The Red Dragon Darts Performance Centre Video Analysis Zone

Posted: 02.03.11 in Video Analysis Zone category

Welcome to the Red Dragon Darts Performance Centre Video Analysis Zone. The fourth player in our series is darts legend Andy "The Viking" Fordham.

Welcome to the Lab – Our fourth investigation carried out by our research department of Andy Humphrey and Paul Gillings of the Darts Performance Centre puts darts legend and Winmau.com player Andy “The Viking” Fordham under the microscope: 

Method

Andy`s throw was analysed from a laptop computer using a video clip uploaded onto YouTube. The clip investigated can be viewed here.  

Throw Analysis -The Set Up

Andy sets up with his front foot almost parallel to the oche and he lowers his head slightly as he aims. The Viking`s forearm is around 20 degrees from the vertical.

Rating – 18/20

Throw Analysis – Alignment 

The Viking is left eye dominant and lines his dart up nicely with his left eye.

18/20

Throw Analysis - The Release

The Viking has a smooth release with little or no wrist cock as he throws. You can detect some head movement as Andy on occasions appears to jump slightly as he throws, perhaps trying to compensate for releasing the dart too low?

The photos below demonstrate Andy`s release. You can see that the forearm is just past the vertical (Fig 1), The second picture (Fig 2)  shows the flight of the dart with the point lifting high, this will cause the dart to wobble during flight affecting accuracy. The third picture (Fig 3) shows the dart can be seen with the point almost vertical, as the darts flies toward the board, the air will catch the flight flipping the flight upward and the point downward before the weight of the barrel levels the flight out.

17/20

Throw Analysis - The Follow Through

Despite “The Viking” having big arms this does not affect his follow through. This is text book as his arm and hand follow the dart to the target.

19/20

Throw Analysis – Accuracy

There are clips in the video we have watched of Andy`s darts going astray, this does of course happen to every player in any game that they play. However, areas have been identified that may affect Andy`s accuracy and are discussed later.

16/20

Discussion

“The Viking`s” throw is efficient. He has a smooth release and follow through and he aims the dart with his dominant eye. However, the point mentioned earlier about the potential for the dart to wobble will affect his accuracy and of course (with the benefit of hindsight to an extent) he is sweating profusely and does not appear to compensate for this by taking much water on board. The dehydrating effects will also interfere with the biomechanics of his throw. As it turned out his dehydration was the least of his concerns as his “diet” finally took its toll. 

Conclusions

Setting aside Andy`s well documented health battle he was a World Champion! His obvious skill and proficient technique is demonstrated in the video clip. Two areas (if we had a time machine) that we would suggest to Andy for consideration is an area that we pinpointed as a key coaching point in our analysis of Phil Taylor and the second is a common occurrence in a players action.

1.  We wrote “Phil sets the dart at the angle and height of release at the aiming stage of is  dart”. We would be interested in the results of Andy lowering the point if his dart slightly on  release to see if this contributed towards greater accuracy.
2.  We would also look at the small jump Andy does as he throws. It may be compensating for `feedback` he is getting as he follows through to release his dart or it may be an issue with his stability on the oche. Further investigation would discover the cause.
   

The Red Dragon Darts Performance Centre Throw Analysis Rating – 88%

Fig 1

Fig 2

Fig 3

We have also analysed:

John "Hendo" Henderson, Phil "The Power" Taylor, Mark "Spider" Webster