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 The problem I have with the authors of
some of the practice routines I have seen on the Internet and elsewhere is that they delve too much into what you should not
throw at. I think that’s arrogant and silly. The practice routine I use may not suit every player, and it should be amended
accordingly. Different strokes, quite literally, for different folks.
I once took a session off my dart league and when I returned six months later, my
play had simply gone to hell. My form was inconsistent, and I was not the winning player I had once been. There
were two things I could do -- quit playing darts because it was no fun losing to guys I used to beat all the time, or work on my form and get in some practice
. As I love the game way too much to do the former, I opted for the latter.
The first thing I had to do was get my form straight. As a very competitive
sort, I was ever trying to improve my game, and what I got caught up in was a
series of changes in form and stance. I tried to fix too many things at once,
and what had once been a pretty good bar game turned to dung. I worked on re-establishing a comfortable anchor point – the spot where the forward
motion of the throw begins. It had somehow crept below my line of sight, and
that just wasn’t working. Once I got the dart back up above my master eye, the darts started to group again.
One good thing that came out of all the changes in form was that I had
eliminated the little hop that so many dart players employ. Suddenly my stance firmed up and my throwing motion economized to mostly below the elbow.
Now I had to deal with regaining the confidence I had lost, and the surest
path to that goal is through practice. I wanted a practice routine that used the entire dartboard, with some way to see if I was making any progress.
Here’s the routine I came up with and I can report that I am still using it, and
that it works for me. Feel free to make changes, or even ignore it if it doesn’t suit your type of play.
My practice routine is geared toward skilled players – those who can
regularly hit the doubles and the trips. I start out throwing at doubles 1 through 20 in sequence moving to the next number as I hit each double.
Then I do the same thing with triples, and then with the bulls-eye and the double bull.
This is a long routine that I stretch out by pausing frequently – leaving the
darts in the board so I can remember where to take up where I left off. Pounding the entire routine out in a single session is an abnormal situation
for most dart players. Most often there are pauses in play, so I try to incorporate those pauses into my practice routine. It seems to me a better
simulation of competitive darts than trying to get in a rhythm where the stroke becomes automatic and fast. I would rather strive to throw slowly and
deliberately, one dart at a time, for optimum accuracy. I seem to be able to approach the game shots with more confidence because of the single dart
mentality. I try to concentrate on hitting what I need to hit with the dart in my right hand and forget about the other two in my left.
This is a good routine because it uses all of the board, but to rate
improvement, something else is needed, so after I have hit all the doubles and triples and the bulls, I throw three darts each at the 20, 19, 18, 17, 16, 15
, and bull – keeping track of the number of hits scored with the 21 darts thrown. A triple counts three, a double counts two, and so on, and there is
no slop. So if I throw at trip 20 and hit the trip 18 instead that dart is merely
another miss. When I started my routine, I was scoring a pretty miserable average of 13 hits, but now it’s approaching 20, so I know my dart game is
much better than it was two months ago. I think it’s a well reasoned, practical routine, but there is nothing that can’t be improved, or tailored to
better suit individual needs.
Some days the practice sessions go better than others. On those days
when I get stuck on a particular target I can’t hit, I put the darts down and come back to it later. Trying to force a dart that doesn’t want to go in is apt
to foster changes in form that aren’t really necessary.
And speaking of form, it’s the key element in dart accuracy. Good form, bad
form, it’s all subjective. I know some very good players whose form is terrible
. As long as a throw gives repeatable, consistent accuracy, who can say it’s
bad? Textbook form would consist of a rock solid stance, and an economy of motion back of the elbow. For good dart throwers striving to reach a higher
level of play, the first might be to limit body English. The idea is to develop a comfortable, repeatable throwing motion, or stroke, with a comfortable sight
picture of the dart hand and its alignment with the board.
In practice I strive to replicate accurate throws through consistency in my
anchor point, my stroke, my release, and my follow through. The more I practice, the more consistent those four things become. The end results are
shorter practice sessions, shorter games, more wins and fewer losses. And that’s what practice should be all about.
A Dart Player’s Guide to Winning Darts , by Captain Fred Everson, is
available from Bull’s-Eye News, PO Box 321, Pickerington, OH 43147 or here online in our bookstore  for $13.95 plus $5.95 for shipping and handling.
Or you can call us at 1.800.688.3278 and use your Mastercard or Visa to order your copy.
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