A03 Bowls

Bowls

Introduction

I started playing bowls when I was 11 and have been only doing it for a year. I found it quite hard at first but then I got the hang of the game after a while. I will like to play Bowls when I am older in my spare time as it is a fun sport to do. I have not done any competitions and I don’t really plan on doing any. I go to a small place at White oaks with my mum sometimes to have a small game.

Session 1

Firstly I and my family played three practise rounds with a short, a medium and long jack. After the practise rounds I had learned that I need to make my bowl shorter. I also need to bring a tape measure with me to measure the length of the distance between bowl and the jack. We then played a game for 18 ends and decided we would break at 9 rounds.   At half time the score was 4 to me, 6 to my dad and 4 to my mum. After the break I decided I needed to work on the length that I rolled the bowl and how I used the bias. I was making the bias not turn far enough and the bowl was just going straight. At the end of all the rounds it was 9 to me, 11 to dad and 7 to mum. My dad won the match because he used the bias correctly, got his length mostly correct and controlled how much power he had on the ball. I learnt that I need to work on my power that I use on the ball because I always end up in the gutter at the end.

This me putting up the jack.

Session 2

At this session we started with 3 practise goes with a short, a long and a medium jack. I was most comfortable with the medium jack and had better success with the long jack than the short jack. We decided that we would record how close my bowls were to the jack. We played 18 ends and only played one way. I was focusing on trying to get my bowls as close to he jack as possible not just trying to win the game. After 14 ends I had 14 different results, some of them were medium but most of them of them were short or long. My parents went to have a break while I had one last practice go. This is when I got my shortest bowl which was 71cm. After I had a break we resume play and I got 4 more measurements. I also tried bowling using the left handed way with my right hand. I found this easier for a time but realised that it was no different than the other hand. After the last round we handed back the bowls and went home.   

 Here is a table showing how close I got to the Jack. 

Short	Medium	Long
127cm	175cm	432cm
137cm	171cm	457cm
118cm	148cm	196cm
99cm	173cm	262cm
115cm		272cm
82cm		182cm
I had a practice and got 71cm		217cm

This is me  sending my bowl up and watching it.

This is me in my practise standing next to my closest bowls

This is me standing next to my second closest bowl.

Lesson plan for Practice 3^rd December

Firstly I am going to do a warm up by rolling up the jack and then send up four bowls a few times. I will then put up a short, medium and long jack four times and send four bowls up each time. I will then measure the closest ones in the practice and record them. I will then see what was my weakest jack and practice it. I will then get my second weakest jack and practice that. If I have time at the end I will do a short, a medium and a long jack and record what the differences are in my results. For my short and medium jacks I recorded all the bowls that were less than 160cm away from the jack. For the long jack everything under 300cm.  

Length of Jack	Short	Medium	Long
1st attempt	97cm	110cm, 138cm	285cm, 290cm
2nd attempt	23cm and 126cm	126cm	196cm
3rd attempt	106cm	30cm	260cm
4th attempt	155cm	38cm	154cm, 192cm
5th attempt	53cm	All over 150cm	163cm

Evaluation

I found it very tiring and by the end of the practise I was sweating and thirsty. I had been bowling for 1hr 30minutes. It was very difficult doing a long Bowl because the danger is that it might go in to a ditch. I was also using too much bias and kept on making it go in the ditch. I found doing a medium jack better than all the other ones as I got a good average score. I did not have time to finish everything I had planned but felt that I had achieved a greater understanding about weight, length and bias during the lesson. I need to work on all of these areas but I felt comfortable now in this sport which is new to me.