How I got into darts - Chapter 3 “Oh
my god I can’t hit a thing”
The 13th August 2013.
That is the day that I officially traded weights and boxing gloves for pints
and tungsten.
For no particular reason I elected
to go with the Whitlocks first, and attached the supplied setup. Medium
aluminium stems and standard flights. Now, when you watch the pro’s they pump
out 180’s for what looks like fun and assumed that at worst I’d hit what 60
with 3 darts? After all its only 7 feet away!I took a Bobby George stance as
this is the stance I have always had in my head since I caught a few legs of
George vs someone back in the 1990’s and boy was I a star!, actually I wasn’t!!!.
With no teacher, assistance, idea on setups and throwing action (other than a
bad impression of someone on television) you can imagine the results.
I watched in dismay as the darts
flew and wobbled all over the place. No
joke I hit everything within a foot of the board as well as the board itself,
or rather specifically the cabinet. Needless to say within the first 2 hours
the cupboard and surrounding area looked like it had been on the receiving end
of small arms fire. I can safely say
that I wasn’t a prodigious MVG talent from the off.
I don’t know what I truly expected
but it certainly wasn’t to be so utterly inept as I appeared to be. No joke I was rotten. I tried a rear grip and I sent them afoot
above the board. I tried a middle grip and they flew in all directions. I tried
the front grip and they were almost doing 360’s! It was a horribly frustrating
experience. My personal favourite was when I tried a 4 finger grip ala Adrian
Lewis and launched them 3 foot under the board!
After a week of this misery all I
seemed to have achieved was a ruined cabinet, a very sore right arm, eye strain
and a miserable disposition. I truly was wondering whether at 32 it was too
late and a waste of time. Nevertheless I
elected to persevere (I don’t give up), and slowly but surely things did seem
to get abit better, albeit it slowly. I’d hit 60 or 80 and then hit nothing but
1’s or 5’s for the next 2 hours which was an immense source of frustration but
at least I was starting to get it hitting the board (most of the time).
Having given up bodybuilding, my
muscle mass started to reduce and I actually found this a benefit as my muscles
were starting to relax abit and my tricep wasn’t getting a throw impairing ‘pump’ after 5 minutes.
Unfortunately my improvements coincided with a changing of my darts to Red
Dragon Hellfires 26g and this started the mindset that there must be a perfect
dart out there for me. The search for the ‘perfect’ dart was now on, and I
think I ignited a secret dart barrel addiction.
To give an indication how bad I was
at this point, I played my then 11 year old son at a match and eventually we
ended up on D1, after a very long painfully slow and low scoring game. I’m not kidding here, the scores were so
pitiful that it took about half an hour to get under 50. Eventually after a
succession of horrendous board missing finishes we both ended up on D1, the
infamous madhouse. I find it somewhat appropriate that it took 180 darts, yes
180 to hit D1. I am convinced that at least 40% were off the board! . It was a
nightmare!
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