At 32-years of age I never thought I’d take up lawn bowls, to be honest, I thought you had to be a bit more…mature.
That being said, I had the same misconception about bingo, which I only played for the first time at the Galleria Shopping Centre in Amanzimtoti about four years ago.
To my surprise I thoroughly enjoyed it.
Back to bowls though…
With a lot of apprehensions, I agreed to enter the KS Clothing Lawn Bowls Business League with the rest of my inexperienced Highvelder colleagues, who were at the time boasting of our team’s competence with unwavering confidence.
I had no prior knowledge of the game, except that it was commonly played by… mostly, senior citizens.
You can only imagine what an awkward affair it was when we pitched at the Ermelo Bowls Club last Thursday with zero experience.
From the onset, we felt out of place and nobody really had the ‘bowls’ to ask anyone for help, but it soon became apparent to most studying our moves that we were completely and utterly hopeless.
Our opposition, Bolts & Nuts, to their credit, was kind enough to explain the concept and some of the rules to us.
This kind gesture soon became less frequent as our opposition grew unappreciative of the fact that we were unintentionally slotting in bowls closer to the jack than them and scoring points in the opening ends.
But, as fate would have it, their experience soon caught up with our luck and they could continue educating us by practically schooling us on how it should be done… and boy, did they teach us a lesson!
Needless to say, we were not triumphant on the evening.
I absolutely hate losing, so… to the utter annoyance of my teammates, I created a Bowls WhatsApp Group after our dismal performance.
The group is aimed at sharing educational bowling videos covering a vast multitude of topics such as postural assessments, techniques and strategies as well as how to psychologically deal with a sense of false confidence.
I don’t have to tell you that they don’t like taking advice from someone on the same experience level as them, however, I honestly believe this advice helped us in our next game against the bubbly Pink Ladies B Team the following Thursday…
Okay okay… just maybe the fact that Fritz Olmesdahl en Ralph Griffiths, two skilled club members, offered to assist us while we were practicing an hour prior to our game, played a vital role.
Ralph also generously offered his magical bowls to me and was such a great help in giving advice on how to skip your team to victory.
If you share the same misconception as I did, that this game is only for… old people, think again!
Make sure to visit the Ermelo Rolbalklub and see what it’s all about before passing judgment on a sport you might also know nothing about.
