CIEP

ciep_logo

Some useful French vocabulary: 
              stage: course
              formation: training 
              stage de formation: training course

The CIEP — Centre International d’Enseignement Petangue— is the International Center for Teaching Petanque. Basically, it is the training arm of the FIPJP. It offers courses for training both young petanque players, and for training petanque coaches.

The CIEP is largely the work of Claude Raluy. Raluy (nickname Claude d’Auteuil) was a strong Parisian player in the 1970s who retired from regular play in order to found CIEP in 1998.   Its main facility is in a nicely renovated barn in Sergines, about 110 km southeast of Paris. It also has national branches in a few other countries, including Australia.

 

Training courses for petanque coaches

For coaches-in-training, it offers three levels of training for petanque coaches —

  • Level 1 covers the rules of the game and how to train, demonstrate, and evaluate a specific skill;
  • level 2 covers how to train individual players;
  • level 3 covers ongoing coaching of individual players and teams.

In France, petanque is a full-scale professional sport, roughly comparable in some respects to American football. So think of these CIEP courses as offering the kind of professional training that (in this country) an umpire, or the coach of an NFL team, would need.

Training materials for teaching children

The CIEP has released a free pdf copy of a 51-page booklet containing 86 practice exercises. It is available both in a French version and in an English translation.

The booklet is designed to be used with a 9-day, 3-level course, and the course is designed to be conducted using a kit of training devices. There are two different kits. The smaller “Discovery” kit contains 24 items; the larger “Initiation” or “Starter” kit contains 43 items.

Both kits (including various strips, poles, colored hoops, plastic balls, and leaflet) can be seen on pages 12 and 13 of the 2008 EDUCSPORT catalog. As of February 2013, the kits were available from the CIEP online shop and from petanqueshop.com — the Discovery kit is HERE and the Initiation/Starter kit is HERE.

As of 2013, prices for these kits ranged from about $150 to $200. Even factoring in shipping costs, that seems rather expensive. The kits look like something that could be assembled with about $40 and a visit to the local hardware store. The balls are “soft PVC” designed for indoor use when you don’t want to damage the floor (e.g. a school gymnasium).

For more information about the “soft PVC” boules, see our page on petanque boules for indoor play.

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