Coaching Clinic 25

Posted: 21.07.13 in Coaching Clinic Blog category

This month we advise you to "get a grip" and how to practise darts skills on the bus!

Let’s get one thing straight before this month’s coaching clinic goes any further. We sell darts! If you glance down  the page there they are. The Performance Darts range, one of the best selling darts on the market and exclusive to the Darts Performance Centre. This is not an advert either, honestly. I just wanted to make this clear before I let my colleague Andrew loose with his advice on one reason your dart playing ability can waver between good and awful! His advice relates to what ever darts you use!

Over to Andrew:

“You can play well with your darts for a while then for no apparent reason your form falls off......right?  What’s the problem?  Is it a technique change?  Well it could be, or it could be the equipment.

Many players think, well I have played okay with these darts for ages so it must be me! So they continue and play through it, eventually getting better. So what’s the cause? I have experienced this many times throughout my years of playing and only after careful consideration and a bit of research did I find what I think may be the answer!

After a while the grip on a dart will wear down. The clinking of the barrels against each other will take off the edge of the grip. If your grouping is good then this will happen more quickly. After a while you will then have to grip the darts more firmly in order to stop them slipping, especially in hot weather, hence the dip in form! You are now throwing with a tighter grip to compensate for the lack of grip; more tension in the hand means more tension in the throw.

Some darts will wear quicker than others; also it depends how many hours a day you are throwing. So look at your darts carefully, clean them regularly just like a golfer cleaning the grooves on a wedge. And above all replace when necessary.”

One of our Darts Performance Centre members Kenneth added his own follow up tip: when you find a set of darts you like you should buy several sets of them and alternate between them so they will stay similar in grip.

Who needs darts to practise?

Nick is another one of our members. This man is relentless on the practice board. The perfect client in many ways, a real inspiration! But, just when I thought I had heard it all he came up with this:

“Paul, I have been on a course for two days, no board or anything here though. But, I have been practising my imagery and visualisation and working with a paper and pen revising my checkout routes!” What about that? You can do this on the bus or the train to work or whenever you get some spare time and haven’t got your darts.

Practice Game

Another benefit of running the site is getting to hear about the practice games that members use other than the ones we recommend. This is Nick’s latest power scoring practice game: 10-2-20 Trebles!

You get 3 darts at each treble from 10 to 20 and then three darts at the bull. For each dart you get in the treble score 5 points, so maximum score per treble is 15 points. For each dart you get in the fat section of the number you get one point and there are no points for hitting the double. You also get 5 points for each dart in the bull.

Keep track of your scores so you have a target to beat each time you play!

Image courtesy of Jeff Ratcliff/FreeDigitalPhotos.net

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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 and an invite to our exclusive members only events!