From: tang@akofin.enet.dec.com (Gabe Tang)
Subject: Re: How to improve?
Organization: the vms company
Date: Mon, 14 Dec 1992 15:21:07 GMT


re: (Robert Lang) ..............
>>Any general advice on how I can improve my game? I seem to have reached a sort
>>of plateau and simply throwing hour after hour isn't helping much. Should I,
>>for instance, experiment with a different throwing motion, different grip or
>>different stance? Should I keep track of my accuracy--i.e., how often do I
>>miss; and do I miss more often to the left, right, etc.?

Rob,

	General advice? Yeah, practice with intensity. Not kidding here,
	there's no use in practicing for hours upon hours per day or
	game after game if there is little quality in the shot performance
	and just going through the motions. The 2 best things you could do
	is to hook up with some really outstanding players and shoot against
	them (physical challenge), and to play them for beers, cocktails and/
	or money, a few $, not large sums, (mental/anguish challenge). :-p

	Why? Because, you really only get better when you challenge yourself
	mentally. After the physical part is in fairly good shape, you can
	either stay at home and practice, usually dull and boring, or go out
	and play some games with the masters.

	I find that frustration, especially the kind from losing time and 
	again against the dart gods, either makes you give up or go on to
	greater heights because you want it just that much more. Finally,
	when you do come around to beating them once or twice in a session,
	you either taste the blood and go for it all the more, or you give
	up and content yourself with having achieved a certain level that most
	have not. If you are at that plateau and are satisfied, you wouldn't
	be seeking advice on how to improve now. So, the key is to get a
	solid, consistent, shot form down pat. Have you done that? Can you
	shoot every shot and know why it was good or bad? Can you feel
	confident that if you shoot the next dart the way your form is
	at its best, that it will hit the target you aim at? If so, then 
	you have to work on the mental concentration, intensity and ignore
	fatigue and distractions whether aural or visual. If you don't
	feel you could hit your next shot anywhere on the board, not just
	at certain favorite numbers, anywhere means each and every number,
	then you aren't ready yet to reach the next level on the Way of the
	Dart. :-))

        Play games of thermo-nuclear cricket against your local dart gods
	and demi-gods. Ask them to point the bejeebers out of you whenever
	they can. When you can come back to win having been down several
	hundred points, when you can out point these guys and finish off
	games of 500, 600, 800+ points, that's when you'll know you've made 
	it. Just getting to the 300-400 point level, without purposefully 
	sitting on a number and not trying to close-out and actually win the 
	game will be an accomplishment. That means you are routinely hitting 
	rounds higher than just 3. More likely, you'll have been hitting 
	rounds of 5 and 6 fairly consistently. That is, when you expect your
	opponenet to hit a round of 5, you know and expect you'll have to hit
	better, like RO6 or more, then you'll know that you are playing in 
	the upper stratosphere of the darting world. Play against and beat
	any of the ADO top 50-100 ranked shooters and you'll begin to breath
	the aether of dart heaven. 

	The last thing to do......Play in tournaments, get an ADO ranking
	yourself. When you can withstand competition pressure at real 
	tournament levels then you can munch on ambrosia and drink the nectar
	of the darting gods. At that point, you will be a dart god yourself.

	any questions? ....................good! now get to eet, man!

-gabe
Newsgroups: alt.sport.darts