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!

Wednesday, November 2, 2016

Mental Strength

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

In recent reviews of the best of darts matches for 2016 it has become clear just how much mental strength is to the dart arts. Yes, strength is not exactly the best term to describe the mind-state and mind-set necessary to achieve great darts so I will try to describe what it is that makes for, “Mental strength.”

The greatest obstacle that the dart artists must train for is, “Adrenal triggered stress-conditions of competition.” Lets face it, most who throw darts can achieve a relatively good throw but what happens when the pressure is applied in competitions, especially against strangers and especially against known pro’s who have held high levels of darts then the stress builds and effects how we throw.

What are the effects of such mind stresses, “Loss of fine motor skills, anxiety, fear, palpitations or increased heart rates, sweating, nausea and possible vomiting, dizziness and tremors,” to name a few (spacial issues, auditory exclusion, etc.). They are the flight or fight get-r-done chemicals for human survival and they don’t help even a little when you play darts. 

When you get stressed the major adrenal stress condition in darts is loss of fine motor skills causing darts to fly off into the five or one pie. This brings us back to mind strength. Learning to overcome such stressors from the adrenal or chemical dump can be most difficult. It takes a certain mind-set or attitude of confidence to make it go away or at least manageable. To achieve a level of experience to achieve this goal means you need to practice a lot and you need to compete a lot in all sorts of venues from local pubs to larger sanctioned contests.  

It is also wise to remember that experience overcoming the effects of the chemical dump from other sources or triggers such as sport competitions does not mean that when you enter the arena and approach the ockey line you won’t still succumb to the dump, those are different triggers. Yes, it will help you to achieve that gaol faster but not as fast as flooding yourself with competitive experiences. It helps explain why some go through a long period of competitions to reach the majors, so to speak, of the dart arts. 



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