The Late Release Drill

Slow the arm down. Give yourself time to feel where the boule actually leaves your hand. Then go back to your normal throw and see what stays.

I used to get told to slow my arm down. So I would. And the boule would drop out of my hand and land two metres short.

I would try again, slower still. Same result. Before long, “slow your arm down” started to feel like another way of saying “throw it weaker”, so I would go straight back to doing what I had always done.

The advice was not necessarily wrong. The problem was that I had no real idea what my hand was doing while my arm was moving.

I first properly noticed it while helping my friend Paul. I caught myself telling him something that I probably needed to hear myself. That eventually became this drill.

I started putting a simple reference point in the air and throwing slowly over it before returning to my normal rhythm. Over the following weeks, I could see my release happening later in the swing and the boule began arriving with a softer trajectory.

That was useful for me. Your throw may tell you something completely different.

The aim isn’t to copy my release. It’s to give yourself enough time to notice your own.

What are we practising?

One simple thing:

Can slowing the movement down help me feel where the boule leaves my hand?

Then comes the more important question:

When I go back to my normal rhythm, does any of that feeling stay with me?

That is the whole drill. Six slower throws. Then six normal ones. Five or ten minutes is plenty.

What you need

You need:

• your boules
• a circle or somewhere to throw from
• something visible for the boule to pass over

You could use a piece of string between two supports, a low branch, a hoop or anything else that gives you a clear reference in the air.

You are not trying to hit it. It is simply there to give the boule somewhere to travel over.

Set it up

Put your reference point roughly two to three metres in front of the circle and somewhere around head height.

It does not need to be exact. Throw a couple of boules and adjust it until the flight looks like something you could genuinely use when pointing.

You do not need a jack yet. You do not need a landing spot. And you do not need to care where the boule eventually finishes.

For these first few throws, the interesting bit is happening much earlier. What does your arm do? Where does the boule leave your hand? What does that release actually feel like?

That is enough.

Start with six slower throws

Ask yourself:

How slowly can I move my arm and still send the boule comfortably over the reference point?

Not as slowly as physically possible. And not so slowly that the movement stops feeling like a throw. Just noticeably slower than normal.

Then throw six boules.

Do not try to correct everything. Pick one thing to notice. Perhaps:

• Where did I feel the boule leave my hand?
• Did my hand stay underneath it for longer?
• What did my fingers do?
• Did the boule feel heavier when my arm was doing less of the work?
• What happened to the height of the arc?

You might notice something immediately. You might not. Both are fine.

The point is to give yourself a little more time to feel a movement that normally happens very quickly.

Now throw six normally

This is the important half.

Take away the instruction to slow down. Go back to your own rhythm. Do not deliberately hold onto the boule. Do not try to recreate exactly what happened in the slower throws.

Just throw. Then notice.

Did anything change without you forcing it? Perhaps the release feels slightly later. Perhaps the boule comes out more cleanly. Perhaps the arc feels easier.

Perhaps absolutely nothing changes. That is useful too. You are finding out what actually carries into your normal throw rather than trying to manufacture a technique because a drill told you to.

Slow gives you time to notice. Normal tells you whether it was useful.

Why take the jack away?

Because as soon as we put a jack down, most of us start judging the boule by where it finishes. Too short. Too long. Good boule. Bad boule.

That is normally useful information. But it can make it harder to notice what happened during the throw itself.

So for the first six, take the result away. The boule only has one job: travel over the reference point.

That gives you a few throws where you can pay attention to the movement without immediately deciding whether the boule was good or bad. Then we put the real task back.

What should you notice?

You do not need to analyse every part of your technique. In fact, try not to. Choose one thing.

Where did the boule leave my hand? You may find the answer is different from where you imagined it was. That was certainly true for me.

What happened when I slowed the arm down? Did your hand stay with the boule for longer? Did the boule feel heavier? Did your fingers become more noticeable? Did the trajectory change?

What happened when I returned to normal? This is the interesting bit. Did any of the feeling survive when you stopped deliberately thinking about slowing down? If it did, that gives you something worth exploring. If it disappeared completely, that tells you something as well.

Could I actually describe what I felt? Try to get beyond “that was good”. Something like “the arm felt easier and I felt the boule leave much further forward” is far more useful. You now have something you can recognise again.

Don’t chase the release

This is important.

The drill is called The Late Release Drill because releasing later was something I personally needed to explore. That does not mean everybody should try to release the boule as late as possible.

We are not looking for a perfect point in space. Your release will change with the shot. A high lob will not necessarily feel exactly like a flatter boule. A six-metre point may not feel like one at ten metres.

So don’t finish the drill thinking: I must release here.

A better question is: what did I notice when the movement felt easy and the boule came out the way I wanted?

That gives you something useful without turning it into another technical instruction to control.

Add the landing spot back

Once you have done the six slower throws and six normal throws, put a jack down. Choose a real landing spot. Now point normally.

This is where the drill starts to become useful pétanque again. You are no longer thinking “can I release later?” You are thinking “where do I want this boule to land?”

Then you play the shot and see whether anything you discovered earlier appears naturally.

That is what we are looking for. Not a movement you can produce when concentrating on your hand. A movement that is still available when your attention returns to playing the boule.

This is where the drill naturally hands over to The Landing Spot.

Change one thing at a time

Once the original setup stops telling you anything new, change it. You could:

• raise the reference point slightly
• lower it
• move it further away
• remove it and try to reproduce the same flight
• put the jack back
• choose a landing spot
• try the same idea over a different distance

But there is no need to keep making the drill harder. Change something because you have a question you want to answer.

For example: does the same feeling appear when I need more height? Or: can I still find it when I’m actually trying to land the boule somewhere?

That keeps the drill useful.

Why slow it down at all?

Not because slow practice is automatically better. And not because you should play pétanque with a slow arm.

The reason is much simpler. Your normal throw happens quickly. Sometimes slowing it down gives you a little more time to notice something that normally passes before you have really felt it.

Then you return to normal. If the slower throws helped you discover something useful, you may begin to recognise it there too. If they did not, don’t force it. Try another question.

We’re using slow movement to notice more, not trying to turn slow movement into the final technique.

Finish the session

Before you collect everything, ask yourself:

• Where did I feel the boule leave my hand?
• What changed when I slowed the arm down?
• Did anything stay when I returned to normal?
• What did the best throw feel like?
• What do I want to look for next time?

You do not need a technical description. Sometimes one word is enough. Easy. Longer. Soft. Free. Whatever actually meant something to you.

Write it down while the feeling is still fresh. Then leave it. The next time you practise, see whether you can find it again.

Notice it. Leave it. Come back and see what stayed.

Part of the guide to practising pétanque alone, alongside The Landing Spot and One Boule, One Chance. The research behind it is set out in the Practice Alone research companion.