Throw pics and analysis (side view)

I filmed my throw yesterday so I could make a 'to do' list in terms of technique and it was quite revealing although not how I had expected. I have taken screen grabs (above) to illustrate the 3 stages of my throw.

1. The aim/setup. I am quite pleased that this is close to the 90degree arm that you see Phil Taylor using and I am hopeful that this is more or less correct technique. I try to angle the dart back a bit so I can see along the barrel and through to the 20 bed. I have noticed this is how Raymond Van Barneveld sights the dart before throwing and I am a fan of his technique and not far off Barney in terms of overall height.

2. The drawback. This is where it all starts to go wrong for me as you can clearly see the dart hits my shoulder. This has caused all sorts of problems in the past with the flight hooking onto the collar of my shirt and it is a habit I need to break. The problem I have is that I have almost come to rely on it for timing the throw: as I feel the dart touch my shoulder I can measure the extent of the drawback and gain some consistency.

3. The follow through. I have mixed feelings about my follow through since my hand has an exaggerated curl and and pushes through quite deliberately. If you study Barney's throw for example or MVG's the hand ends up quickly flicking at the end but mine is a slower shaping of the hand.

Overall I am pleasantly surprised watching my own throw as I expected a tonne of elbow and body movement which is just not there. However the video footage also reveals a tragic pause on the drawback that hints at potential dartitis problems further down the road. I would also like to experiment with bringing my elbow inwards a little to point more consistently at the target, as you can see on the middle picture it pokes out slightly to the right on drawback. I think that the snagging and pausing on pull back of the dart is the worst aspect of my game so I need to pull less far, perhaps brushing my cheek to fix a new point to come back to, or just keep the dart along its current trajectory but pull back less far. My follow through has taken a long time to develop and still feels inconsistent but I think it is fairly workable and is less of an issue than the other weaknesses I have now identified.