Darts: a game where participants compete with one another by throwing small arrow like devices at a target that is round and has numbers and sections and an inner bull with an outer bull and so on. Darts now refer to the standard game with a specific bristle board design and a set of rules. Rules that are general to the game and rules that govern games like, “501,” “301,” and “Cricket.”


Darts is a traditional pub game that was and is commonly played in the United Kingdom as well as other places in Europe and across the pond here in the America’s.


Wikipedia tells hits history in a terse form, i.e., “The dartboard may have its origins in the cross-section of a tree. An old name for a dartboard is "butt"; the word comes from the French word but, meaning "target". In particular, the Yorkshire and Manchester Log End boards differ from the standard board in that they have no treble, only double and bullseye, the Manchester board being of a smaller diameter, with a playing area of only 25 cm across with double and bull areas measuring just 4 mm. The London Fives board is another variation. This has only 12 equal segments numbered 20, 5, 15, 10, 20, 5, 15, 10, 20, 5, 15, 10 with the doubles and triples being a quarter of an inch wide.”


There have been a variety of darts created over the years but the most common today is the tungsten dart. There are electronic darts but for this blog and for my efforts in tossing darts I remain a steel dart fan and enthusiast. I am recommending a book for novice darters but only because it appealed to me and my studies and rest assured most of the dart books out there are outstanding. In short, find one if this one does not fit your needs and get it. I can tell you when I started to play over twenty years ago, before I laid down my darts in 96, I tossed darts for several years without knowing some very important and critical mechanics, etc., of the dart game. As I take up once again my steel darts I have found a fountain of information to help make the game both enjoyable and competitive. Enjoy, diddle for the middle and let the darts fly!

Tuesday, August 23, 2016

Frustration, Disappointment and Anger

Blog Article/Post Caveat (Read First Please: Click the Link)

When I stand back as watch players throw and miss I often see them react in these emotional ways. I tend to feel them as well and finally came to the conclusion it comes from the human species natural drive to do well.

Doing well ties into my personal philosophy of human survival drives. It also ties in with the group dynamics of our base drive for group status in the drive for group survival.

I needed to come up with something that I could use in a mind-state that would, at a minimum, curb those feelings so the natural human adrenal chemicals released under their influence would not dampen my personal natural throw.

You see, when our emotions are triggered, click and whirr, our brains trigger our adrenal glands and release our monkey brain from its cage and all kinds of disruptive effects raise up to obscure and disrupt our abilities to act, to throw good darts.

So I decided to become, and train, a mind-set of the "Deadman!" A bit like killing the monkey and ignoring those irritating emotions when the darts don't fly true to my target.

How do I do this? Well, as a dart deadman I ignore the emotional reactive responses from a bad throw and just believe the miss is just an opportunity to practice my personal throw. 

I aim for a T20 and miss means I have opened an opportunity to practice my throw targeting my T20 again or to practice and train my brain to mental re-calculate a means to double out another way with the remaining darts in my hands.

The moment I miss I redirect my thoughts to, ‘ok, more practice’ or ‘ok, calculate and focus’ rather than allow emotional tidal waves to inundate my mind into throwing more and more bad throws. Look at it as a means to refocus away from the monkey’s efforts to use emotions to derail my efforts and use a mindfulness, a mind-no-mind, to immediate curb the emotional effects by breathing properly, relaxing the shoulders and face and then to immediately, without hesitation, recalculate. 

I have caught myself missing and immediately saying, ‘crap’, and then feeling that emotional turmoil taking control of my body often to cause additional throws to go awry so my training now is to hit the ‘recalculate’ button or take a mind-set of, ‘hey, more practice shooting at this target until I hit the darn thing’ mentality - dependent on if in practice or competition. After all, if I missed and if I allow the monkey’s emotionally dominance then I will just miss again so why not? Why not simply say no to the monkey on my back and recalculate, breath, refocus on ‘my throw’, target and toss.  With practice and experience it could mean the difference from mastery or just social darts. 

Just call me ‘Deadman!’ Deadman tossing here, deadman tossing!





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