Consistency

gerrymadden1

I'm a novice at darts. I play at home for about 30 minutes every night. Pretty useless to be honest. My claim to fame is that I've managed 2 x 180s in the past 12 months!!!

My problem is consistency & what to practice to achieve it? I seem to "spray" 1 dart in every 3!

I've played a lot of golf & discovered that if you can repeat the mechanics of a good shot, your game will improve & using this theory has got me to a single figure handicap.

I can't seem to apply this theory to darts. I'm not sure if I'm gripping the darts correctly, if I'm releasing them at the correct part of the throw & if I should be pitching or throwing the darts???

Maybe I'm getting too technical & I'm simply not suited to darts??

Any suggestions?

padr81

its alot like golf and good technique involves doing the same thing time and again.

Find a stance that allows you to line up your dominant eye, your shoulder and your hand in as straight a line as possible. Line your body up to your target and throw from your elbow. Try and throw the same everytime, same grip, same angle same everything.

If your first dart goes in the 1 just throw the next 2 without re-focusing until your grouping the 3 darts within half an inch to an inch of each other. its all about putting the 3 darts together for consistency.

good practice i find for a beginner is to try and hit 3 big 20's in a row 5 times without missing. So 15 consecutive darts in big 20 as close to the centre as possible.

Singles - Than go round the board on big numbers, if you hit 3 of them you move forward 2 numbers, 2 of them you move forward 1 number, 1 of them you stay the same and miss with all 3 than you move back.

For example you start on 1, you hit it twice out of 3 darts, you move on to 2, you hit that once so you stay on 2. you than go in again and hit 2 3 times so you move to 4. You hit four twice so you move to 5, you miss 5 with all 3 darts so you go back to 4 again. Repeat till you hit 20 twice.

Doubles - Thow at each double when you hit it you move on. for a beginner if you miss it with 9 darts move on anyway (alot of beginners get stuck on a double, get frustrated, lose interest after 20 darts and give up.)
Include the 25 and bull, for now count the 25 as a double and finish on it (the bull is a bonus).

do the same for trebles, t1-6

Outshots - Give yourself 6 darts to finish all the odd numbers from 3-39. Having 1 go at each which consists of 2 visits.

You get 5 points for finishing in 2 darts, 4 for finishing in 3, 3 for finishing in 4, 2 for finishing in 5 and 1 for finishing in 6, 0 if you don't finish. You have 19 sets of 5 points which is 95 points to play for (finishing all in 2 darts). Aim to score 30 points overall.

Do the same for 41-101 but give yourself 9 darts to finish.

greened

Have a look here for some good advice:

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055711471

gerrymadden1

Thanks guys... plenty to think about there...

D_murph

Late reply I know but I hadn't been on lately.

What I do now and always did in the past when I played last is this..

Practice the singles first. Shouldn't take too long but no guarantees against surprises at times .

Practice all the doubles from 1-20 and bull. As you get better, if you don't hit any particular double inside of 6 or 9 darts, then try to hit it twice out of 3 before moving on unless its wrecking your head in which case, you should pass it by and try again later. (happens us all BTW ).

Then try and focus on the trebles, except for T6 and lower as you do not need a treble to hit 18 or less. I wouldn't be as critical with these as the doubles until I were throwing some savage stuff . At this stage, you will not be asking advice on here anyway .

Once you can hit them all once per session, then play games from 301 or 501 etc, in your head just to get used to counting. Its always an advantage if you know what's left after hitting something unexpected and you can proceed without having to think about it too long which can affect your next dart.

Other than that, try and practice as much as possible. Nobody can do it every day but I always found (and still do) that even 1-2 days away from the game and I am down on scoring power and my finishing dies whereas many players in the local can seem to do less practice and get away with it . strange game.

This practice regime worked very well for me in the past and is getting me back on track at the moment. It covers most scenarios you will need to address in matches etc, and I would recommend it to anyone .

ratinakeg

D_murph wrote: »

Late reply I know but I hadn't been on lately.

What I do now and always did in the past when I played last is this..

Practice the singles first. Shouldn't take too long but no guarantees against surprises at times .

Practice all the doubles from 1-20 and bull. As you get better, if you don't hit any particular double inside of 6 or 9 darts, then try to hit it twice out of 3 before moving on unless its wrecking your head in which case, you should pass it by and try again later. (happens us all BTW ).

Then try and focus on the trebles, except for T6 and lower as you do not need a treble to hit 18 or less. I wouldn't be as critical with these as the doubles until I were throwing some savage stuff . At this stage, you will not be asking advice on here anyway .

Once you can hit them all once per session, then play games from 301 or 501 etc, in your head just to get used to counting. Its always an advantage if you know what's left after hitting something unexpected and you can proceed without having to think about it too long which can affect your next dart.

Other than that, try and practice as much as possible. Nobody can do it every day but I always found (and still do) that even 1-2 days away from the game and I am down on scoring power and my finishing dies whereas many players in the local can seem to do less practice and get away with it . strange game.

This practice regime worked very well for me in the past and is getting me back on track at the moment. It covers most scenarios you will need to address in matches etc, and I would recommend it to anyone .

Brilliant advice, gonna try this routine tomorrow!

D_murph

Thanks mate :cool:.

It does require a lot of time sometimes so you have to budget for that but it definitely works well.

I can throw useless crap at T20 all night in practice when things are not going well but after doing that, I do find my accuracy goes up a lot.

I reckon a constant regime like that will bring anyone's game up!!

on the board

gerrymadden1 wrote: »

I'm a novice at darts. I play at home for about 30 minutes every night. Pretty useless to be honest. My claim to fame is that I've managed 2 x 180s in the past 12 months!!!

My problem is consistency & what to practice to achieve it? I seem to "spray" 1 dart in every 3!

I've played a lot of golf & discovered that if you can repeat the mechanics of a good shot, your game will improve & using this theory has got me to a single figure handicap.

I can't seem to apply this theory to darts. I'm not sure if I'm gripping the darts correctly, if I'm releasing them at the correct part of the throw & if I should be pitching or throwing the darts???

Maybe I'm getting too technical & I'm simply not suited to darts??

Any suggestions?

find one grip that feels comfortable, and stick with it if you chop and change you will never settle, trust me i go through patches like this all the time