It’s always difficult making changes to the way you throw your darts, and not something which should be attempted unless you think you have a real problem which needs addressing. But last week Alan P pointed out to me that I was leaning too far forward and this was causing my trailing leg to actually leave the floor when I took my shot. I wasn’t aware of this, but I realised it couldn’t be good for consistency and accuracy.For the past week I’ve tried to change this, and the results clearly prove to me that I need to continue in this way. Essentially I stand in the same position, but a little further back from the mark in a far more upright position with no leaning forward, and my trailing leg firmly anchored to the floor for support. It was difficult at first, but is now becoming natural to me.
Since doing this my DartPro averages have improved (I’m >60 per throw including check outs during the last week – a huge improvement from the usual 54) and in last night’s team game of Golf I hit more trebles with the 1st dart than I thought possible for me. Also, low doubles such as 3, 19, and 17 seem easier and I no longer need to stoop down for them. The only "unkown" is how this fares in competitive games, and I’ll find out next week in the Singles and Doubles knock-out competitions with a further week’s practice under my belt.
The strange thing is, this is probably exactly the same stance I was using at this point in 2005, but I just got into a bad habit during the year and didn’t realise it.
2 comments:
Stance is something I only rarely play with and I never experiment with it. I think this is because I have developed a very comfortable stance. The only alternate stance I have used (and then never for more than one or two darts) is to stand completely flat footed sideways at the oche. I have seen an old teammate play like this and he was a sure shot. It worked for him. It could probably work for me to if I were to use it often enought to get comfortable in it.
It has been very hard for me to get out of the bad habit I drifted into. In the Cup games mentioned above I still felt I was going the right way with the new (old?) stance, and the misses were always close. I just felt more in control, and I'll stick with this.
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