Darts: Don't worry about how it looks!............Hit the target!

Hi Guys

A lot gets made of having the ‘perfect’ throw and throwing fundamentals however for me the important thing is to be natural and effective.

Watching Glen Durrant win the worlds is another example. There is a lot of movement before release on Glen’s throw as he moves the dart down from eye line and yet he is a heavy scorer and has cleaned up in the BDO in 2016.
 
Mensur Suljovic has become number 9 in the world at the PDC and he leans, snatches and almost hops on his throw.

Richie Burnett won the BDO Masters and Worlds as well as being a top PDC player with a snatch.
The Legendary

Jocky Wilson defied all laws of physics and yet won the World title twice.

The list is endless, and proves that you don’t have to have a John Lowe’esque technique to succeed.
For me the most important thing is to get it where you want it to go. If that means standing on one foot whilst waving your other hand, then so be it.

I think it’s more important to hone your natural throw regardless of how it is, than change to something completely unnatural just for aesthetics!  Really as long as you get it in the Treble and double does it matter?

Now I’m not saying don’t correct faults, just don’t try and change everything about everything. Minor tweaks are all that’s needed!

I for one lost a lot of time trying to be perfect by doing something that didn’t feel right. The best I ever played was after a few drinks when it just came natural and flowed. No imitation, no thinking about it, just throwing at the target.

Practice is the most important thing. If you practice 3-4x a week for 1 hour + your game at pub level is going to be in pretty good shape.

You will probably never see more examples of ‘interesting’ techniques than on Monday pub night in the lower leagues, and this is why I love this type of darts. This is darts at the grass roots level. In effect where it all began.  There is no razzmatazz, players aren’t worried about their averages, very few enter other comps other than the leagues own, and most don’t watch it on television.

For a lot of the ‘old’ guard they play because it because they always have. It’s a game they play with their friends over a pint (and formerly a cigarette) and is part of the tradition. It is a beautiful thing and one of the last great pub institutions.

It is a game for everyone. This can range from 85 year old Grandma’s, to chronically obese giants in bad t-shirts throwing what looks like brass javelins, with everything in between!

One character that sticks out for me was a little fellow (who shall remain nameless), who looked like Danny DeVito, complete with badly receding hair, ponytail, draped in gold and sporting a beer stained Bullseye shirt probably from the 80’s

At least 60 and clutching a pint of which he’d clearly had several already, in many ways he was everything a non darts fan pictured a darts player to look like, and in many ways he did look like he had just stepped out of 1981.

Curious I watched ‘Danny’ (as I’ll call him) pull 3 darts from his pocket and boy oh boy what a sight. These looked like 1950 brass tank shells complete with turkey feather flights (of which there was only 1 left on each dart). I would hazard a guess that these were different weights, and probably in the 30g+ range.

Clearly the guy hadn’t changed his setup, ever!

Considering that the majority were throwing some form of ‘tungsten’ it would have been easy to dismiss ‘Danny’ however what unfolded was a different story.

The style was unbelievable!!!

Standing face on and bolt upright, and with a technique that could only be described as a wound up jerky lob, with a five fingered grip (like he was holding a knife) complete with last minute hop on release the guy defied aerodynamics and the laws of physics and yet his darts consistently hit the T20 and he was checking out in the 80’s!!!

I watched him whitewash a player with a far classier throw and setup as he ran out a 2-0 winner and his fallen foe duly shook his hand and trudged off.

My interest peaked I enquired about ‘Danny’ and was told that he’d been using the same darts since the 60’s and has always played that way!!

So if you don’t have a perfect looking throw, don’t worry, as long as you train it to be effective it’s all good.