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, January 31, 2017

The Triple Treble

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

Triple treble twenties, single treble twenty, nineteen and eighteen; seventeen, sixteen and fifteen. Just another way to describe hitting highest on the dart board with triple treble’s highest then a combination of trebles on the board. Treble is defined as, “Consisting of three parts; threefold; three times as much or as many; a threefold quantity or thing, in particular; a number or amount that is three times as large as a contrasting or usual number or amount; make or become three times as large or numerous.”

Trebles also refer to that part of the dart board where you achieve treble the score of the singular pie of a number such as treble twenty for sixty points. Then there is the triple treble, i.e., all three darts in the treble twenty for a total of the highest score possible in the ’01’ games of the dart arts, i.e., “180 points.”  

Apparently, if you and your opponent agree, you can use the treble to treble-in and treble-out in the 01 games. This form of the game adds a huge difficulty factor overall.



Monday, January 30, 2017

Make it about Practice

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

Remove the survival obstacle from the equation altogether and make every dart a practice throw toward the perfect set of darts.

To be totally and completely in the present is the toughest state one can strive for especially when other stimuli just keeps on intruding. Compound this about ten-fold and you begin to get what you have to deal with when the situation becomes dangerous, I.e., when facing grave damage and possible death.

Let me emphasize this point, there are many things we experience that even though innocuous on the surface the lizard brain still triggers the life and death 💀 responses simply because that is how nature programmed it. 

Likened to the over the top response when in an argument where the other just says stuff that triggers your defensiveness, you lizard goes and pushes the pedal to the metal because it thinks your life is at stake. Kind of crappy for our modern times but species survival is - survival! 

Oh, let us not forget that in our minds survival is all about SEX and our drive to get as much SEX as we can. Everything else just springs from that drive!

GOOOO SEX!!!!!



Friday, January 27, 2017

It’s All About the SEX

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

Yes, that’s right, it is about sex not survival, its about our rights to propagation of our species, our tribe, and our family - in short, its about SEX. We all want it, we all crave it and we all do just about anything within socially accepted reasons to get it so what is all the fuss. Well, it begins with competition, we have to compete with others for the best of the best sex we can get. So, we are driven by our very nature to seek out and get as much sex as we can. Then suddenly, when you finished that last sex encounter you had and before five minutes pass when your drive will kick back in and take over your brain to look for more sex you will realize that our drive, need and desire for sex comes from a much deeper drive and need - SURVIVAL. Then as expected to survive you have to be the strongest, most capable and perceive benefit to the family and the tribe so your status will achieve greater heights making you the strongest and the best to better propagate the tribes membership (oh, that is why you want sex so bad and often go outside the tribe to get it, that keeps the genetic mix of the tribe safe and viable for the future - in short, the tribal survival. 

Everything talked about in this article although driven from the dart arts roller coaster ride of ups and downs, twists and turns but most of all game on and game off effects while tossing those arrows at the board. It is about what triggers those things that adversely effect our abilities to throw the perfect set of darts, each time and every time with consistency. Listen (in the case read carefully) and learn guys - SEX GAME ON!

A minor adrenal stress trigger is about the group dynamic of status where we are pulled toward the need to hold a high status in the face of other competitors. As a species with the survival drive we have deep instincts toward that goal that get triggered in a group setting of competitiveness, a trait where we strive to a higher status in the eyes of those around you.

In a group for survival, your value is determined by the groups respect for you, the higher your value to the group determines your status and that increases the groups survival goals.

So, when competing in the dart arts even if a group of strangers you and the group having like minded connections still see one another as competitors for status where your abilities and level as to dart 🎯 hierarchal achievements is seen by the group as a higher status and that equals group survival.

Just having this instinctual trigger of group competitiveness sets the trigger on our need to survive, thus our need to belong to a group for survival and our need to establish our status by how well we apply dart skills in play as if in combat, etc.

In this way we inadvertently place stress on ourselves thereby triggering adrenal stress-conditions that our lizard brain interprets as facing death so the chemicals of the adrenal system is dumped in our bodies and mind. This, in turn, degrades any dart'ist abilities that have not been conditioned properly into our primal conditioned response systems of the lizard 🦎 brain.

How to combat and settle the effects so that our primal dart'ist conditioned responses, the dart art perfect throw to perfect game tapes, get triggered - click, whirr- and "Game ON!"

Oh, and let's not forget, the higher your status, the greater respect received and the higher the group sees you as valued for the propagation of the group. In short, the greater the chance for sex so the group propagates the best gene pool of the strongest, best dart'ist, member fit for group propagation - SEX!

Now that you know this, now that you feel deep inside down to your DNA that this is true and NOW that you can accept the fact you can move on to achieve the training and practice along with ongoing experience playing in dart’ist competitions you can condition your primal response system to achieve great dart arts while suppressing those adrenal stress-conditioned chemical effects that make you angry and cause you concern along with the resentment when you KNOW you can do better but that something just makes things go BAD regardless. 



Thursday, January 26, 2017

Roller Coaster Ride

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

I like riding roller coasters, they are full of up's and down's, thrills and chills, and they take us through all kinds of emotional states. 

I like the art of darts, they are full of up's and down's, thrills and chills, and they take us through all kinds of emotional states.

So, with such similarities I asked myself, "Why do I get so frustrated when my game is on the down side, when it gives me the chills when the dart flies off target and sets my emotions at state of frustration and disappointment?

I decided it could be about my mind-state where I place such importance, such high expectations and standards that would make anyone just plain crazy.

That doesn't happen when I get on the roller coaster ride. As a fact, when waiting my turn the excitement and anticipation creates a happiness that just makes my day.

Now, I do get the same exact feelings when I apply my skills in practice of the dart arts, I get them when I play and yet, the down side of the roller coaster ride happens from time to time when I throw darts in competition and it makes me feel angry, frustrated and disappointed because I know, from both practice and experience, that those downs in darts should not happen. At least they should not happen very often since I, we, are all human and subject to human foibles, etc.

This goes back to my original goals that I will express in my teachings of the Zen and the Dart’ist because it is about the mind, my mind-state when tossing arrows. My physical and mental skills are honed to be pretty darn good yet some of my psychological efforts still come out and haunt my keister from time to time because when competing, especially in a team effort, I put my mind on desires and goals other than throwing the perfect toss and focusing only on the moment while removing obstacles and extraneous thoughts from my mind. 

What does this mean then is that my mind game is good but my mind-state is still being adversely effected by external stimuli of a less than positive nature. I have to work on this and the best way to do that is to play, compete and train while gaining experience not just tossing arrows but in the mind as I play the game - a technical one and the psychological one. 



Thursday, January 19, 2017

Blind Luck in the Dart Arts

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

Yes, blind luck exists in all disciplines but in the dart arts it can be disconcerting to most players simply because, if you are not careful, you can lose a match due to simple, blind, luck of anther player. 

In a recent match, the player I had to beat was fairly new and inexperienced, etc., and yet, due to blind luck, that player scored well, caused me some concern and almost, almost, won the match, i.e., two of three games of cricket. 

Sometimes, my scores hit pretty high, above my current level of expertise, simply because my dart flew off course but still landed in a treble ring for a large number like 18 for 54 points. The words I think and sometimes express is, “I will take that luck.” 

The idea behind the dart arts is to hit your target, do it well and consistently, remove as much luck from the discipline as possible and play well scoring high and going out fast. This is the idea, one of them anyway, and this is how one achieves mastery, over time. Yet, luck can trigger adrenal stress-conditions of the mind because you begin to realize that your mistakes and their luck can win them the matches and put you back a step or two. This is why the mind-state and mind-game of the dart arts is critically important especially when you get into the higher competitive levels. 

You have to have your mind-game on and keep it on using the various techniques taught in the book, Zen and the Dart Arts, so you can trigger the appropriate mind-state before triggering the chemical adrenal stress dump that can truly screw up your darts. 

In short, make no assumptions and play your game, not someone else’s, and keep the mind on your darts and your throw while ignoring any other stimuli regardless.