
are struggling in the first place), and then are prepared to put little or no effort into curing their problems. Those
that gloss over this bit of any article usually gloss over the fundamentals as well. By the way, every club has a
know it all expert who's word is gospel, or at least they consider it should be. What they say could be right of
course but I have heard of some absolute rubbish being spouted by resident "experts". So what makes me a so
called expert? Well, I don't claim to be one, I'm just someone who has studied the sport both indoors and out and
especially the individual topics we will be covering. I've also absorbed knowledge from "authoritative sources".
All I've tried to do is to apply this to short mat bowls and not any other forms of bowls, although many of the prin-
ciples are the same for all codes.
What I will try to do in this and other articles on stance, delivery and other topics is to separate fact from
opinion. That is to say there are certain fundamentals that are true for most of us and there are other things that are
merely someone’s opinion, and I have as many of these as others do. I try to base mine on my personal "knowledge"
of my years of short mat bowling but you should remember that contrary to some opinions I’m human and therefore
fallible.
Holding a bowl - sounds simple enough but this is where some real problems begin. “Why have you bought
the bowls you are using?” is one of my first questions. The answers vary from “they were cheap/free”, “they fitted
my hand”, “Fred uses these and they are always on the jack for him - but not for me”. OK there are many reasons
why people choose their bowls but they almost always do this before assessing what they actually need.
Where Short Mat bowls is concerned a lot of retailer’s and so called experts start from completely the wrong
premise. It seems that many bowlers have been advised that the correct size of bowl is obtained by "sizing the
bowl" i.e. putting your thumb and forefinger / index finger around the circumference of a bowl. When they meet
then that's the right size for your hand - stuff and nonsense! And the same goes for the "sizer’s" that some bowls
manufacturers may have supplied. This may be OK for outdoor bowls but NOT for short mat bowls.
Ideally you should sort your grip out BEFORE you purchase/obtain your bowls but we don't live in an ideal
world and I too bought my bowls before sorting out a grip. It helped considerably that I was already an outdoor
bowler, albeit in Crown Green bowls where the bowls are smaller than rink bowls.
Modern bowls are precision made to very exact tolerances but why bother I ask myself? Most of the time
all this wonderful computerised precision work is simply cocked up by someone’s grip/stance /delivery, which is
why these are areas that should be worked on quite hard. By the way, everyone cocks it up at times, no matter how
good they are, it’s just that the better players make less mistakes because they are more consistent.