Darts Coaching - County Level

Posted: 14.09.11 in Darts Performance Centre Blog category

We paid a visit to the Nottinghamshire V Somerset county match with our video analysis oche-here is what happened.

Darts Coaching – County Level

The second phase of our darts coaching weekend was a trip to the Nottinghamshire V Somerset County match. We set our video analysis oche near to the home team’s practice board and we pounced on a familiar face to get the day’s coaching going.

Neil Birkin is well known in the darts world. He plays for Nottinghamshire but is arguably better known as the man behind the extremely popular Double16 darts forum.  We filmed Neil’s throw and he was given some feedback as he watched the video play back with my colleague Andy Humphrey.

Here is the video of Neil

Neil admits in his reflections of his coaching experience that he was sceptical to start with about what benefits he could get from having his throw analysed.

If he had admitted that to us on Sunday we wouldn’t have been surprised; we do get a lot of resistance. We have players who will refuse to be filmed because they don’t want to know if they have faults. On the other hand we have players who also refuse to come on to the video oche because they believe they already know what their problem is!

The weakness in both of these arguments is, unless you confront the flaw in your technique (just because you claim you know what it is won’t make it suddenly vanish) you will never ever reach your potential.

We also get the players who believe “you either have it or you don’t”! They are under the illusion that somehow darts is a sport unlike any other where having the correct technique is not fundamental to success. These people are mistaken! In a few years time coaching in darts will be accepted as the norm, just as it is in every other sport I can think of.

We also put together a written report for Neil; we wanted to demonstrate exactly how much detail we go into. This can be downloaded from Neil's write up here.

Neil also produced a "product review" video of how he found our service.

I may be giving the impression that our experience in Nottinghamshire was a frustrating one.  Not at all. It was a revelation! From the very start we were warmly greeted by MC Andy Walsh who did a great job of "selling" our services before the match began. Michael Robinson who runs the "Green Army" website also made us feel part of the team and has added us to the Nottinghamshire County Darts website! Yes, we had the usual doubters but overall the Nottinghamshire and Somerset players were enthralled, enthusiastic and engaged with the whole process of video analysis. They threw their darts, listened to Andy’s advice and went off to practise the feedback they had been given. We have over twenty videos loaded up on our YouTube channel from our afternoon in Nottingham!

Our video service is available by submitting your video to our website, WeCoachDarts. We are also planning other visits to venues all over the UK so please register for free and join our mailing list for full details of where and when we will be on tour. Get in now before your opponent does!

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The Darts Performance Centre is a resource to assist dart players of all standards play better darts. All the areas mentioned in this blog are covered on the website including one to one advice with Paul or Andy via our interactive diary area.

Membership is £25.00 per annum.

We also offer group coaching days and we will shortly be arriving at a darts centre near you for one on one video analysis sessions - please register for free to join our mailing list to find out when and where we will be.