Progress report

I have had a few ups and downs in practice recently, and in the past couple of days it feels like more downs than ups. I have settled on a stance I am comfortable with which is wide foot (Martin Adams- esque) right of centre stance tucking my elbow in and setting the arm vertically to throw. I am still concentrating on developing a straight throw and trying not to get caught up in the idea that I should be covering the whole board in practice sessions. I have explained my reasoning behind this in an earlier post and I am confident that I will be able to translate the basic throw around the board once it is steady and straight. The problem I am having is the perennial inconsistency and bouts of total frustration.

Flicking back through my practice diary on recent days I have had 4 solid sessions just working on the follow through and filming results, plus 4 solid sessions working on straight throwing and recording progress. I think this methodical approach is useful and I may repeat the pattern again next week and return to working on my follow through, which is often erratic and only totally smooth every 3-4 throws or so.

Results wise in the last week or so I had one really good session on scoring and double top throwing; a good session on bull throwing scoring 325 on 'kill bull' http://www.winmau.com/practicezone/videos/#prettyPhoto[gallery]/40/; a close attempt at 3 bulls in a throw (pictured-the 2nd dart was 25 although I couldn't tell when throwing the 3rd because of a shadow!); regularly hitting single or double 3 in the first few visits and I also had a session sustaining 51+ ave scoring for 8 visits in a row.

The inconsistency I have suffered has affected around 3 practice sessions and has led to frustration and me spontaneously changing my action and randomly throwing at improvised targets for periods of time. My problem is likely one of expectation: hitting the highs such as the near 150 shot above, and 2 x 180s last month has raised my hopes to unrealistic levels. I want to be throwing these sort of darts more often but if I did that I would be a professional, or league player rather than a solid pub player which is my aim. Sometimes I begin a practice session with an aimlessness that I need to eradicate because it is easy to think "I am throwing badly today" if you are not focused on a target or goal. I think I need to redraft my routine to include a more useful warm up and include more short games that I can quickly measure progress with. I will stick with my stance and action and continue only making minute changes that I then film for a period to see how it is working rather than rely on the instant feedback of 3 darts.

I am competing against old rivals soon and based on experience I know I will probably get beaten yet again, so this is also weighing heavy on my mind. I am still a long way off regular 30 dart legs and I always get nervous and throw even more erratically when the pressure is on, so even if I go ahead in legs my doubling will often be scrappy. One of the reasons for this is that the people I play against do not practice so much and do not have the hang up of expectation when they throw. I need to also shorten my practice sessions and when I have time for longer sessions maybe split them into 2 bouts of filming, then games/measuring with a break in between so I do not tire out my mind and my arm. I think it will also do my confidence some good to develop skills on a double other than double top so I will experiment with and phase in a double 16 game into my routine in the coming weeks.