For Bob Pickett, a chance coaching session after early retirement transformed his lawn bowls game and inspired him to qualify as an EBCS Level 1 coach at Aldersbrook Bowling Club
Last year, I wrote about how I took early retirement and found the sport of lawn bowls, which gave my post-retirement life focus and a new social group. On the playing side, I reached the area final of a (minor) county competition. This was definitely helped by receiving formal coaching.
Towards the end of my first (half) season, I played in a game with Alan, a player from another local club. Chatting after, he told me he was a qualified coach. I was having trouble with an aspect of my game and Alan kindly offered me a coaching session. Having played other sports at a decent level (I was a county under-21 basketball player), I knew the importance of good coaching.
I visited his club (Aldersbrook Bowling Club). After establishing a few ground rules and warming up, he ran me through some exercises, at the end of which he found an issue with my stance. We worked on correcting this, and the improvement was immediate!
Inspired, I took the English Bowls Coaches Society (EBCS) Level 1 course in February this year, which enables you to coach beginners and inexperienced players, providing tools to develop a consistent series of steps for delivery of the bowl, plus how to find correct line and length.
It was a four-day course, and pretty intense. Day one was about the aims of the course, with some time on the green to reinforce what we were trying to achieve. Day two was a practice day for the three elements we were learning how to coach; lots of questions and answers and practical work. Day three was a mock assessment. With one of the EBCS team acting as an assessor, we each went through the three elements. This day was invaluable, as it was the opportunity to give a final polish to your coaching plan for each element and get the inevitable mistakes out of the way. Me? I forgot the warm-up routine… and it’s something I’d started doing myself before a game! Day four: assessment day. Under the gaze of an official assessor, I had to coach two out of the three elements. All the practice paid off; both my sessions went well, and at the end, my assessor signed the forms to say I had qualified.
I have now joined Aldersbrook Bowling Club, where I am very keen for others to make use of my skills. I can coach new and inexperienced players. Alan is a Level 2 coach, so he can look at specific areas and help more experienced bowlers.
If you would like to give bowls a try and benefit from being pointed in the right direction, do get in touch.
Aldersbrook Bowling Club is located at 34 Aldersbrook Road, E12 5DY. For more information, call 020 8989 8282 or visit wnstd.com/abc
