Judging Jack Distance Coaching

Planning a series of Blogs on a basic topic like Judging Jack Distance requires an approach to the presentation of the topic with what most of the blog readers actually know. I believe that most of my readers are great bowlers with a prefected method of delivery. Using "Muscle Memory" and even a "Mind's eye" view of their bowl to the Jack; they are fighting to "Being in the Zone" and identify when  "Not in the Zone". This "Zen" Zone is an absence of thought period during Delivery when the subconscious is free to perform without us attempting to consciously control our movements.

A good Club Coach, teaching new members would be wise to begin with these members first practicing with the jack at alway the same distance. As their delivery become a smooth movement and their ability to roll the ball to always the same distance without changes or effort we define this as their "Natural Delivery Distance".  If on each Coaching session the Jack is always at their "Natural Delivery Distance" there is no judgement but simply prefection of the Delivery and the corrections suggested by the coach. Any Coach who places the jack at always a different distance and tell the new member that they will develop a feeling of  the Jack distance is lacking in understanding. The student should be told that the jack distance is now fixed (like the house in Curling) and they will later develop the ability to roll to various jack distance based upon their "Natural Delivery Distance".  Of course, as the student makes correction to their style of delivery they find the correction causes their natural distance to change to a new distance.

All new members, are first taught the proper style and techniques of delivery and if the club offers the following year a follow-up "Second Year Coaching";  you then teach them how to add on distance and take off distance from their "Natural Distance" which they had seen their development the previous year. As from year to year, we develop our personal style of delivery and have now a constant movement and result; our subconscious mind was collecting and developing a storage of these memories as performance information.

Through these blogs you will read about  "Being in the Zone" and now when you stand at the mat and looking up the green toward the jack and prepare for the Delivery we think  "Jack is about 26 meters", This thinking is a calculation of distance and allow the mind to search out the memory needed for Muscle Memory. Above I said "You stand at the mat" because all this thinking is Conscious mind working to know the distance. (example of thinking ... the mat is out 3 meters from the "Mat Line" and jack is just a few feet over half way. (half way between  the minimum distance (23 Meters) and the back ditch which is probably 33 meters. Half-ways is 23 + 5 or 28 meters and now substract the mat distance which is now out 3 meters.

 With this 25 meter plus a few feet calculation, your subconscious mind is now ready to use a trick of Delivery to add on or remove some delivery distance from your Natural distance. This Distance evaluation must be a part of your Pre-mat routine unless you feel you can judge the jack distance and you just roll the bowl and the subconscious does it.  (Yes maybe after many years this will began to  happen).  For the beginning member (2nd or 3rd year) the subconscious will know that for that distance "YOU" must take off 2 or 3 meters from your "Natural Distance" of  28 meters.

When we are teaching a new student, we want to develop consistency in their delivery; so we explain how  the pendulum swing, the body movement and even balance; all contribute to the "Natural Distance", During that first year they saw (and told by their coach) how perfection of their delivery had change their jack distance. (I did not say "Natural Distance" because in the first years few new members have a natural distance) We then instructed  the students on  how they can put on distance with increase body movement or roll to a shorter jack distance by shortening the pendulum swing or our forward step. (I use a clock method as if the arm and pendulum swing is going back to 7 o`clock)  Over time the subconscious mind will combines all these modification to your delivery and depending upon it's evaluated distance to the jack; will always give a  delivery which is in the Zone. (Zen Zone)

If Lawn Bowls was like the Canadian Ice Sport of Curling we would find the jack always place at the same distance, 23 Meters, and all Novice bowler  need only to develop is a style and weight of delivery for that one Jack Distance. But with Lawn Bowls we Learn our Delivery movement then we "Learn to Deliver to a Distance".

Curling Rink

 In Curling the center of the "House" (which is like the jack in Bowls with several rings) is always at the same distance; 21 Meters from  the "Release Hog Line" (today our Short Jack in a Lawn Bowls game is still at 21 meters); Probably when Curling was being firstr developed it was easlier on a frozen lake to create the "Center Ring of the House" and thus thee removal of the need to always evaluation  the Distance to the jack before delivery. Lawn would be so much easlier with a fixed jack distance. 

Back to the topic...In "Golf", The golfer arrives at the tee (or his ball in the fairway) and  looks up the fairway and decide the distance to the green (or his layup location) and decides how he will arrive at that distance. Like the Lawn bowler, the golfer knows that he has a consistent swing giving distance for each club, and with  always

Golf Clubs for
difference Distances

 the same amount of energy to his swing. ( same delivery. In Lawn Bowls). In Lawn Bowls, this delivery energy which the bowlers has developed give him a "Natural Distance" when performed correctly.

 However,  the Golfer has several Clubs and know each club distance that his constant swing will give  as a "Final Drive Distance". The novice Lawn Bowler, however when stepping up to the mat, after evaluating how far the Jack is from the front of the mat; and must also modify his delivery for that distance. His "Longer Forward Step" or "Faster body movement" are like clubs in the golfers bag. We often call these tricks of delivery modifications in our "Toolbox" as tricks of How To modify our delivery to get that distance.

With most Lawn Bowling Greens about 33 meters ( a normal square green) and the minumim distance of a "23 meters Jack" (25 from the front ditch) is12 meters from the "Back Ditch" which is 33 meters. Even when the mat is not brought forward and the jack is placed at it's farthest distance on the "Respot Mark" (31 meters);  the Lawn Bowlers may has to adjust their delivery weight by 10 meters, (impossible for some).

Have you ever watched a Blind Lawn Bowling competition.  In our club we have a "Blind Lawn Bowler" who is winning gold at  international Competitions. Before losing his sight he was a Australian Lawn Bowler and for many years did international competitions. So, having bowled as a sighted lawn Bowler he had his "Muscle Memory" an evev a feel of the jack distance.

Having experence the actual distance of the jack as a visual lawn bowler, the front of the mat to the jack being given by the Jack Placement Assistance; his bowl were frequently  on the jack. the Jack placement  assistance would announce the distance of the Jack was from a the "Mat Line, If the mat was not on the "Mat Line" the Blind Bowler's assistance or "Coach" (Assistance) would tell him about the placement of the mat ahead of the Mat line and maybe even do the calculation. The individual  "Born Blind" Lawn Bowler had with their introduction to Lawn Bowls been taught and developed his Delivery without the need for an evaluation of the  Jack Distance? It is simplethe subconscious has mixed the Learning of the Delivery  and Corrective Delivery instruction with where the bowl will actually roll. Their thinking was only to do a good delivery and accept what their coach was telling them about the jack distance. 

In an earlier Blog about evaluating the jack distance it was said that the Baseball player in left field when throwing the baseball to home plate for a runner; knows that his subconscious evaluate the distance while he is expected to throwing the ball.  This evaluation is experience, or "Muscle Memory" over years of rolling bowls which the blind and  experienced Blind has developed.

 However, as all baseball fields are about the same distance to home plate from left field, and all lawn bowls greens are the same size; we can began our Novice bowler by explaining each new jack position must be followed by a evaluation of the distance.   As a coach, when I start my new bowlers, I place the jack at their Natural distance and discuss different jack distance in the 3rd or 4th lesson of coaching. But to tell the new "Novice"  bowler (new club member being coached) that he will eventually gets to a feeling  of distance after years of experience can be rather discouraging. Remember, every new bowler has a different "Natural Distance" so the first 3 lessons are a "one on one" coaching.Later in the 4th lesson where the coach is with 2 or 3 new bowlers the instructions will  now began explaining how to bowl to different jack distances. Certainly, not expect the new member to know how to do it.

Sometime, a "Short Jack" Delivery might have a different "style" of delivery; and  also one would say that the "style"  has change for a long (maximum) distance Jack. One "short jack "style might remove the  body movement part of the delivery while the Longer Jack style might do a larger step which creates a faster body movement.  Looking like two different style of delivery they are just modification to the Natural Distance Delivery. 

As we become more consistance and on the jack; we may think we have advance beyond this method of Evaluation of  Jack Distance and Delivery of our Bowl; but if we feel we can drop this modified style method:  we get the feeling of the jack distance. Do we still need all our  tools or tricks in our Tool Box?  No !! we must remember that the trick that helps us also require we learn to quickly fix our errors, One such error is putting more confidence in our feeling the distance.  The sister (Blog 5) of this method will show tricks to understand our evaluation of  the Jack Distance. 

.Blogger.com helps the blogger to know and evaluate his audiance with stats like the one on the right. the following two charts show the participation after I posted the new blog on twitter.

May 19th Blog Stats only a day after publishing
of the 2nd Blog on Jack Distance.

The 2nd part of this blog of 5 parts was published only a day earlier than writing this. The stats on the right show the volume of readers who follow me on twitter and received the  announcement of the blog. 

Each line on the graft show one reader and how many blogs they viewed.  Like advertising, one blog brings a reader and they stay to look at other blogs. The Map (Lower right) show the area of the world  where the blog viewer accessed my blog.  Because I am in North Americia and posted midday here, the mat shows a lot more Canadian and Americian bowlers visiting the blog. 

Blog Stats taken 6:29 am 21 May
showing the australian blog readers

The Stats on the right shows 2 days later when I did this blog. Of course the readers seem from the same area although the blogs they read differ.  Two days allow for local club discussion and suggestion to other club members to go look at the blog.  Stats are not always go as sometime they give false information.  I saw a lot of participation from Russia and thought that they were interest in Lawn bowls.. Actually now Russia is always showing as a small participation because once I wrote "Would you invite Donald Trump to your Club ? " and since then, their BOTS are  always checking my blog for TRUMP news. No I don't think Lawn Bowls is being developed in Russia or similar areas.

Update, Today June 15, 2022, I have cleaned up this blog and published it under a new title..How to Judging Jack Distance. The Old blog "Golf Like look at Jack Distance" which was  deleted.  Enjoy actual date should be June 2022..

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