Recently while sitting outside of the club's Green Fence watching a Major Qualification Lawn Bowls game; an interested passerby began asking questions about the sport. The reason I was sitting there outside the club was a lawn bowls rules which does not allow spectators behind the players "line of play" unless more than 3 meters which meant on the other side of the club's fence.
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| Stats of blog for 1st week of September 2024 |
The fence is at 1 meter from the ditch and behind the player's bench and I was studing players strategy and post delivery focus and evaluation.
After several minutes, the passerby asked an advance sport question. " The game appears to involve a lot of muscle memory and mental development ?" I discovered that he was a serious Basketball athletic and he explained a bit of the "Memory Recall" exercises his coach had educated him. Many basketball coaches advise their athletics to mentally practice their basket shooting skills in idle time even if during a bus trips or simply sitting and relaxing.
"Muscle Memory" simply defined is the mind being conditioned during a lot of practice to know the muscle movements needed to perform the correct basket shooting technique. Or in Lawn Bowls the correct delivery techniques. Others will say that a child learns to throw a ball and catch that ball by simple instinctive actions. Yes, Instinctive subconscious actions are involved in most sports.
This blog is more for those Club Coaches doing the three or four week Club's "Introduction to Lawn Bowls" course to new members. This advance information is usually given only by Level 3 or Level 4 coaches dealing with helping competition athletics or international players; but as a learning bowler, it is important to know.
In the photo (left) we see a screen capture from a Youtube Petanque video of Mark Wildeboer as he does a Petanque "Takeout" shot. In his previsualization of his shot we see his toe tapping (a "Tell" of his pre-visualizations ) before his actual action of the doing the takeout shot. Athletics working with a Level 3 or Level 4 coach have moved from "Muscle Memory" to doing their performance in a "Void of thought" which allow the subconscious mind to perform the actual action. Often called "Being In the Zen Zone", this is the exact action when we quickly break the car because of a child running out into the street. Watch the video and see the "Tell"
Unless you are certified Club Coach or with five or six years experience; these ideas and this information may seem strange. There are various levels of mental development in sports and that is why National Coaching organizations have sport neuropsychologists hired full time. These ideas are part of mental development and control. Angisity and Competition Stress at the international level can become a major problem in every sport and how we understand our mental aspects of our sport we are missing a major aspect of it. As now, in the summer of 2024, we finish the Paris 2024 Olymapic Games we now hear more televised interviews of how these olymapic professionals have helped our athletics.
Muscle Memory is something you know and understand or some people hear mention and don't know if they believe it all. It is like we hear how some people have an insistance on "Angels" and as they speak they explain how they believe that angels guide them in life"; Muscle Memory and "Being in the zone" or "Zen" are such things. For now, as you develop in your sport treat it like "angels". We can suggest " just take it or leave it", but still to know there is such knowledge is not harmful. Don't worry within years of play and practice in your game, your level of development will slowly reveal several new and strange things.
However, where this may matter to a new members to Lawn Bowls and the Clubs, is that because we were involved in a previous sports, we bring "Muscle Memory" we had developed competitively in that sport. For example, Curling, uses the same muscles to deliver the stone up the ice and often a coach finds that these new members have heard their coaches or other players talk about during their development and performance. They have maybe not used the term "Muscle Memory" but talked about how your body know how to do those deliveries.
This year, I will turn 80 and I changed clubs to get more competitive game play and practice with players of a higher performance level. Because I have been doing less coaching this increased competition will allow me some time before age forces me to leave this sport I so "love". This year, I was surprise to discover that this new club has an extremely large number of "Curling" members who now have turned to Lawn Bowls as their go-to summer sport.
There are two aspects of "Muscle Memory" for a new or novice lawn Bowler. First, until one has a few years experience in a new sport, it is best to understand that we have in our performance a memory of muscle movements. It is therefore that we build these new performance memory by watching always your bowls as they roll to their finish. Yes, you will be disappointed with a delivery; but don't step of the mat until your bowl has come to a stop. And if you are lucky to have a coach or skip which know of their ability to do "Memory Imprinting" as you learn; you will not only learn the correct delivery actions; but also develop important memories.
"Memory Imprinting" is an action or event which makes that memory stand out from the hundred of other delivery memories of the past years. A skip of experience standing in the head can see that the "Deliveery Line" of the player on the mat is good and that the weight is going to result in the bowl coming to a stop near the jack. If the skip does a hand-clap while the bowl rolls from the mat to the jack, this sound and you, the player watching your bowl; will imprint that memory of your delivery as an important memory. A good coach knows that such a stored memory and the retrevial of it by the competitive player from another sport; will only increase the speed with which that player adapts and learn their lawn Bowl delivery.
In December of 2016 blog on "Muscle Memory to the Zone" there are a couple of exercises to help explain how the in Bowls the subconscious mind interacts with our delivery performance through "Muscle Memory". The blog is long but explains the need for the athletic to be in what some calles "The Zone" or a subconscious "Void" during their performance. That blog talks about Tiger Wood who on a "Youtube video" says that often during his performance; he has no memory of his swing and hitting his ball. He is in a void of thought. Also with the Youtube video of 2016 World Bowls Women's Pair (Christchurch New Zealand); which is still available now in 2023 thanks to the VIMEO streaming. This blog show the two different styles of "In the Zone" performance of these two great Lawn Bowl In the above example we are using the "Tags" to inform the subconscious mind that this is not a similar " Muscle Memory" action to another sport's delivery action. In the mention blog the two leads are evaluating the jack distance as part of their pre-delivery routine and "Memory Retrevial" of having seen a bowl rolled that same distance. Each flip of the bowl is a refusal of the memory and a retrevial of a long (or shorter) jack distance.
Although the "Muscle memory" may include similar actions in the two sports; there is no stopping the "Muscle Memory" from completing all the actions in the old sport when a Bowl's Delivery is done. This is what makes learning a good lawn bowl delivery difficult for the athletic as each time they leave the mat they must return and redo all your previous perfect "Pre-Delivery" action or routine. (I had a tennis player who had the same problem with the squash swing)
The "Tag" when given to the student, should be a simple action like a toe tap; and should also be accompanied with the words "This is Lawn Bowls"when first time shown explained. Do not ask the student to think the words, or do not repeat it to the student more than once, as the "Tag" loses it invisible nature. The Tag words should not a corrective action like "Don't turn your wrist" because the student has incorporated the "tag" in his "Delivery Routine" and will hears the words. If he was to think of a corrective action before the bowl delivery and "Muscle Memory (being "in the zone") the conscious mind would attempt to do the delivery. The "Tag" is a note to the subconscious and in time the student will noteven hear those words during their action of delivery.
The "Tag" is not a corrective action but just something added to the delivery which the student must remember to perform because if the student was to begin thinking of a corrective action they will lose their focus and "DeliveryVoid" will be missed.
A "Tag" which is visiable is called a "Tells" as the extra actions during delivery is uses for a "Timing" or like the above example, to pass a remainder to the subconscious. When we are viewing a video like in the above mention blog of the two leads at the 2016 Pairs in Christchurch; we see they have an action which is performed during their delivery. Something the subconscious needs to be remained before the delivery, especially during the early season. In that mention blog we see the Petanque player with the "Toe-tap Tell" probably as he evaluates the distance to the object target. In the blog of the two leads they are probably do a "distance memory retrival". If we look we will see the many "Tell" even if not intended to be visual because as a mental interaction of the player's communication to the subconscious before the actual performance.
If one looks at a teaching video on curling you will see that part of the delivery is a small wrist movement as the stone is made to slowly turn as it goes up the ice. One would think this is such a small action and can be overlook. But remember "Muscle Memory" is executed when you are in a "Subconscious Void" and during that action of delivery; when it starts to delivery it does everything until the action is complete. So if "Muscle Memory is from start to finish; it is hard for the subconscious to remove a part of the action which make up "Muscle Memory". Yes even that little wrist turn of the stone from 11 o'clock to 12 o'clock during the curling delivery will causes the student (from a Curling sport) to have a bad lawn bowls delivery. Even if the student was using a "Stick Delivery" in curling it is still a turning.
Solution is to give the subconscious mind a thought during the delivery routine (a Tag) to change the start of the delivery and then allow the delivery action (of lawn bowls) to continue to the different and until it is a complete action. What sort of thought ?. Centainly not a verbal instruction as these comands are from the conscious mind and the "Muscle Memory" is from the instinctive or Subconscious mind. A "tag" is an action added to your delivery preparation which does nothing to influence the bowl but it communicate with the Subconscious mind.
In this case because in both Bowls and Curling the athletic starts their delivery from a standing position the tapping of the foot does not influence the bowl's delivery. When the "Tag" is given by the coach it has to be accompany with a verbal which the studentwill hears when he does the "Tag". Why ? Cause the student hearing the words, when he does the "Tag", is a thought which his subconscious mind also hears. It should be only once spoken and the coach should not explain the choice of words such as "This is Lawn Bowls".
The student could be told to think the phrase but it is hard to think an action and not try to do it because thinking is a conscious mental action. Also, the coach needs to know the student is doing the "Tag" as part of the Delivery routine and it being a physical action it can be seen by the coach. A physical action as seen during a "Muscle Memory" is called a "Tell" (like in poker where you can read your opponent by their facial movement when they got their card) and if done right in coaching it does not affect the Bowl's delivery.
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