Dart Coach - Training Aides Continued

The second training aide is something I created after going to a carnival and playing the ring toss game.

Having a laugh as you do playing carnival games, I looked through one of the rings, noticing my concentration had been pulled to the center of the ring.

When I got home, I tried putting rubber bands on the board to recreate the focus point of the ring at the carnival, without any joy.

Placing a ring on the board made it a little easier to focus my throw on a smaller section, however it wasn’t focusing my attention like it did at the carnival.

After a long time of trial and error to obtain the same level of focus, I invested a lot of time in visualisation techniques which attempts to narrow your focus. Adopting some boxing principles where it suggests punching through your target to increase velocity.

Using this principle, I set the ring an inch off the board, drawing my main attention and peripheral focus to the inside the ring and matching the focus I had at the carnival.

The video below is the (crude) training aide I came up with using what I had at the time, which I have continued to use throughout my career.

The training aide tricks your mind by simulating focus similar to playing in “the zone”, concentrating your focus to target zones.

Although the tool can be cumbersome and interfere with your darts, the goal is to practice with 2 or 3 sets of the same dart to improve focus and control.

As your game progresses, reduce the size of the focus ring to close your focus even more.

Don’t rush yourself to master the training aide and start with a larger circle, focusing on your release point. It should feel as though you are placing the dart at your target.

Make sure the circles position allows for the natural lie of your dart, while taking in to consideration your overall dart length in proportion to the distance the circle is away from the board.

Using this training aide along with the one from my previous post together should be all the practice tools you need!

I will go on record as saying it is the best training aide you can get, as it is the only training aide that can capture peripheral focus with little effort.

Great Darts!

Raymond Smith