With more young people taking up bowls and the older generation being spurred on by the new enthusiasm, coaching is beginning to play a significant role in the game of lawn bowls.
The Alexandra Bowling Club invited bowls New Zealand national coach Dave Edwards and national coaching co-ordinator Sharon Sims for a two-day coaching seminar at Alexandra at the weekend.
About 20 people attended the first day which was a coaching session for existing and new coaches, run by Sims.
Edwards ran a coaching clinic for the development squad from Central Otago on Sunday.
Coaching for bowls had not bee important until a few years ago but people were becoming more and more aware of the benefits, Edwards said.
Coaching had not been accepted in the early days.
"There was not so much importance placed on it then. You just did it yourself.
"In the past few years there has been more input from bio-mechanists into the game and there is now more science behind [it]," he said.
But technique was only a small part of coaching and it was geared to more professional ends, such as goal-setting, season planning and purposeful training, Sims said.
"Young people expect coaching and older players have become curious, seeing the younger ones out there with coaches and now they think there must be something in in this," she said.
The pair are travelling around most of the country with the coaching seminars and Edwards said they are excited about the success they are seeing in international competition as a direct result of the coaching clinics.
Schools are also becoming more interested in bowls and some are now including it in their school curriculum.
