Before arriving for lawn bowling, I admit I did not really know what to expect. I had a faint expectation of playing boccie ball, which is popular among elder relatives of mine back home. I would sum up lawn bowls as a more structured form of boccie, however, and much more competitive (being as it is played as a sport and not just for recreation). Overall, the sport involves a significant amount of concentration and being able to repeat a similar motion in an identical fashion time after time. It is not a sport that requires a high amount of athleticism and at the higher levels it is more strategy than athleticism in my opinion. For the sake of our competition, however it really was more about fun and learning the basics than anything.
I can understand how it is considered a sport in which (generally) one gets better with age. It has not historically been a popular youth sport. However, in recent years the popularity has grown for several reasons. One is that it can be played competitively from teenagers all the way to people in their 90's. With it also being non-contact, this allows for a competition to develop between multiple generations. Also, since it is generally just fun to play, I can see this sport becoming a popular recreational sport in many more countries in the future. I do not see the sport reaching global popularity as being a top "spectator sport", however primarily because it does lack contact. It is fun to play for sure; nevertheless, it is not as exciting to watch in my opinion. For this reason, I do not see it reaching high popularity past recreational purposes.
No comments:
Post a Comment