PDC World Championships Night 3,4 and 5

Posted: 20.12.11 in Tournament Analysis Blog category

We have advice about when it is right to hurl abuse at your team mates and an unusual throwing technique.

One of my Twitter pals, @matdicko was rightly incensed at the injustice of the disturbance and questioned my pragmatic approach to the situation. My suggestion was that first of all players should anticipate this type of thing may happen and secondly they should have a strategy to deal with it. Matt then questioned whether we boo at our players during our darts improvement classes?

Well funny you should say that! We have a slightly different approach to practice at The Darts Performance Centre. We strongly believe that out of all the areas we cover, our practice games are the fundamental reason why our members do improve.

So with regard to Matt’s question, we have for example games to combat gamesmanship, how to deal with it and how to practise dealing with it. Without giving too many secrets away we have one client who was totally distracted by the over-zealous support for his opponent followed up by distracting tactics when he threw in a pub league game. After a discussion with us he then had some practice matches with a team mate whilst the rest of the team cheered on his opponent and hurled insults at him.

Ok it’s not the real thing but at least it gives you an opportunity to work on a strategy to deal and/or cope with it rather than keeping your fingers crossed and hoping it doesn’t happen.

Dartitis

This was interesting! I had a message suggesting one of the players competing in the Worlds (I won’t mention any names) was displaying early warning signs of dartitis. This was I was informed due to the slightly hesitant release of their dart. The feedback was from a player who had also “suffered” from dartitis and therefore claimed he knew what he was talking about. I am not convinced; however, I am open-minded!

There is not much data or research available about dartitis and it is a study I have discussed carrying out with my colleague Andrew Humphrey on a number of occasions. This seems as good a time as any to get the ball rolling. If you have any thoughts on whether there are certain symptoms that show up just before dartitis strikes then please get in touch: paul@dartsperformancecentre.com or visit our Facebook page.

Darts Coaching

Petri Korte caused quite a commotion last night with his singular technique. His non-throwing hand is held up in line with his left eye and remains in that position throughout his throw. His actual throw is fairly conventional, the only idiosyncrasy being that he touches his chin with the flight just before throwing his first dart.

We have recently been developing our darts coaching knowledge and it is fair to say if Korte had been coached from a young age his throwing style would be quite different. If you ask darts fans they wouldn’t want every player throwing in the same style anyway. The likes of Mark Hylton, Wes with his lean and the rocking motion of Hendo all add to the colour and fascination of darts. It is unlikely they will ever win anything “major” with their techniques but until coaching becomes as commonplace in darts as it is in virtually every other sport, players will be left to work it out for themselves.  

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We are currently offering one of our aluminium dart cases ) to all new members signing up during December.Membership is £25.00 per annum.