Coaching Clinic 73

Posted: 17.09.18 in Coaching Clinic Blog category

After a short hiatus our Coaching Blogs are back!

I am writing this as I am setting off for a holiday, literally. I am on the ferry heading to France for a break from darts, yep even I take a break from the Darts World!

I always keep a folder on my laptop with feedback, ideas and questions from our many darts playing friends and customers and I will share some of them for this week’s coaching blog.

First up a practice game from a good friend of the DPC, Jon Hayllor.

Draw up a conventional 9 square box and put in checkouts of varying difficulty. Player 1 then nominate his finish from one on the grid and attempts to get it in 3 darts. If he succeeds he puts in an X or 0, whichever he is. If he misses the outshot stays available.

To win it is the first player to get 3 X’s or 0’s s in a row, just like in noughts and crosses. I love this, great fun and great practice.

A bit of technical advice next and how to keep that elbow from dropping or rising too much, a common fault a lot of players have. Faisal contacted us with this email; “I want to know about how to keep my elbow fixed in one point whilst throwing”.

The day before we had a coaching session with a player who had been through the same thing. He told us about how he sorted himself out by practising without darts! He would go through the motion of throwing but found if he wasn’t holding any darts this freed him up to fully focus on keeping his elbow still rather than concentrating on trying to hit 180.

The other advantage of practising without darts is that you don’t even need to be by a board. You may not want to throw your imaginary darts whilst waiting at the bus stop but at work and home there should be opportunities for a short session.

Another good friend of the DPC, Adrian Underwood, aka, The Rev has been in touch. The Rev plays on the WDDA tour.

Adrian emailed us about being an intelligent darts player. He told us: “I've won two doubles and two singles this week largely for two reasons.

Firstly, even county level players waste a ridiculous amount of darts or make appalling decisions. Eg. deliberately taking 3 darts to go for a two-dart outshot and leaving only one dart at a double or simply failing to plan to come down to a finish from far enough out. Or not knowing a finish which has a built-in fail safe”.

“The 2nd reason is under estimating the opponent. Again, even county level players love to do this. They look at my limp and lack of stability and instead of being aggressive and trying to close games out, I can see them thinking, he’ll never get down from 141 in 6 or he'll never take out 98. They then seem surprised when I beat them”.

So, some real food for thought there from The Rev. Small improvements can be made in dozens of aspects of your game. Technique and psychology are vital aspects to get right but don’t ever lose sight of all the other areas that can help you play better darts! 

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The Darts Performance Centre is a resource to assist dart players of all standards play better darts. The site is arranged as an online coaching manual.

There is advice on technique, nerves, psychology, goal setting, practice games, an area to log your statistics and an interactive area where your darting questions are answered by two sports scientists, one with 30 years dart playing experience.

You also get an invite to our free but exclusive members only events and access to our members only darts coaching app! Membership is £25 per year!