✋ Where to aim when you’re shooting

updated 2023-07-05

My friends and I would like to become shooters, and one question that we discuss is “Where should you aim when you’re shooting?”  We’ve proposed a number of different theories. The best answer, I think, is—

Aim for the spot on the ground immediately in front of the target boule.

Go to the target boule and put your boule on the ground directly in front of it, so that the two boules are touching. That’s where you should aim; that’s where you want your thown boule to hit the ground. Here is a view from above; the target boule is on the left; the ghostly circle on the right is where you want your boule to hit the ground.

Here is a side view. You can see the thrown boule coming down from the right at approximately a 45 degree angle.

There are a number of reasons why I believe this strategy works.

1. When you’re shooting, you’re ignoring the target boule and aiming for a specific spot on the ground. This means that shooting is no different from lobbing. In both cases you’re doing the same thing— aiming for a specific spot on the ground. So if you can lob, you can shoot.
    
2. It produces a solid hit. If the target boule is hit directly on its side (pleine bille), the maximum amount of momentum is transferred horizontally from the thrown boule to the target boule. The thrown boule will carreau sur place and the target boule will go flying. This is the principle behind Newton’s cradle.
   Recently I discovered a Youtube video of this process in action. In these photos, the thrown boule is coming in from the upper left.
   
   
    
3. It offers a generous margin of error. (See the diagram below.) If you throw slightly long, you still have a reasonable chance of hitting the target boule higher on its front side. If you throw slightly short, you have a decent chance of hitting the ground in front of the target boule and then bouncing up and hitting the target boule.

My friends and I also discuss the best way to produce a carreau sur place. I’ve heard a lot of such theories. Personally I doubt that there is any One Best Way to produce a carreau, and I’m skeptical of theories that involve putting a lot of backspin (retro) on the thrown boule. My own theory is that hitting the target boule on its front side this way, while playing on relatively soft ground, is the most likely way to produce a carreau sur place.

The box tree moth and the future of the jack

All of the wooden jacks produced in France (about a million each year) are manufactured by one small company, Monneret, which sells its jacks to large distributors such as Obut. Now Monneret is reporting that caterpillars (larvae) of the box tree moth (la pyrale du buis, which was first introduced to Europe from East Asia around 2007) are attacking and killing the trees from which wood is harvested to produce the jacks. Monneret’s company head predicts that in 5 to 7 years, all of the box trees in France will be gone. The company is attempting to stockpile box tree wood, and says that in the future it hopes to be able to import wood from other countries.

Why amazon.com is a terrible place to buy your first set of petanque boules

There are ladies and gentlemen out there who haven’t yet played petanque but are interested in learning it. Perhaps they saw it being played while they were on vacation in France, or they saw it in the movie A Year In Provence, and it looked fun. They’d like to buy some petanque boules and try it out.

If you are one of these wonderful people, I have two things to say to you. First: it really is fun! Second: What you find on amazon.com almost certainly is NOT what you want. That’s because if you want to play petanque—

• Never buy a set of 8 balls. Buy only a set of 3 balls or 6 balls.
• If you buy a set of 6 balls, make sure that it contains two sets of 3 balls each, not three sets of 2 balls.

The problem with buying boules on amazon.com is that almost every set of “bocce/petanque” balls breaks one of these rules. Beware of sets being sold as “bocce/petanque” balls.

✋ Tip: the physics of petanque shooting

Are you a petanque player who is interested in learning how to shoot, or in learning how to shoot better? The WIRED web site has a new video that you will find interesting. The video is about “shooting” a basketball (making free throws), but the considerations involved are basically the same as those in petanque shooting. In both cases you are trying to launch a ball toward a very small target with consistency and accuracy. The video is HERE. It is full of stimulating ideas that you can apply to your own shooting practice.

I’ve been interested in techniques for learning to throw for some time. In particular, I’ve identified consistency and the height of the throw as especially important for practicing shooting, so it was interesting for me to see the video confirm (and improve) my crude insights.

If you’re interested in more information about some of the people in the video, here are a few useful links.

Steve Nash’s HOMECOURT AI is an Apple (iPad and iPhone) app. Its web site is www.homecourt.ai. I wish there was something similar for petanque shooting!

Larry M Silverberg is a professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering at North Carolina State University. You can find a podcast interview HERE. His article (“Optimal release conditions for the free throw in men’s basketball”) is available HERE, but it is very technical and I doubt that it has any practical usefulness for petanque players.

You can easily find a lot of information about Bob Fisher, the free-throw wizard, on the Web. Just google “Bob Fisher basketball“. His book is Straight Shooter: A game-changing new approach to basketball shooting. His web site is secretsofshooting.com

✋Throw like a girl

A lot of women players struggle to throw boules to longer distances, so when I saw this photo on the Facebook page of Celia Crittenden, I just had to re-post it.

Good form is the key to gettting distance on a thrown boule. And in this photo Celia, one of the top U.S. women players, shows how to do it. Aside from the fact that she is squat pointing, note the full backswing of the throwing arm, which supports a strong throw. Note also the full backswing of the non-throwing arm, which keeps her balanced as she throws.