The Landing Spot

You point. The boule looks decent in the air, lands, runs on and finishes a metre past the jack.

You already know what you’ll probably say to yourself.

Too much weight.

Then you walk up and find that the boule first touched the terrain sixty centimetres beyond the landing spot you chose. That changes what you can learn from the throw.

Most of us look first at where the boule finishes. After all, it’s what normally scores. But a lot of what happens is decided when the boule first meets the terrain, and that is often the part we are least sure about.

Where the boule lands and where it finishes are connected, but they don’t tell you the same thing.

What are we actually trying to learn?

The main question is simple:

Can I land the boule where I intended?

But there are two other questions hiding inside the same throw.

Did I know where it landed? Was the landing I felt or saw from the circle close to what actually happened?

Did the terrain behave as I expected? Once the boule landed, did it run on, slow down, bounce or turn in the way I had pictured?

Those are three different things. You can miss the landing spot but get a good finish. You can hit the landing spot perfectly and still finish badly. Or you can walk forward convinced that you landed short, then discover that you were actually long.

All three give you useful information, but they are not telling you the same thing. That is why “too much weight” does not always tell the whole story.

Set up the drill

Put the jack at a distance you actually play. Seven metres is fine. So is eight. The distance matters less than having a real pointing problem in front of you.

Read the terrain and choose where you want the boule to land. Then make that area easy to see. You don’t need special training equipment. Use whatever you have around you.

• An open circle. A pétanque circle that clips open, laid down with the far side open, lets the boule land inside and carry on towards the jack, so you see the landing and what followed it.
• Two drink mats. One either side of the spot gives you a gate to land through. Bring them closer together as the target needs to become more precise.
• A flat marker. Useful when you only want to judge the landing. If the boule hits it, there is nothing left to learn from what happens afterwards.
• An old car tyre. See how many boules you can drop inside it. The tyre stops the boule, so this one removes the finish and asks only whether you produced the landing you intended.
• Something already on the terrain. A stone, a change in colour, the edge of a harder patch. Closest to what you will actually be reading in a match.

Chalk, string, flat markers, spare cochonnets or a mark scratched lightly into the terrain can all do the same job. The object isn’t important. You just need to make the answer easy to see.

Start generously. You are trying to learn something, not prove how accurate you are. And keep a real finishing objective as well. You might simply be trying to finish short and in front of the jack. The landing is what you are looking closely at, but the finish still matters because that is the problem the landing spot is supposed to solve.

Choose, throw, call it, check

1. Choose where you want it to land.Before each boule, and specifically enough that you could point at it.
2. Throw.Nothing to add here. This is the part you already know how to do.
3. Call where you think it landed.Before walking forward. Short. Long. Left. Right. Pretty much on it.
4. Walk forward and check.Where did it land? What did the boule do from there? Where did it finish?

That gives you three pieces of information from one throw: what you intended, what actually happened and how the terrain responded.

What should you notice?

A boule can miss the landing spot you chose and still finish beautifully. Enjoy the result, but notice how it got there.

The opposite matters too. You can hit the landing spot exactly and still finish badly. Two boules can land in almost the same place and finish very differently. Height, pace, spin and the terrain can all change what happens next. That is why the finish alone doesn’t tell you everything.

Calling the landing before you check is what makes the second question answerable. Once you have seen the mark on the terrain, the answer is already there; committing to a guess first is the only way to find out how good your picture of the throw really was.

Over time, you may start to notice a pattern. Perhaps you often think you landed shorter than you did, or you are better at judging line than distance. That is useful to know.

Take the help away

A visible target is useful at the beginning because there is no ambiguity about what you are trying to do. But you won’t have a circle, two drink mats or a car tyre sitting around your landing spot during a match.

Start with something you can clearly see. Once that becomes comfortable, make the target smaller. Then remove the equipment and choose something already on the terrain: a small stone, a change in colour, the edge of a harder patch, a line in the gravel or anything else that gives your eye somewhere clear to settle.

Eventually, take that away too. Choose a landing spot on an ordinary piece of terrain and hold that picture from the circle. Then throw and see how close you came.

Change the question

Once the basic drill stops showing you anything new, don’t just keep repeating it. Change one thing.

Same jack, different landing

Keep the jack in the same place but choose a noticeably different landing area. Can you still produce a useful finish? Try another one.

You are no longer practising one perfect landing spot. You are finding out how different landing choices change the throw you need.

Take your favourite spot away

Find a landing area that works well. Now make it unavailable. Put a spare boule there, mark it as out of bounds or simply decide you cannot use it. Where else could you land?

This starts to look much more like a match, where another boule, a poor patch of ground or the position of the jack can remove the solution you would have preferred.

Change the terrain, not the distance

Keep roughly the same shot but move sideways onto a different patch of terrain. Does the same landing still work? Does the boule react differently? Do you need another solution?

One boule, then change the picture

Choose the landing spot and give yourself one boule. Then change something. Move the jack. Put a boule in the way. Change the line. Move to another part of the terrain. Read it again and make another decision.

You lose the comfort of several previous attempts telling you exactly what weight and landing will work. That is closer to the question a match asks.

Finish the session

You don’t need to record every boule. Keep one or two things that genuinely taught you something.

• Perhaps you repeatedly landed further than you thought.
• Perhaps one patch of terrain behaved completely differently from the one beside it.
• Perhaps changing the landing spot showed you another way of solving the same point.

Write down what you noticed before you leave if you can.

It is working when you start landing closer to the area you chose, when you know where the boule landed without immediately checking, and when the markers come away and you can still read the terrain and choose a clear landing spot.

The useful question for next time is not simply did I point well? It is:

What did I learn about where my boule lands and what happens from there?

The research behind this drill is set out in the Practice Alone research companion.

Practise it with help. Then take the help away.