Everyone knows that Indoors is completely different to Outdoors and yet people still struggle with the transition at the start of the season.
Starting with the very basics
The basics of line and weight control/length, are fundamentally down to green speed (rather than Indoor v Outdoor). PPBC has a green speed of around 8-10secs and Whiteknights Indoor carpet runs at around 17-18secs. So simplistically indoors is twice as fast as outdoors and BECAUSE it’s twice as fast you have to bowl at half the speed in order to travel the same distance.
Not only do you need to slow your delivery indoors, you also need to send your wood out on a wider arc (line). This is why narrow-mid bias woods are needed for indoor (or fast outdoor greens) and wider biased woods are only for outdoors (but that’s another article)
The GREEN SPEED is the time taken for a wood to travel from the point of release to travel and stop at a Jack 27m away.
So, Fig. 1 is Indoors or a very fast outdoor rink (Tilehurst in July). It takes 17-18secs to go from the mat to a 27m Jack. The Arc is wide and the Aiming point (AP1) is way over to the right of the Jack (centre of the next Rink). In order for it to ‘travel’ for 18secs to a 27m Jack, it needs to be bowled SLOWLY.
Fig. 3 is a slow outdoor green (Woodley). It takes 8-9 secs to go from the mat to a 27m Jack. Because of the time difference it needs a much shallower arc and hence a narrower Aiming Point (AP3). It’s travel time is 9secs to a 27m Jack and so it’s bowled QUICKLY.
So it’s relatively simple to bowl to any given Aiming Point. Indoors the AP is wide and Outdoor it’s narrow. It’s no harder to bowl wide than it is to bowl narrow, that’s easy enough to do, so people DON’T struggle changing AP Indoor to Outdoor ….PEOPLE STRUGGLE WITH WEIGHT CONTROL especially the first few ends/roll-ups when they are ‘transitioning’.
Why?
The biggest reason is the change in ‘friction’ of the surfaces. Lets start by being ludicrous. Imagine the differences between bowling on Glass to on Snooker Baize to on Putting Green grass to on your own Lawn. Imagine the differences in these four surfaces when you are trying to stop a wood at any given distance or in the later case, just how fast you’d need to bowl it in order for it to even travel 27m.
Back to Reality
So considering a 18 sec green (Whiteknights indoor) and a 9 sec green (ours). The friction difference is vast. If you were to bowl a wood at exactly the same speed, VERY SIMPLISTICALLY, the outdoor wood would only travel half the distance because it will be slowed quicker because of increased surface friction.
The green speed also has a big effect on the bias of your wood. The simplified physics is below :-
Forget the physics, learn what you need to do …
Outdoors = less swing, so narrow Aiming Point, faster delivery which stops much quicker
Indoors/Fast Outdoor = more swing, so wider Aiming Point, slower delivery which takes longer to stop
SO THIS IS ALL VERY INTERESTING BUT I KNOW WHAT I’M STRUGGLING WITH … HOW DO I FIX IT?
Weight control can be changed with four things that are within your control during the delivery of your wood
- The length of your pendulum swing
- The speed of your pendulum swing
- The size of your forward step
- The consistency of your release
There are a few nuances within these, but these are the main four that you need to control. Get these consistent and know exactly how and when to alter them and then you can control your weight much better. Controlling these four will stop you bowling a wood 2yds short or 2yds long (unless that’s what you want to do to cover the back or block the front). It won’t get you controlled weight to within 6 inches. With Ken’s permission …. these are a few stills taken from a delivery clinic we ran last year. Ken is a crouch bowler rather than an upright bowler. This means he sights his line in an upright position but then crouches and pauses before starting his delivery. I’ve chosen these stills from a video we took to demonstrate the four points of weight control that are mentioned above.
Ken starts in an upright position and angles body and feet to his chosen line/Aiming Point. Ken is on the extreme side of the mat which is absolutely fine (just something he does).
This is about getting your line set and aligning your whole body and is NOTHING to do with weight control (in this first photo it’s about selecting your line/AP).
These show the pendulum swing and the step forward as Ken delivers. The swing is uniform. The overall swing is the same distance in front of the body as behind (see shadow on the ground in the last photo, showing the bowl is equally behind his body on the backswing as it started in front of the body). The central photo shows the bowl position half-way back through the pendulum swing.
In the third photo the step forward is nearing completion BUT NOT the body weight transfer (that hasn’t started). The weight transfer moves through to his stepping foot with the forward delivery of the arm/bowl.
Finally, the release point. The front foot has completed the step and Ken’s body weight transfer has gone from fully back to fully forward at the same time as the bowl is moved back to forward, Delivery point is low to the ground and exactly at the ‘toe’ of the stepping foot. No bounce. No dump. Released from the hand right onto the green.
So, in a little bit more detail. The pictures were taken from delivery video looking at Ken’s technique when bowling to a maximum length Jack (T to T). The pendulum swing length is ‘long’ as is the ‘step’ because this is a full-length delivery. Obviously, you can’t see the ‘speed’ of the arm swing.
So, if you are struggling with weight control when switching from or to a fast green you can alter any of the four main levers that are the basics of weight control
- The length of your pendulum swing (longer swing for a longer Jack)
- The speed of your pendulum swing (faster swing for a longer Jack)
- The size of your forward step (larger step for longer Jack)
- The consistency of your release (bounce or dump kills weight control because it kills forward momentum of the wood, UNLESS you always bounce ‘the same’)
My tip is just alter one of these and keep the others constant. So if you bounce a wood, and that’s your delivery style, don’t try to change it, just make sure you are consistently bouncing it from the same height/release point every time. Adjust one of the ‘others’ to increase or decrease your weight as required.
Outdoors is much more variable than indoors, grass length, surface/friction changes during a game (as weather changes), runs in the green, bald/brown patches of grass etc. So you need to alter from green to green but also from end to end.
- Indoor = more accuracy needed and more ‘punishing’ of very minor delivery changes
- Outdoor = more adaptability is needed, surface irregularities, green speed changes (weather)
SO, WHY DOESN’T MY INDOOR TECHNIQUE WORK OUTDOORS? WHAT CHANGES?
The basics of technique are all transferable for Line and the very basics are also transferable for weight control BUT we all know you need much more ‘push’ on an outdoor surface (because of Friction slowing the wood)
Considering the basics:
- The length of your pendulum swing
- The speed of your pendulum swing
- The size of your forward step
- The consistency of your release
Indoors (or at Tilehurst in July) you CAN deliver to a minimum 23m Jack OR to a Full-length T-to-T Jack, SIMPLY by altering the length of your pendulum swing. You can keep the arm speed the same, have (or have not) a bounce delivery, and you can take a step OR stand in a static position to deliver (no step). If you simply change to a short swing (short 23m Jack) or to a long swing (long T-to-T jack) you WILL get the distance differences and the weight control.
Outdoors (8 sec green, or it starts to rain) you need more ‘push’. Coaching will tell you, keep 3 levers exactly the same and change just one. For outdoors the one to change is your arm speed. Faster for longer, Slower for shorter. This is now ‘a feel’ because you can’t measure or remember your ‘speed’ of delivery. So it only comes with PRACTICE and PRACTICE gives you muscle memory and you learn ‘what it feels like’.
This is why Trial Ends are so important. You’ll notice the top players are ‘often’ pretty short (or long) on their first bowl of a trial end. This is because they have ‘locked’ in their brain what a SHORT, MEDIUM and LONG delivery feels like. So in a trial end they see the Jack is LONG … they don’t try to ‘nail’ the jack … they bowl their ‘memorised’ LONG delivery … if it’s short, they know the green is slower than normal and they adjust (if they’re 2yds through, they know the green is quicker than normal and they adjust). You’ll notice most skips immediately adjust their second wood to be Jack level.
If you’re struggling with the weight control going from indoors to outdoors you don’t need to change your whole delivery, you need to practice your arm speed. You CAN bowl outdoors without a step (if that’s your static indoor delivery stance) but you’ll need to increase your arm speed even more then.
Outdoors is much more forgiving of minor changes in your delivery BUT as you speed up your arm and put more ‘effort’ into your delivery, then things might start to go awry. Don’t TRY too hard … adjust (there’s a subtle difference)
If you do take a step on delivery, then you’re transferring your body weight and adding momentum to your delivery. This is a major asset and means you can swing slower to get that further distance.
With a step … Distance is a combination of forward body momentum and arm speed
Static delivery (no step) … Distance is just arm speed (there’s no/very little forward body momentum)
SO …..
If you’re still awake and have another 20mins free, you can watch this Nev Rodda video discussing weight control ‘achieved through’ body momentum and body weight transfer. He uses Shooter stance to set up his body, but he still steps forward on delivery transferring his body weight. If watch the video and refer back to the still photos of Ken …. you’ll see they are DOING THE SAME THING …
Ultimately, weight control it’s muscle memory and adjustments so it’s PRACTICE, PRACTICE, PRACTICE, not THEORY, THEORY, THEORY … See you all on the green.