ALREADY PLAY

Tournament play provides benefits that cannot be replicated in any other environment.

Here are the benefits of tournament play:

Your game will improve

Leading up to the tournament you will focus on your game and find areas to improve. The preparation for the tournament is just as rewarding as the tournament itself.

It takes you out of your comfort zone

This might seem like a strange benefit, but when we leave our comfort zone, take the risk to ask a partner to play, and test our nerves on tournament day, we grow and learn.

Track your progress

Tournament play helps us track our progress as a player and reflect on improvements.

It builds mental strength and stability

Since we can’t replicate it in any other way, tournaments put us in an environment where we can build our mental game. We need to be put to the test, experience failure and success, and grow in this area. Failures will be our biggest growth motivators and another opportunity to grow.

It builds confidence

The first step is courage, but as you gain experience, you gain confidence for the next tournament.

Meet new people

​​​​​​​Tournaments bring a whole new slew of players together including potential new partners and other players to play with in other towns. It is a huge party of different players coming together for the same passion.

While practise undoubtedly makes perfect, switching things up in your training regime can leave you reaping the benefits come match day.

Raising your game and improving on past performances doesn't just come down to natural ability. There are a number of steps you can take right now, each of which can form those gradual steps to sporting greatness.

1. Request a one-on-one

Try asking a trusted senior player or club coach to assess your current game. Once you've got a hold of your strengths and weaknesses, you'll be able to focus on improving the areas you need to become a better player.

2. Create a plan and set goals

Make a season-long plan to improving your areas for development. Your coach will be able to help play with drills or activities that can help you reverse a weakness in your game.

Once you have a long-term plan in place, set some goals so you can track your progress. These should be regular, achievable milestones that keep you motivated to constantly improve.

3. Practice, practice, practice

Practice makes perfect. It's as finer sporting cliché as you'll find, but it's as true now as it's ever been. Skills, drills and techniques can take months of solid repetition before you feel comfortable taking them out on the mat.

Building that confidence isn't easy. The best way to mastering new skills – and therefore improving as a player – is through relentless practice.

4. Train as an individual

As a player of a partnership or group, the focus is often squared solely around the team. It can be hard as an individual to find the time to work on your specific needs.

5. Build confidence

Confidence in sport is defined as having the tenacity to execute new skills out in the pressure cooker of a match scenario. The harder you practice your new skills, the more chance you'll have of pulling it off in a game situation. Over-confidence in a game situation can be damaging. If you work on a skill and fail to pull it off, you may never get the required confidence to try it again. Make sure you've got it nailed down before you pull it out in a game situation.

6. Understand the game better

Thanks to the internet, you can really go deep into the tactical and strategic levels of your chosen pass time. Video analysis of the pros, coaching advice and even philosophical musings of how to be a success in sport are all widely available to those who seek to enhance their understanding.

On the mat, it pays to know the finer workings of our sport. It will enhance the understanding of your role on the mat and how it contributes to the success of those around you.

Without a knowledge of sport, you can't fully appreciate how you as an individual can grow within it.

7. Get some expert advice

To further enhance your understanding of the how the very best succeed in sport, watch them. Consuming sporting content on your TV or online is easy, and can help you learn how the very best do it.

When doing this, don't limit yourself to Indoor Bowls. In all sports, there are winners that dedicate their lives to being the best. Many of them adopt the same attitude and determination to achieving sporting greatness – and you could do a lot worse than taking a leaf out of their book.

Club volunteer roles vary greatly. Some volunteers are coaches who commit hundreds of hours every year while others give an hour or two, around their busy schedule, to drive players to an event.

​Roles could include:​​​​​​​​

​We encourage anyone interested in volunteering to contact their District or club. 

Umpire

Umpires Exam

To assist trainee umpires with their exam preparations NZIB have developed a model questions and answers paper for those studying for their local or national Umpires registration.

Anyone preparing for the exam would be well advised to take note and study what is inside this practice exam, as it will give them a much higher level of knowledge and therefore a higher chance of passing.

Umpires Training Video

To support trainee umpires towards becoming registered, NZIB has developed a training video that demonstrates and identifies different mat faults that may be encountered during a conventional game of Indoor Bowls.  The video is also used during Umpire Exam.