The Darts Experiment - Night 5 The Preview

Posted: 27.03.11 in Darts Experiment Blog category

We have an MOT test for Team Kasbah this week, some music and a singles tournament with a difference!

After a very enjoyable practice session last week we (The Darts Performance Centre) reflected on how we were going to leave any sort of worthwhile legacy for Team Kasbah after The Darts Experiment has been completed. It is obviously not feasible to send video analysts, sports psychology lecturers and experts in bio-mechanics down to Team Kasbah each week so it has to be an area that they can implement and manage themselves. Worthwhile practice sessions seem to be the answer.

We have so far guided Team Kasbah on technical issues with their throw, we have given them the basics in sports psychology methods and most importantly given them the two key “mental” areas for dart players. This will allow them to spend time honing their abilities in these crucial two areas. Once you have a sound technique and knowledge of implementing the mental side of the game then you can move forward, this is your gateway to improvement; it will increase your chances of playing better darts consistently if, however, you carry out one further task, practice!

We demonstrated to Team Kasbah last week that practice sessions do not have to be monotonous and dull. We ran our coaching night in the same manner a football coach would run a properly organised football session. Lots of different games, all centered on key areas involved in winning darts matches with different targets for the players to beat as well as the opportunity for them to record their progress week after week. With this in mind we are going to demonstrate some more of our practice games this week although there will of course be a twist, it is an experiment after all!

Our first session will effectively be an MOT for the players of Team Kasbah`s throw. We are going to ask them to recall the key points from week 2 (the video analysis) and with their “darts mechanic” (their playing partner) they are going to go through their check list to ensure they haven`t slipped back to what they were doing before.  We will then be introducing a musical theme to the night. We have an idea that we have been thinking about for ages and ages and Team Kasbah will be testing it tomorrow night. We are going to keep the details “under our hat” for the time being. Let`s see what Team Kasbah make of it first.

What are we going to finish with? A match of course. Our four player simultaneous challenge match incorporating the Champions choice board (you had to be there) worked really well last week and we are going to try the idea with a singles competition. However, we have another idea to test on Team Kasbah that we will incorporate in the tournament. Please watch this space to see if our ideas work and Team Kasbah enjoy the session as much as they did last week!