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THE AGONY OF ATTITUDE AND SELECTION

Presented by Macka Jensen

Selection: Throughout the lawn bowling careers of many bowlers, no matter how well they played, some 70% have not been selected in various competitive teams because of their attitude problems and this still applies today. Should you doubt this statement I suggest you cast your observation on the selection of your own club pennant teams. In fact it gets worse at the top of the ladder, you’re there one minute and gone the next.

Antics: Like selectors, I’m sure that you have witnessed many bowlers displaying antics that relate to bad attitudes. The strange thing about this we only see errors of others, and never realised that we may have at sometime exhibited our own idiosyncrasies. Don’t worry! throughout life we all at various times display antics that relate to our emotions which can be described as bad attitudes. At home it may only be seen by family or close friends. In sport you’re in the limelight and it is there for all to see. If you dig deep enough into the personal and sporting antics it all boils down to poor control over our emotions. Antics are the very things we might have learnt and was not corrected by our childhood peers. Another reason may have been that when we were toddlers such antics of emotions may have started out as being amusing to our guardians but as we have grown older they may have become your life’s personal problems. However the case, you need to learn to control them. Some revealing signs that you may have seen within yourself or others in the sport of bowls are as follows;

Personal antics: moodiness, anger, extreme silence, panic, excessive talking, being bossy, over demanding, ignoring friendly advice etc,

Sporting antics:

• Ignoring team briefing and debriefing
• Ignoring the game plan or no game plan at all,
• Failing to stick to the game plan,
• Poor standards of play,
• When the game pressure is on, being over aggressive and attacking the head when you should be drawing,
• Setting the head up to play the shot yourself,
• Watching the game on the other rink and ignoring your own team,
• Your poor posture at the head e.g. hands in pockets etc, and not looking very motivated,
• Abusing fellow team members,
• Bitching about the rules of the game or the opposing team
• Arguing with officials before, during and after the game,
• Showing contempt to everyone
• Ignoring a team member’s advise,
• Requesting team members to perform playing tasks that you or your team have not trained for and so on it goes!

Note: If there has been poor or no preparation and planning then it has been a bad attitude towards the game from all asunder e.g. from the top to the bottom!

Underlying antics: When certain incidents occur on the green, some bowler’s use their real emotional antics to advantage by: passing it off as humour, begin motivating the team by talking louder and giving various untold commands. Believe it or not, many team members become attracted to sense of humour or being told what to do and will never regard or look at it as a bad attitude. But although individuals may hide their weaknesses their performance levels will certainly lower as the game progresses. When a team loses by these underlying antics you’ll often hear the expression; “We were unlucky,” or “We played a better team.” And we could add to that “We’ll show them next time.” The irony of this statement is, when they do meet again they unconsciously repeat the whole un-resourceful procedure and lose again!

Short-term changes: style=’font-family:Arial’>For attitude changes to be of any true value, they’ve got to be lasting and consistent. We’ve all experience a change for a moment, only to feel let down and disappointed in the end. In fact many bowlers attempt attitude changes with a sense of fear and dread because unconsciously they believe the changes will only be temporary. A prime example of this is someone who needs to change their antics of being a bad looser find themselves putting it off, primarily because they unconsciously know that whatever pain or frustration they endure in order to create the change will bring them only a short-term reward.

Lasting change: Bad attitudes are derived from our emotions, antics are the ludicrous gestures, grotesque, or ridiculous manner that may display it. Mastering your attitude alone will take you most of the way towards relieving the agony of selection. Think about it, if you can do that then all you need to do is improve your playing skills. Mastering your attitude will give you more energy and vitality, making your game more attractive to selection, and boosting your confidence and self-esteem to the stratosphere! Virtually all you need to do is change the way you feel; yet most of us have little or no training in how to do this quickly and effectively. It’s amazing how often we use the intelligence at our command to work ourselves into un-resourceful emotional states, forgetting about the multitude of innate talents each of us already possess. Too many of us leave ourselves at the mercy of outside events over which we have no control, failing to take charge of our emotions, over which we have all the control, and relying instead on short-term quick fixes.

Information: The relevant follow-up information is contained in the National Bowls Coaching Manual 1999, Appendix (Q) page 205 to 216 which relates to common emotional reactions, analyse your feelings, understanding your emotions and the power of emotions. These topics will help to interrupt those disempowering antics and create alternative pathways to replace your undesired behaviour and establish a better attitude.