The Darts Experiment - 7
The Darts Experiment - Night 4 - The Preview
Practice makes what? Perfect or does it make you bored? Does your practice mimic what happens in a competitive match (and do you feel the pressure)? If the answer is no you are not doing it right!We will show Team Kasbah how to "practise smart"!
The Darts Experiment Week 4 - Practice makes Perfect (or does it make you bored?)
Darts practice! The one thing dart players know they really should do but there are varying degrees of enthusiasm for this particular task. Some players will spend hours and hours on the board and others will snatch twenty minutes between other commitments, like having to go to work or school.Darts practice hasn`t really evolved over the years. It has been given a makeover; there are various companies offering assistance via the internet and "coaching" books that can be purchased that promise improvement in your darts play if you follow the author`s method. The Darts Performance Centre is a "self help" website that we run and make similar claims (we will improve your darts play, guaranteed). The only difference being that we have used proven sports science and coaching methods that have improved athletes in a variety of different sports and do appear to be working in darts from the feedback we have had. We have also put our methods "on the line" by taking on the challenge of trying to improve a pub darts team and opening the praise as well as the criticism of our methods for everyone to see.
We also wanted to demonstrate that a player spending eight hours a day "practising" may be wasting most of their practice time. We promote the use of effective practice! This is practising skills you actually need in a darts match (not getting the dart in the 0 of the 10 for example) and trying to recreate the atmosphere and pressure of a real match when you are practising with a partner. Knowing how to practise is the key, not hours and hours going from one double to the next.
Last week at the Darts Experiment one player was not impressed with having to throw his dart at the board and apply the mental skills he had been shown. His argument was that practice does not replicate the `pressure` of a real game. He is right of course, however, it is also the player`s responsibility to take their practice sessions seriously. With a bit of imagination and effort from any player practice sessions can be made more like the real thing. We will show Team Kasbah how on Tuesday.
We are going to run the practice session as if it was a coaching session for a more dynamic sport, football or cricket for example (without the physical exertion, so relax Team Kasbah). In other words we will have a range of practice games, all using different darts skills, all measurable so players can keep track of their progress, all with an element of competiveness so a "pressure" situation can build. They will all be I hope fun and interesting and most importantly help Team Kasbah to learn and increase their range of skills as well.
We will be looking for Team Kasbah to start implementing all the skills they have been shown in the first few weeks. We will ask each pair to keep mentoring their partner (this has been great for team spirit) and then we will get some feedback on what dart players think of a planned coaching session, the type all other sports take for granted! Watch this space.