Preparing for a game

Recently I have put in some respectable darts performances against friends when a casual leg or two has fired up on a night out in between other activities. I have even hit some personal bests such as a 10 dart 301 leg and proudly taken a couple of legs off a better player who usually beats me. This week I will get together for a darts night with some friends who I used to regularly throw with, and a couple of other people who reckon they will be up for some regular games. The atmosphere will be different: everyone will be psyched to play and ready to nick legs off each other and some will likely stick the needle in afterwards!

I need to make sure I am mentally prepared for this event because there is more at stake than just reputations: if everything goes well we could bond and form a fun darts team like we once had a few years back. At one stage we had a regular game against a rival team of darters from the local music scene and it would be fun to get back to semi-regular competitive darts. I therefore need to forget being results dependent, or even performance dependent, I need to judge my performance based on my mood and behavior. I am a notorious bad loser who is capable of quickly ruining the atmosphere on any night out when some form of competition goes down.

A method I have been using to remain on an even keel during competition is to use the red head/blue head method Daniel Coyle writes about in his brilliant blog (and related book) "The Talent Code." Put simply when you start losing it is easy to lose mindfulness and let all semblance of control erode little by little until you feel helpless to control your performance.  Coyle refers to this as 'red head' and it is virtually guaranteed that when a leg or two of darts slips away I start to get my red head on. If I am not careful my mood will then plummet accordingly and I will start griping, making excuses and create bad vibes. The alternative is to use a mental cue or trigger to call forth your 'blue head' which is the rational, in control side of your personality that understands you can only control certain things and sets about the business of measured, mindful actions.

My personal mental trigger is to picture a tree with roots of experience, a trunk of knowledge, and branches of skill reaching out and growing. I know this sounds daft but it works for me and is instantly calming and helps me get back to blue head mode. It reminds me of the elements of skill I do have, and that I am always reaching and growing which is a realistic, positive thought. This focus on the positive pushes out irrational thoughts to do with lack of perfection, or wish to control things which I cannot (E.g. an opponent's purple patch), which is the root of red head thinking.

I will therefore consider my performance this week to be a success if I do the following:

• Use calming measures such as breath control, or mental imagery to stop over anxiousness
• Rest my mind and eyes in between throws instead of watching my opponent's throw (which conserves energy)
• Laugh off or smile and ignore an attempt at gamesmanship by an opponent
• Butt out of other people's games: E.g no heckling, advising of finishes, commentating
• Compliment good throwing
• Keep my recent good form to myself and not brag, or complain that my form has suddenly evaporated