Straight Shooting Luke Smitherd

Day 696: Big In Belgium, The Polished Turd, A Season Of Shits, The Grip Of A Drowning Man, One Finger On The Next Level, It Finally Happened: Meltdown On The Oche, The Clubber Lang Factor, Mesmerising Darts, Back In The Heart Of Dartness, Darwinian Darts Evolution, and DARTS T-SHIRTS FOR SALE!!!

2011-11-21T15:41:00.000-08:00

Hours Of Practice: 735
Miles Walked On The Oche: 588

"No trophy! No flowers! No flashbulbs! No wine!
He's haunted by something he cannot define
Bowel-shaking earthquakes of doubt and remorse,
Assail him, impale him with monster-truck force" - 'Going The Distance', Cake

We're back. Over 1000 unique visitors. Nearly 7000 visits. Over 500 hits from America. Nearly 1500 hits from the UK. Over 2,000 hits from...Belgium. Fucking BELGIUM. Do they even play Darts over there? Or do they just think it's something to spread on a baguette? (They eat baguettes, don't they?) Whatever keywords I'm using, they sure seem to appeal to the Belgians. Maybe 'Checkout' is a Belgian colloquialism for 'Monkey Porn.' I don't know what the hell's going on, but I'm not complaining.

Either way, after a blogging gap of 5 months, welcome to the latest installment of the blog that Hercule Poirot once commented on ("My 'little grey cells' are telling me this is, how you say, fucking idiotic") and that is spiking Darts sales in Burkina Faso: Arrows Of Outrageous Fortune. Firstly, mention should be made of the major cosmetic changes that have recently been applied to the Diary Of The Tungsten Trial To Titantic Triumph. Let's not have any new-Facebook-layout style rants here, Darts Fans; it was long overdue, and personally I'm rather pleased with it. It gives the blog the sense of unwarranted grandeur it deserves. Let me know what YOU think though. The more eagle-eyed amongst you may have noticed that it's been 5 months inbetween entries, and yet the practice hours have only gone up by about 150 hours. Not enough, I know, and it has to be said 5 weeks in a row out of those four months were spent without throwing as much as a single practice dart...but we'll come to the reasons why later (and why a half-finished version of this blog has sat on my laptop for the majority of that time, incomplete and unpublished...)

First up, I'm sure you are all bending your stems in anticipation of knowing the final placing of The Earlsdon Cottage LadyBoys in the summer Chapelfields Darts League B season. As I said at the start of the season, "Boys, I don't care if we mainly lose all season, as long as we don't come bottom. All I ask if merely that we do enough to come at least second from bottom. That's all." So naturally, we came bottom with just 5 points. 11 league wins for yours truly, but a few nightmareish, nervy performances still; but that's been addressed, and again, we will come to that later. Still, morale remains high, and the result made us more determined to do better in the winter season. The lads new to the game have installed home boards to get their practice up, and are approaching it with new gusto, which is genuinely heart warming to see. Despite a few personnel changes (1 now got to babysit on Wednesdays as his wife has work, 1 can't face the travel halfway across town on the bus anymore (but is available as backup) and one decided on the night of the new season that he had work commitments. Nice) the team is fired up, and, in our first match of the new season, we played the freshly relegated Highway Club. Nice bunch of lads, who unfortunately for us were missing a few key players, and were a man down automatically handing us 1 win out of the singles (7 singles matches, 3 doubles. I'm reliably informed their missing man was terrified of us and bottled it. Soiled himself, the story goes.) I chose this night to play some of the best competitive darts of my life, and even hit a two-dart 98 pressure checkout in the doubles (annoyingly, this sort of thing and this standard of play is fairly common for practice. Hopefully it's starting to break into my competition game. The end result? A draw, giving us 2 league points and putting us on nearly half of our total of the previous season after one game. To say the mood leaving the pub was ecstatic would be an understatement. The best moment, however, was whilst shaking hands with the very pleasant members of the other team, one of them, who'd played against my old team and myself about 5 years ago-when I first played darts on a casual basis, before stopping for several years-asked, 'When did you learn to play like that?' Probably one of the best compliments I've ever had in my life, if a little backhanded. He'd seen an impressive improvement, and had commented on it. If that wasn't a sign that I'm getting somewhere, then nothing is. Only a little thing, but I tell you what, Darts Fans, these are the moments you've got to savour, as if you don't you'll quit. Encouragement is rare when you're chasing a stupid dream, so grab whatever you can get. That also applies to going on the pull. Anyway, all that said, we'll no doubt get shafted next week. You watch, a few more losses and my previously shot-down suggestion of burning down the opposing teams' pubs before away games will suddenly start to seem more and more appealing. Although perhaps a little obvious who the perpetrators are when the only pub left intact is ours. We'd better burn it down too at the end of the season, just to be sure. EDIT: Coming back to this paragraph several weeks into the season, we've chalked up another win and to my delight monday nights have managed to become a regular team practice night. Great for me, but even better for the odds of the other guys improving; and they are.

Something I've noticed; I need a lengthy warm up, roughly 45 darts thrown. Otherwise, I start badly, and that bad start gets in my head, and it's all downhill from there. OR, I start to get annoyed with poor performance in my warm up, and think I'm just off my game for the night, and then go in with a lack of confidence. I now EXPECT to have a bad warm up; that means I can't get upset about it, and then when I play my game I find I'm playing well.

Other things that have gone out of the window-in a good way-is my limp wristed early release of the dart so it goes crashing into the floor a good two feet from the board. My grip is very light on the dart, hence me using very grippy darts, but even with that, some days I pick them up and they just feel like I have no purchase on them, so, in my unending quest to spend money on Darts Tat, I picked up a bottle of Mighty Grip. Not to be confused with Almighty Grip, which rather than being a sporting aid is actually that which God uses to keep a hold of his children. Apparently. No, MIGHTY Grip is a small bottle of powder that you put on your fingertips. The beauty of it is that it goes tacky very quickly but doesn't rub off onto your darts, and washes off easily. An unexpected bonus is that I now have the ability to scale sheer, smooth walls effortlessly. If only I could shoot webs as well. The MG has made a big difference to my game, as my throw feels more confident, but the downside is I can't really play without some sort of grip additive now, as the darts feel too smooth. I know, you'd think of all the things I'd be used to by now, being too smooth in any capacity would be one of them...

The thing is, Darts Fans, that I'm no longer using the same grippy darts I was last time. I've changed darts again. There's a reason why, but more on that later...again. I thought it may be interesting to have a quick look at the darts I've gone through, in an insightful feature I call 'Stop Blowing Money On New Darts.'

Long time readers may remember (though I HIGHLY doubt it) the original Tungsten Tools Of Tournament Testwithstanding: the Harrows Aliens (27g)-

Which, when I decided to experiment with weight and try the best selling dart on the market at the same time, were replaced by Phil 'The Power' Taylor's then dart: The Phase 5 (26g, Black)-

And, when thinking about getting a spare set (I always have a spare set for the van, or my back pocket mini case) and not wanting to pay a small fortune for another one, I learned of the existence of the much cheaper rip-off version: the McCoy Marksman (26g, Black)-

These are more difficult to get hold of now; I wonder if you can guess why. Anyway, I preferred these as they had a more substantial feel to them, but became slowly obsessed with the idea of front-weighted darts matching my throw, so they eventually gave way to Dennis Priestley's 26g signature dart:

But I soon found I just couldn't hold onto the bloody things, and after trying and failing by adding rubber O rings to the grooves, I decided to try something more grippy, and after asking the forums for recommendations, I went for the Hi Tech Vice (26g):

I stuck with these for some time, and they are a great dart; in fact, three members of the team switched over to these too after trying mine, and I'd recommend them to anyone looking for a grippy, front weighted dart. But then the repeated great practice/poor match performance combo continued for one too many wednesday league nights/DartPro League games, and things just started to get ridiculous. The expectation of failure became overwhelming, and it took only a few bad darts to throw my head game into an incredibly dramatic downward spiral (read: tantrum.) I can remember, clear as day, one DartPro league game where I threw my umpteenth 26/21/11/7/3 and actually gripped my head in my hands and moaned in frustration, tears in my eyes. Things got so bad that I started avoiding practice, finding little reasons to do so, and worst of all I didn't even WANT to. Several weeks passed without practice. Hours lost (half the reason for the low hour addition above.) I knew something had to be done.

It was time to call in the professionals.

In a stroke of luck so precise it can only be described as the Gods Of Darts smiling down on me, proving (if any proof were needed) that I was the Chosen One of Darts, not only was there a new hypnotherapy centre within walking distance of my flat, but a hypnotherapy centre run by a hypnotist who was a part time referee/caller for the PDC. I shit you not. Sean Casey Poole (www.mickeytake.com - that's the website for his comedy hypnotist stage show, can't find the one for the centre, but it's Serene Mind and Body in Coventry if you want to google it and get the number) had the horrific, hellish task of sorting through my neuroses and hang ups to find the cause of the problem. He had to go and see another hypnotherapist afterwards to help him get over it.

Now, there may be many of you pooh-poohing the idea of hypnotherapy as an aid, but I couldn't disagree more. Darts is a game of millimetres after all, and therefore is a highly mental game. If you underestimate the importance of the mind in this sport, you just need to look at how many players are unable to perform without a drink. Either way, I sat down with Sean, who I can recommend very highly, and we went through the idea of me taking poor performance so hard; how it had led to me throwing games before they were even halfway over because I had just decided that I was going to underperform again. Through a very interesting session, he tried to press home what I knew on the surface, but couldn't internalise; the fact that sometimes you just play badly, and sometimes you play well, and you have to learn to be able to take the bad with the good. Obvious, right? I knew it was true already, but there's an immense gulf between knowing it and being able to accept it. And that's the thing with hypnotism; it's a very, very subtle fix. When you're under, you're conscious, and you know what's going on, but you're just very relaxed. When you leave, you don't feel like anything revelatory has occured. And when it comes to game time, you don't suddenly find yourself miraculously relaxed, or noticing anything different. You still feel pressure and nerves. You still worry about winning, and desperately want to. But you realise when the game is over, win or lose, that you just tutted over the bad darts, went and got them, and waited for your next go. That may sound like nothing, but anyone who's been lost in the self-doubting hell of an endless run of sporting bad form will know what I'm talking about. Either way, Sean made a difference, and I stopped worrying, but I still had lost my darting mojo, my get up and throw (oh, I must remember that one for league night. I'm sure they'll love it. As you can imagine, they all love my constant darting theories and philosophy, and in no way are sick to fucking death of it.)

There was only one way to get it back, one that has been proven to me over and over again, and this brings me back to the darts evolution listed above; go and buy new darts. I came home from league night one week after switching back-out of a mild desperation that still hung over from my pre-hypnosis matches-to my old Harrows Aliens, believe it or not, and putting in a great league performance as a result. Convinced the answer lay in a dart somewhere between my then current Hi-Tec Vice and the Aliens, I lost several hours into the dawning of the following thursday morning perusing online darts catalogues. I though I might have found my answer, and, too impatient to order online and wait, I rang the newly reopened Midlands Darts Centre in Yardley (about 25 minutes from Coventry) once I'd woken up. They didn't have the ones I was after (the name escapes me) but had an almost identical, locally made set. Naturally, I headed over (avoiding the potenial pitfall of getting directions to the Midlands Arts Centre down the road in Birmingham instead. I can only imagine similar confusion the other way round, with the box office staff manning the weekend matinee performance of Little Ayolf being asked where the 26g Dark Destroyers were by confused looking middle aged men in polo shirts) and spent a good two hours on the instore oches they had set up, blown away by the immense try-before-you-buy selection and the on hand advice of the owner (I cannot recommend this place enough.) In the end, I came away with something UTTERLY different than that which I'd come in for, and a whole 2 grams higher than what I'd been using:

The only problem is, I have no idea what they are. I've seen many similar, but not the same as these. If anyone can tell me, it'd be much appreciated, so I can buy a spare set. Either way, the combined effect of all of the above was electric. Not only was I practicing again with a vengeance, but my performance was the best yet (To put it into context; in the last blog entry I was delighted with permanently cracking the 70+ barrier. Now I'm on the verge-not consistently enough yet to claim it as my current standard, but I'm doing it-of cracking the 80+ barrier for good.)

And then...with a timing so perfect it can only prove, if proof were ever needed, that the Gods Of Darts think that I am in fact the antichrist of darts, for they struck me down with illness, and I lost another two weeks. And I don't just mean bad timing in terms of halting my major return to form. You see, Darts Fans, the thing is that lately, I've been struggling with a fairly major period of the blues. Mid-life crisis? Maybe. In my (very) early thirties now, and with a string of failed attempts at greatness to my name...and then I get up and face another day with only two very cute but conversationally stunted canines for company, and suddenly it can all get on top of you, very fast. Don't get me wrong; I know I am very blessed. I live in a nice home, financially we're doing ok, I have a loving girlfriend, etc etc. It's all good. And I would FAR rather have a string of failed attempts at what I wanted to achieve than to have settled for something less...but as I believe I waxed lyrical on last time, you can't help but find yourself looking in the mirror and seeing the age lines working their way in, wondering if you were right. The illness (nothing serious, just a long lasting and unshiftable bout of man flu) meant me staying in bed all day in an attempt to see it off, which really didn't help fight off feelings of isolation and wasted time. I mean, we're talking what, about a week or so ago this ended. And since then I've been playing catch up on not only various little jobs that need sorting (gig invoices, bills, finishing off my website for the music work-yes this will be plugged like a bitch on here. While I'm at it, buy The Physics Of The Dead for the Kindle/Kindle app for your smartphone for 89p from Amazon.co.uk. It's mindblowingly fucktastic) but all the other little bits of projects that I always seem to be working on. And in the frantic catch up of the last twoish weeks, the darts has suffered. So all of that-the mindgame crash, the illness, the catch up-has hit my practice hours hard. But don't worry, darts fans; I'm back on it as of NOW. I'd hate for you to worry, after all. Hello? Hey!

One important thing I realised only the other day is how it's has been months and MONTHS since I entered a tournament. This is because I decided to have some time away to improve before having another go-a good way of gauging progress-but frankly, I didn't mean to leave it THIS long, but on the plus side I reckon I'm so much better since the last one that in a local level tournament I could really give them a good game. Plus I have a season and a half of pub league competition experience under my belt since then. Don't scoff; the pressure in a pub league is far worse than a tournament, particularly if you're the captain, and a deeply sexual one at that. Think about it; you're in front of your mates-who have been drinking-and you can lose in just two legs. Most tournaments are best of 5 or, more usually, 7. Our pub league is best of 3. The margin for error is narrow as fuck, frankly, and so the pressure is high. Going to a tournament compared to that would be a walk in the park. So I make this promise to you now, darts fans; by next blog post (SOON! SOOOOOOONNNNN!!!!) I will have been to another tournament (as long as there are some on; I wrote that before I checked...)

Right. Now onto the fun stuff. In my spare time (minimal. Despite technically having all the time in the world, I never allow myself any. You wouldn't believe it, but it's true. So much so I have recently started to make an effort to allow myself it...) I've knocked up a couple of...DARTS T SHIRTS! WOOOO!! GUARANTEED to get anyone you like wanting to have sexual intercourse with YOU*. I've deliberately picked the nicer-fitting t-shirts, as I think baggy tees generally look a bit naff, which means they weren't the cheapest ones available, but they're still pretty cheap. BASICALLY, I love the idea of getting a cool darts T shirt to wear, or some nice darts merchandise, but I could never find any that were particularly interesting and/or actually funny. So I made a few of my own. The link at the top of the blog will take you to the shop, and just to ram it even harder down your throat, here it is again:

http://www.cafepress.co.uk/LINK REMOVED, WAIT FOR NEWS!!-SSLS

So far, there's just the three available, but if people like them I'll do a few more. All of these are available in a variety of colours, by the way. Here's the first:

That's right, YOU can be amongst the first to potentially get sued by the NBA for wearing this little beauty! Note the straightshootingdarts.com tag underneath (this blog's new URL, by the way) that will definitely get the men/women/violence going. Next:

YES, the blog title is in there, but it's actually a PHILOSOPHICAL DARTS T SHIRT. The text, a classic Shakespearian quote, reads:

Gettin' horny already, eh? You knows you is. Plus, you can show the world your love, support, and admiration for the most inexplicably still running blog on the internet. And the most basic (and cheapest) one is this:

Tell the world that YOU, yes YOU believe that you are the very future of darts! SEE how they admire your forthrightness and bravery!! Definitely. Definitely. I have to say, if anyone does buy one, for the love of all that is holy take a photo of yourself in it and send it to me. You would make my fucking year. (Probably also best to stay away from naked flames too. I can't vouch for how fire retardant these are. I'm sure they're fine.)

Anyway, Darts Fans, that's all for now. As I finish typing the last lines of this waaaayyyyy overdue update, I see it's now the early hours of my birthday. Which makes me think of presents. Which makes me think of what a GREAT Christmas presents any of the above shit would make for...I dunno. The postman. As ever, a very, very sincere thankyou for anyone taking the time to read this; the numbers do seem to be growing at an almost alarming rate, and whilst I can only assume that Google has confused the word 'Darts' with 'Cliff Richard's Naked Cock' and the unique user stats went mad as a result. But anyway, even if you wandered in here by mistake and stayed for the nonsense, thankyou. Your support is very gratefully received.

Stay Hungry,

Straight Shooting Luke Smitherd

(*level of attraction from opposite sex generated by t shirt may vary, indeed to the point where the t shirt may even seem to have the opposite effect.)

PS Book yadda yadda: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Physics-Dead-Supernatural-Mystery-ebook/dp/B004WPOJOW/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1321924826&sr=8-1

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Darts T Shirts

(HOLLYWOOD STYLE DRAMA EDITION!) Day 535: Finding The Cure For 'Darts Back', The Evolution Of The Earlsdon Cottage Desperadoes, Humiliation And Heroism, Smashing The 70 Barrier, Strengthening The Mind At £20 A Time,The Loneliness Of The Long Distance Darter, and A Shameless Literary Plug

2011-06-19T08:57:00.000-07:00

Hours Of Practice: 583
Miles Walked On The Oche: 466.4

Welcome back Darts Fans, and people who couldn't give a shit about darts but read this nonsense for some reason; thanks for coming. For those of you have been asking me where the next blog update was (there are actually people that do that) it's time to rejoice as this installment is a REALLY long one. So get comfortable. Make a cup of tea first. I'll wait.

This latest edition of Arrows Of Outrageous Fortune comes to you
via an all-new approach, specially formulated to give it that extra touch of spice! The Luke Smitherd Excitement Filter (tm) is being applied to this blog from here on in, to turn it from an
engrossing and highly arousing read to an explosive sex-fest of action, raunch, and hilarious things involving mainly darts. And TERRORISTS.

So what's been happening recently on the Tungsten Trail To Titanic Triumph? I'll tell you what; back pain, Darts Fans. Back pain. It's been a while, but the double header of an old gym-obsessive-
days training injury coming back to haunt me (right shoulder blade) as I took my guitar off at the end of a gig to feel it 'pop' and not really settle back in as usual, combined with a new, more
worrying addition of lower back pain on the right hand side (the exact point at which my body hinges as I lean forward on the oche) and getting sick of recent, constant neck stiffness, I made a
tough decision. Some money will have to be spent. Once I'd managed, after this realisation, to unclench my buttocks with the aid of a paramedic-standard set of 'Jaws Of Life', I went through Google and found someone professional, knowledgable, insightful, and cheap. My sports massage/physio appointment with Tanya was booked.

After a thorough session of prodding, probing, stretching, ande hardly any screaming like a girl, Tanya left the room after announcing she 'just wanted to check something to be sure.' When she came
back ten minutes later, to my great concern, her face was ashen, and her eyes were slightly watery. More worrying was the fact that this had nothing to do with the £10 note I'd confusedly tucked
into the waistband of my towel. Someone told me that's how physios prefer to be paid.
'You might need to sit down,' she said. I thought this unusual, as I was already lying on my stomach on the table, but I sat in the opposite chair anyway, pulling my towel tight and suddenly
feeling very aware of how cold it was in there.
'Luke', she said, looking at the floor. 'When I finished the assessment...I wanted to be certain before I said anything. So I put the results through the computer to be sure, and it's confirmed
everything. I've run the tests 3 times over, and the results are always the same.'
I sat there and said nothing. With a deep sigh, she continued.
'Every darts player runs the risk of Dartenisation-'
'Wait, what?'
'In layman's terms, Dartenisation occurs when a darts player combines a large amount of practice with an incredible amount of being sexy. It's very rare, but it happens. But yours is a case so
advanced that no-one has ever seen anything like it.'
'So...so what are you saying?'
'I'm saying,' she said, her eyes welling up, 'That if you play as much as ONE MORE game of darts...you could die.'
Though the news hit me like a sledgehammer, it only strengthened my resolve, as I stood without a word.
'Thanks for the assessment Tanya, but if you'll excuse me, I have PRACTICE to do.'
'Weren't you listening?!' she cried, aghast, 'One more game and you could DIE!!'
'THEN I'LL SEE YOU IN HELL!!!' I screamed, producing a dart from somewhere inside my towel with a flourish and throwing it at the plate glass window, shattering it. Screaming heroically, I jumped
out of the third floor window frame, removing my towel and tying it around my neck like a cape in one swift movement, revealing my throbbing and
colossalllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll-

Sorry about that, the Luke Smitherd Excitement Filter (tm) seems to have a bit of a sensitive trigger today; I just nudged it and it flicked to maximum on the anecdote. Here's what actually
happened:

After the run through, I was getting dressed whilst Tanya was outside looking at her notes. When she came back in, she was carrying what looked like some kind of diagram.
'I want you to take a look at this,' she said, handing me what appeared to be an outline drawing of the human body, covered in small dots.
'What are these?' I asked, pointing at one.
'Representations.' she replied. 'This isn't your diagram, this is an example. But the dots represent where I've identified certain...findings in your musculoskeletal genetic make-up.'
'Woah, slow down there Einstein!'
'Ok. Luke, every human being has in their blood stream tiny particles called Tungstichlorians. Whether they play the game or not, these determine how much potential they have to be able to play
incredible Darts. Your count is 127.'
'Well...is that a lot?' I asked. She stared at me for a long moment, almost in disbelief. Finally, she spoke.
'Luke...the person whose diagram this is...their Tunstichlorian count is only 76.' She pointed to the name at the top of the sheet. I peered at it.
It read, 'P. Taylor.'
'Luke,' she said, wide eyed, 'You are going to be the greatest Darts player...of all time.'
'THEN I'LL SEE YOU IN HELL!!!' I screamed, producing a dart frommmmmmmmmmmmmm-

Fucking thing. I'll switch it off.

Basically, over three sessions, my lower back-which was 'rock hard with tension' has eased off nicely, my neck has been improved, and my shoulder blade is not a darting issue. She said, based on
the fact that I spent many hours a week leaning at the same point, it was unsurprising my lower back was so stiff. It made me wonder how many darts players who suffer from back issues-a very common
factor in the game-even consider getting a sports massage, perhaps embarrassed needing physio for a sport that is unathletic in the least. It's an endurance test at the highest level-absolutely no
doubt, both mentally and physically-but it is of course not a sport for 'athletes'. She recommended a few post-practice stretches to remove any tension that may develop, and I'll list these at the
end for anyone that's interested (including those kindly suggested by Shane Amadan via twitter; thankyou Shane. HE'S following on twitter folks...and you can TOO! Click the button above! YEAH!)

This talk of stretching may bring to mind the fairly recent ad in which a woman on a blind date with a 'comedy' darts enthusiast says 'Stretching? Really'? when she sees him 'hilariously' stretching before he shows off at darts. This is also the same ad when this woman, on a date with someone, whilst he's obviously a ringpiece, says 'Is darts even a sport?' A more true-to-life response from him would be 'Yes, stretching, because the human body isn't designed to stand rigidly at an angle for hours on end. And yes, as it's recognised as a sport by all the sporting bodies of the United Kingdom, then it officially is, as well as the fact that Darts requires muscle memory, throwing, walking, accuracy, and extreme hand-to-eye co-ordination, to answer both of your staggeringly rude fucking questions about something I'm clearly passionate and enthusiastic about, you fucking twat. Plus, you're not even really fit enough for me to consider brushing your ignorance off in the hope of a fuck, as frankly, you're not worth the effort,' before headbutting her and pissing on her unconscious face. That's what I'D have done, anyway.

So I'm now going to go back to Tanya once every 6 weeks for a back M.O.T., as the difference it's made to practice comfort has been pretty immense. Take my advice, darts players; google 'Sports Massage' for your local area and get yourself booked in. If you're in the West Midlands, visit fireandheatuk.com. They're great.

In the meantime...I've finally cracked the 70+ average barrier, in that I'm maintaining an average of 70 or over throughout a day's practice. Or rather...I was. Let me explain.
Whenever I sit down to write this blog, darts fans, I write a little list of subjects that I'm going to cover. This is because I know I'll take weeks, coming back and doing a little bit here and
there, and don't want to forget what I was going to cover. Any changes that occur in the meantime, or any relevant news, get added in later. And on the list for THIS blog was '70+ average,' and
this was a very big deal; actually hitting and going beyong the target I set in my '500 hours milestone' blog. But somewhere between starting this blog and now, something happened. And I blame the
fucking league darts...the best way to explain this is to move onto the next item on the list, 'Fucking league darts.'

Don't let the title make you think I'm negative about wednesday nights; I love it. I've been lucky enough to get a get bunch of chaps together for the team, we have a great laugh, attitude
throughout is very positive, and I'm genuinely cheered to see steady improvement through some of the players newer to the game. The whole thing is ace, and I ALWAYS look forward to it. BUT.
I've won 4 out of 7 league matches-not bad-the difference between practice performance and competitive performance is, quite frankly, staggering. I'm hardly unique in this-the most common threads on the darts forums by FAR are along the lines of 'Why do I play so bad in competition'/'Inability to produce so frustrating'/'I've just murdered my wife in a fit of darts induced rage. I'm going to do the neighbours now, please stop me'-so this might not be news, but the sheer LEVEL of discrepancy has been, at times, staggering. 100s and 80s in practice, 26s and even 11s in competition. THAT bad. Only some pretty flashy checking out-103 and 94-has saved my bacon. Even seem to have developed, on occasion (but on enough for it to have become a it to have become a running team joke) what I refer to as the 'Hello Sailor' throw. I have a soft grip on my darts (helps maintain a nice release, but requires very grippy darts to balance it out, if that makes sense) and when I manage to hit that perfect form of 'letting go' of the dart mid throw, it drops into the lipstick at least 1 in 3 darts every time. EVERY TIME. It's great. But I've started an alarming habit of sometimes
letting go of the dart way too early, so if just kind of flops out of my hand and doesn't even reach the wall. The frustration/rage from this, combined with the aforementioned poor form has led me
to even turn from the oche and throw my darts into the floor out of frustration. I know. Embarrassing for me, and for the team. And especially risky given that the venue was a bouncy castle. But I
digress.

But the other annoying thing is that this has had an effect on my practice games, slowly driving me back into the mid to high 60s, perhaps due to a combination of anixiety over poor comp
performance, and over analysing my throw. It HAS meant I've discovered a few things-don't let my arm get lazy (maintain a fast motion in the arm) release a little earlier than feels 'right' to make
sure it hits the lipstick, and-this is a big one-take a moment on the oche in comp games. Take moment to settle and relax, and then just throw my own game as I would at hoe. Tried this in the
double-in format doubles game last night, and it made a big difference (112 check in. Great performance all round...and then the always reliable finishing cocked up. GNNNNNNNNNN....)
Still, I'm sure it's just a matter of time before this is all ironed out; the trick is to remember all the above (plus keeping the head still) without it being a CONSCIOUS thing. Just have to wait
until it's internalised, and I should be laughing. Fuck it, roll on the 80+.

But as ever, darts fans, the Straight Shooting One refuses to give in to adversity. Fuck THAT, darts fans. In a move that I described as 'insightful' and others have described as 'Buying Snake
Oil', I decided to tackle the mind problems head on. After some probing research (five minutes on the app store and google) I discovered a 4 cd download aimed at sportsmen and women-for just £20!!
Eh? Eh?-called 'Mind Of Steel.' Although the name could do with a bit of work (from, no doubt, the same people that brought you 'Penis Of Titanium' and 'Bowels Of Vesuvius') I decided that this
could well be handy on my journey to develop Instinct Of Tungsten. So I forked over my money (Eh? EH??) and downloaded it. I'm only halfway through so far, and have gleaned a few useful titbits-
sadly, nothing game changing yet-but so far there seems to be an alarming trend with the work of Dr. ShallRemainNameless (Dr. StateTheObvious) in that his 'lessons' seem to go along these lines:
"Your mood is vital to the outcome of your game. The wrong mood cam dramatically alter the standard of your play, and so you have to make sure your mood is correct." (He pauses briefly, and you wait to be told exactly how to achieve the correct mood. He then continues:) "Another important thing is energy..." What the fuck?!? TELL ME HOW TO CORRECT MY MOOD THEN IF IT'S SO IMPORTANT, YOU BLITHERING JACKASS!! And then it occurs to you that quite possibly, the blithering jackass if you, for handing over your £20 to this guy's Bank Account Of Adamantium. But I haven't finished it yet, so who knows? It might have the secret to a Mind Of Steel after all.

Speaking of the mind, that brings me nicely to the other issue I've been pondering at the moment. In a strange kind case of the opposite situation occuring in order for me to consider the current
situation-if that makes sense-Angela is currently inbetween jobs. This means that, at the moment, in the daytimes, instead of only having two dogs for company (and they sleep most of the time) I
suddenly have another person around all day (although again, Ange is either applying for jobs or getting jobs done around the flat, wanting to both make the most productive use of her free time and
to avoid distracting me from getting my own shit done. I am, unfortunately, very easily distracted. Excuse me, there's a blue car outside) and it's great, although I have to confess, despite our
best efforts, I'm not getting as much done as normal. It's so easy to get sidetracked, and take a little longer over meals, and lie in a little longer when you're cuddled up comfy with someone
else. All of which is ok, because it's nice, and it's only temporary. Something interesting that Ange said the other day-in her free time she's now made her own 'jobs' list of tasks to get done-
was that she knows what I mean about there not being enough hours in the day. She was referring to what I often find myself thinking when I get up early, have breakfast, do my morning darts, work
on whatever jobs need doing, have dinner, more time on whatever jobs, then afternoon darts, then it's 7pm (my usual sign off time.) I then think back on the day, and 9 times out of 10 think 'Where
the hell has the time gone? I haven't dawdled, messed around, or really slacked off today, and still I've got NOTHING done.' I always thought that maybe I just wasn't really working hard enough,
but Ange has the best work ethic of anyone I've ever known, and SHE says she finds herself thinking the same thing. It's just wierd how the time seems to evaporate out from under you.

But anyway, realising how much I'm already used to Angela being around has simultaneously made me realise how much worse it's going to be when she goes back to work. Before, I used to actually very much enjoy having these solo days, as I could kind of revel in waking up, focusing, and getting on with things, darts and otherwise, and then my day ends when Ange gets back from work or the gym
and we have our free time together. All good. But I'm now starting to dread her going back, as I can see a very dark period where I wake up to an empty and silent house...every day. It's ironic; I
chose the path of employment that I did because I couldn't stand the idea of routine, and being bound to the same place every single day on someone else's say so. But what I've actually ended up
with it's far, FAR more constricting than any job. In the week, I dedicate all my free time to getting things done, and if I don't, I become overwhelmed with guilt and self-loathing for letting
myself down and contributing to my life not progressing fast enough. Then the weekend comes-when the 9 to 5ers are off having a good time-and I go to work. And that is my life. Yes, this is all for
a reason, and it's all part of a bigger goal of getting somewhere better, be it through darts or other means...but it's a long, long road that stretches out in front of me, Darts Fans, and I can't
see the end, and there's too many days when that leaves me under a big, blackcloud. And the biggest sacrifice of all-by a huge percentage-is the darts. Because it's a big commitment time-wise, and
it's time I could be having a lunch in a nice pub, or watching a film, or doing whatever the hell I like (as most people assume I do I with all my free time. I wish I did. They have absolutely NO
idea) but I don't. Because if I'm not putting that time to good use-darts time or jobs time-then I'm not ever going to make the changes I want. I just hope to god it's all worth it in the end.
But whenever I get down about it-the time spent on darts-I remember that I love the game, and I look at the improvements I've made, and the things that need fixing that I KNOW are fixable, and I
put my head up. I truly believe I can go the distance to get into the big time, and there's a lot of people-friends and, disappointingly, close friends-that openly laugh at that, but fuck them.
What are they doing? What dreams are they chasing? None. And I'd rather have a laughable dream than no dream at all, and I'd rather say 'I tried this and failed' than 'I didn't bother.' It's just
hard, Darts Fans, to keep plugging away at something that all common sense says is a waste of an enormous amount of precious time, and you find yourself stopping and thinking 'hold on...what am I
doing?' (That's not self pity; I'm not trying to garner sympathy, just to explain a facet of the 'journey.') And not only that, but to think that even if I realised it was all a waste of time...could
I stop? After so much time invested in it-and FAR much more to go-could I walk away with nothing to show for it? Or would I have to keep going, despite knowing (if such a realisation occured) that
I was doomed to failure, because I couldn't live with not finishing a job I'd already put so much into? That's a hard question, darts fans.

But I will say this. I actively took a week off practice this week, not for any desire to get away from the game or anything, but because I'd gotten so little jobs done lately, and also because I
figured a week off would probably be a good thing regardless; ideally helping to keep my enthusiasm healthy, and just to check everything else was ok. And all week-despite getting lots of stuff
done, which has been great-you know what I've been absolutely itching to do, all day, every day?

Play darts, mo-fos. Play darts. I miss it, I love it, and I can't wait for tomorrow when the week off ends. So maybe all the above is just a load of bollocks after all. Time will tell. The blog
will either end with some kind of major trophy or a note that simply says '10,000 HOURS FOR FUCK ALL!!! GOODBYE!!!' and a headline somewhere...I do rather hope it's the former rather than the
latter.

And to continue the more positive theme, a mention must be made of this seasons online DartPro League. I THINK I've mentioned it in a previous blog, but via the always excellent www.double16.com darts forums, Skype, a webcam, and the free software DartPro, I've entered, for the second time, a season of the double16.com dartpro league, which, as the name suggests, is playing darts against a human opponent via the aforementioned soft and hardware. The first season, I don't think I won a game. THIS season, I've played, I think, 2 league games and 1 cup game-as well as 2 friendlies-and won them all, and all by some margin. 5 for 5. Don't get me wrong-they were close games, I didn't throw to my best average by a LONG chalk (see previous section on competitive league night games, GRRRR) but some tip-top finishing (including a 118 checkout) put me over well, I think the closest scoreline being 7-4. So if that doesn't say there's an improvement-no wins to 5 wins, and two against people who've beaten me soundly before-then what does?

So THAT's a nice place to leave this installment, Darts Fans, and what a nice long installment it's been. Let no-one says that Arrows Of Outrageous Fortune doesn't give you plenty of bang for your
no-bucks. Speaking of money's worth, if anyone needs to book well-priced live musical entertainment for whatever occasion, contact Barry Herbert at Mainstream Management, and say you want to book
Luke. Mention this blog, and he'll say 'That's interesting' and still charge you full price. BUT!! At over 100 downloads (and if any of them were from you, darts fans, I thank you sincerely from
the bottom of my heart) the free download of my book, The Physics Of The Dead, is going great guns. If you have a blackberry, or iPhone, or any kind of smartphone, get the FREE Kindle app on it
first and visit http://www.megaupload.com/?d=V74NSX61 to get your copy. Let's face it; if you enjoy this meandering blather, then think how much you'll enjoy some carefully crafted, well-
structured, exciting mystery-driven fantastical realism in the same vein as Lost and Twin Peaks, all for FREE! UNLESS you fancy spending the £1.71 to buy the pay version from amazon.co.uk
(http://www.amazon.co.uk/Physics-Dead-ebook/dp/B004WPOJOW/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1308494963&sr=8-3 You can at least see the cover here...and the 5 star review!!) For those of you who have sent me your very kind reviews, I am very, very grateful indeed. And for those that didn't like it and kept their opinions to themselves, that's probably best...

And to you, Darts Fan, book bullshit aside, thankyou for reading, as ever. According to my stat counter, this blog has now-God alone knows how-now has nearly 500 unique users. Of course this is
some kind of computer error, but it makes me happy. Thankyou. After I sign off, I shall list the stretches recommended by Tanya at Fire And Earth (www.fireandearthuk.com) and Angela (don't worry, she's a qualified personal trainer. And a terrible drunk) and Shane's helpful twitter suggestions. I just need to find some internet photos to illustrate...

See you next time, Darts Fans.

Stay Hungry,

Straight Shooting Luke Smitherd
----------------------------------------------
DARTS STRETCHES

All these stretches are, of course, to be done POST practice. You should never stretch muscles that haven't been lightly warmed up. The whole lot should take you no more than about 3 minutes, and it's really worth it. Man with cap photos and text courtesy of Bodybuilding.com

BACK STRETCHES:

Lie down on your back and pull both knees up to your chest. Hold your arms under the knees, not over (that would put to much pressure on your knee joints). Slowly pull the knees toward your shoulders.

Sit in a chair or on a bench with both feet flat on the floor. Start by rotating your head and chest to one side, so that at least one hand touches the back of your chair. Keep your feet planted. After you place yourself in this position, take a big breathe and, on the exhalation, twist just a bit further. You can also do this standing about one foot in front of a wall (keep your back facing the wall). Place one or both hands on the wall behind you to stabilize your torso and brace against your hands to twist your spine further. Hold for 30 seconds, then switch sides.

Interlace fingers with your palm facing inward. Drop shoulders, stand upright with your back straight, and push your hands forward. Hold for 10-20 seconds.

You don't have to do the shit with the bent elbow, this is the best photo I could find. Basically, this, but seated upright, with your waist straight. Bend to the side at the waist with your extended arm up and over your head and to the side. Hold for 10-20 seconds, then swap sides. This will also turn you into a girl with a ponytail.

THIS ISN'T THE RIGHT PICTURE EITHER, BUT THE LEG POSITION IS RIGHT. Do the previous exercise, but with your legs like this. Ah, you'll work it out.

NECK STRETCH:

Can't find the right picture. Bollocks, I'll just describe it, it's mind numbingly easy.
Stand upright and turn your head to the right. Then push your left shoulder down as you stay looking right. Hold for 10 seconds, then swap sides. Piece of piss.

Enjoy!!

Flat Roofer Nottingham Derby

Day 482-The '500 Hours Of Practice' Special! Going Back To My (Darting) Roots, The Birth Of The Earlsdon Cottage Galaxy, Wednesday Is Darts Day, A Trip To The UK Open Qualifiers, Analysis Paralysis, and Blog Reflection. PLUS! 500 Hours: What's Changed, How Badly I've Failed At All Of My Goals So Far, And Goals For The NEXT 500 Hours

2011-04-28T14:48:00.000-07:00

Hours Of Practice: 504
Miles Walked On The Oche: 401.6

500 hours. A milestone. A turning point. A horrific realisation that-based on the scientifically accepted rule of it taking 10,000 hours of practice to master anything-I'm only 5% of the way there. Wank.

Still! 5%, eh? I'm proud of it. It SHOULD be more over the time period since I started all this, but given the various other factors that have affected the regime over time, I think it's decent going. And so, it's at a time like this that a man needs to take a look back at where he's been before he can decide where he's going. Which today will be a trip to the Newcastle coast with Angela's family, but what the fuck has that got to do with darts? Nothing, that's what. So let's talk about DARTS. Come back.

So, given that I've reached a certain stage in what I laughably call a career-and that I was in Newcastle-I thought a return to The Plough was in order. Long-time readers may remember in the early of my march up The Tungsten Trail To Titanic Top Trumping Triumph that I used to practice a lot in pubs, mainly in Cramlington where I spent most of my week whilst Angela still lived in Newcastle. My favourite haunt-and a cracking boozer full stop-was The Plough. About a year ago, I was in there 5 days a week without fail, two hours in the morning, two hours late afternoon, and during that time there used to be 3 or 4 of the same chaps that would come in after work for a pint or two. Obviously, Monday to Friday I'd be there already on the oche, and eventually over time it progressed from nods of recognition to the inevitable question; "What's with all the darts then?" And I told them. After that, though we were never overly chatty-as I didn't want to interrupt their evening, and also, y'know, the darts thing-there was always a brief bit of chat. I had visions of me finally taking down Phil Taylor on the world stage and them watching in The Plough, saying 'Aye, that fella used to practice in heeya every de-ay, fuckin' cham-pyan he was." Or possibly "Every dee-ay ah though to mesen, 'I'm gonna chin that fucka if he doesn' stop with the fuckin' darts.'"

Anyway, on the week that I cracked the 500 barrier-and it being a good year since I was last in there-I thought a return journey should be on the cards seeing as I was in the area. As I approached, I saw through the window that the main bar was rammed. Obviously a football game or something. I hoped very strongly that the snug would be less so, and that no-one would already be on the oche.

It wasn't, and no-one was. Result. I ordered a Strongbow and headed for the board-lovely throw they have in there-only to realise that someone was sat at a high table right on the oche line. I looked on the TV; someone was...playing Call Of Duty on the Xbox? And it was the guy sat at the table. Upon asking at the bar, I discovered that it was a charity tournament night, and that yes, they would mind moving the table forward half a foot. Despondent, I sat at a barstool.

At the end of the bar, I recognised a face; was that one of my guys? I couldn't remember. I thought I saw recognition in his face, so I tried a nod. He nodded back, and nudged his mate, who turned around-I recognised him-and cracked a smile. "Ah, how you doin' mate, how's the darts gannin'?" I felt this particular trip down memory lane had been worthwhile after all.

The 500 hour mark has also coincided with my return to the Wednesday night Chapelfields Pub League, after starting a team at The Earlsdon Cottage. Though the standard of players in my team starts at 'Rank Amateur'' and rockets downhill rapidly from there, the crack is great and I'm getting the competitive play I need. And I clearly DO need it; despite playing the best darts in my life in practice, I played the worst darts of my life in our first game. I also play in a wednesday afternoon practice league now in Birmingham-discovered through the good people on the double16.com forums-with pro and county players. I've won the odd leg-which is hella good in my opinion-but am a long way off getting a win against the top guys. A LONG way.

The irony is, I attended the regional qualifiers for the UK Open a few weeks ago...and a funny thing happened. I turned up towards the end of registration time, only to be told I needed to be wearing trousers, collar and shoes to compete, with it being an official PDC event. Looking around the room at all the other competitors dressed in the appropriate gear-who seemed to be looking at me-and combining that with the volume at which this guy had addressed the issue-a felt like a bit of a twat stood there in my t-shirt, board shorts and trainers. Fortunately, the venue was a Riley's just down the road from my house, so I had time to boot it back, grab my suit trousers, polo shirt and shoes, and hoof it back into the venue.

"Just in time mate, board 3, you're on now."

No warm up, nothing. Straight in, and in arguably the most important game of my career (playing for a place at the goddamn UK Open at the Reebok Stadium, no less.)

I played the best competitive game of my life and rinsed him 3-1. Second competitive win of my career.

Elated, I toddled back to the bell-end (guy had a real attitude all day, I thought) and told him I'd won. Second round at the UK Open regional qualifiers!! Awesome!...except I wasn't. Eh? Apparently, because the numbers were odd, what I'd just won was a preliminary; it didn't count. If I were to win the tournament, I would have done so by playing an extra game than everybody else. As I was still on a high from my win, I just accepted this news, but when I thought about it later it seemed to me that this wasn't right. Surely there should have just been a bye for someone then? Anyone who knows anything about tournament structures, feel free to weigh in on this issue.

Either way, in my second round/first round game, I lost 3-0 in a VERY close game against a superior opponent; but only slightly so, I thought, and that in itself told a story. 500 hours ago, I would have been terrified of this guy, but now I was not only unafraid but I could give him a game that on another day could have gone my way.

This makes my cracker-ass performace in my first league game all the more frustrating...but if there's one tale of woe I hear time and again on the forums and in person, it's one of inconsistency, so I know this is something common. Even so, I decided to take a £20 gamble and pay the folks at dartscoaching.co to analyse my throw. It works for golf swings, so why not darts throws?

The problem with the game of darts is that it can't REALLY be taught; different things work for different people. The key thing overall though is consistency, and this can only come from biomechanics that are repeated identically every time, all the time, and then adjusted to suit for the required targets at any one time. Therefore I thought paying for an online throw video analysis might be worthwhile.

And if you fancy seeing the video yourself it can be found here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kRppDoQFV0E&feature=player_embedded
And if you can be bothered to read the analysis, you can download it from here:
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=KX8F6UR4

Basically, in a nutshell, it can be summed up as this: Thowing action, release, and follow through all very good. But something I didn't know before now; I've been moving my head. What difference this will make to my game once I stop this from happening remains to be seen.

Before I get into the actual stats of my progress (which may be a bit much for some of you to plough through) I thought, after a brief look at earlier entries, that some of these needed mentioning. I chose my first darts after throwing a 58 in the shop, like this is something to be proud of. Today, a 58 is a total cock-up. I hoped to be 'well into the 30 (darts) checkout zone.' Now I hope to be checking out below 21 darts; once upon a time, a 19 or 18 darter would mean a screaming lap of the house and a call to my girlfriend. Now it's just a little 'ah, well done' in my head. They happen all the time. I did also mention something about practicing in pubs to stave off the cabin fever of being in the house. I think there's a LOT of truth in this, but this would mean practicing without my carefully selected shows on the background, and that would be a big loss. I have to find some sort of middle ground, I think; I miss pub practice.

So, for the dedicated, let's break this little 500 hour retrospective down into sections (If you're not interested in the stats, just skip this part.)

3 Dart Average: Initially, this hovered around the 45 mark, before drifting into the mid 50s at around the 300 hour mark, although this would be on a good day, and would not hold up in competition. A bit of a tweak of darts, and this became a consistent 55, but it took a key revelation via usage of a Winmau SightRight to discover my stance was all out of goose. That, combined with another switch of darts, took my average into the 60s at around the 400 hour mark, leading me to set a goal of a consistent 70 average by the end of April. Didn't quite make it....but I now am proud of a consistent 65-70 average.
Goal For Next 500 Hours: Consistent 70 by the end of May, consistent 80 by year end.

Checkouts: Initially inconsistent, frustrating, and constantly extending each game. By about the 400 hour mark, my checkouts are now, I would say, excellent. Funnily enough, the once-hated Double 20 has now become a fond friend.
Goal For Next 500 Hours: None in particular here. Just keep improving.

n01: Long time readers (if any) will remember this as the program that simulates an opponent for me to practice against. For a long time I was playing level 4 and getting beaten, then level 5 and getting beaten. From about the 450 hour mark I am now playing against level 6 and, usually, by the end of practice I would say 70% of the time we're tied in games, 25% of the time I've won more, and 5% is his. I'm happy with that at this stage.
Goal For Next 500 Hours: To consistently beat level 7 and start to give level 8 a game.

Mental Game: Easily still my weakest part-as could be said for nearly every player-although this has gone from letting me down in competition every single time, to going from the sublime to the ridiculous; massive confidence to zero after 3 bad darts. But at least it's an improvement, and I put this down to increased competitive exposure. As you have already read, this has increased and will continue to do so.
Goal For Next 500 Hours: See a fucking hypnotherapist or SOMETHING. Will definitely do this.

Number Of Darts To Checkout: See above.
Goal For Next 500 Hours: Get it regularly below 20. n01 only remembers your number of darts to checkout on winning games; pretty much every day I'm winning in an average of 21 darts, but thats obviously only the winning ones. Still, I want to get that winning average at 20 or under.

And so, with that, I shall retire to bed for the evening, and a stronger-than-ever resolve to attain darting greatness. I think that's the best thing I can say; though my love of the game has been through peaks and troughs, I love it now more than ever. And I think it's also appropriate to say that those of you who actually read this bullshit-be you readers from the start, total newcomers, or somewhere inbetween-thanks very much for taking the time. I really appreciate it, and I mean that. Onto the next 500.

And then the next 9000. FUCK.

Stay Hungry,

The Straight Shooter.

PS If you actually enjoy the aforementioned bullshit, you can download my novel The Physics Of The Dead for whatever eBook reader app you have on your smartphone, iPad, or even PC. Just visit lukesmitherdbook.blogspot.com from whatever device you want to read it on, and follow the link. I'll actually kiss you on sight if you do. And hell, if you own a Kindle (or have a Kindle app) you can find it on the Kindle Store under Luke Smitherd. Thanks all.

Day 461-Competitive Spirit (And Mixer, And Cider), The Shame Of The Straight Shooting One, An Unpleasant Run-In: Part TWO, 'Hello Stoke On Trent!', Front Loading And Sighting Right, Cracking The 60+ Average, and The Future Of Darts XII

2011-04-07T12:45:00.000-07:00

Hours Of Practice-477
Miles Walked On The Oche-381.6

Good afternoon; as I write, I have one eye on the clock, as it ticks down towards 6pm. At that point I must gather my things and trudge (drive) my weary way down the M1 towards Derby for an appointment I do not wish to keep. Sigh...but more on that later. For now, let your love flow as we delve together into the past month or so in the world of the Straight Shooting One, to find the treasures that lie therein. I can see them. They look like pork scratchings.

Firstly, draw your eyes to the practice hours total above; I've been hitting the Oche hard. That, along with my new promise to myself to attend a minimum of two tournaments a month, has had my feet firmly embedded in the world of darts, and this is a good thing. In fact, since the last blog entry I've entered 5 tournaments, and achieved...well, there's a few stories to tell first. They begin with the realisation of a need for ruthlessness.

Too much friendliness at tournaments from me. Not focused enough. Too much concern over how my game was being perceived rather than just thinking about getting the thing won. And so I'd made up my mind to minimise the banter and maximise the sheer, bloody-minded determination to win.

And so, typically, at the next pub tournament (that shall be unnamed) my opponent (who shall be given the same treatment) was the friendliest, most pleasant chap I'd had the pleasure of playing against, with whom I was powerless to not return the light hearted chit-chat. But then I REALLY let myself down.

After claiming the first throw via nearest bull, by a sheer moment of idiocy, I managed to throw both of my first two darts clean over the 20, landing side by side just above the double. My opponent-a thoroughly nice chap, who even remembered my name-interjected, and said 'Luke, it's not double in you know.'

He'd seen where my darts had gone, and assumed I wasn't aware of the tournament rules and was aiming for the double, thinking I was playing league rules and trying to hit a double to begin my scoring. He was giving me an opportunity to start again.
And, darts fans, I am ashamed to say, that in a moment of confusion and a flash of 'BE RUTHLESS!' running through my head...I said 'Oh! Of course...tsk...' then walked over to the board, AND TOOK MY DARTS BACK. I watched his good-natured, we've-all-done-it smile on my way back to the oche line and realised all I needed was for my head to turn into that of a donkey, Warner Brothers cartoon style, replete with t-shirt saying 'Jackass.' I felt smaller than Jo Whiley's charisma. And for the rest of that game, I couldn't shift the guilt, despite trying to convince myself that I was simply taking advantage of an opportunity to win (ruthlessruthlessRUTHLESS) and failing completely. I had straight up cheated, and I knew it. My game went to pot, and I found myself thinking 'I hope this guy wins,' just so I could get what I deserved. He did. I was relieved.

There is ruthless, and there is ruthless, and then there is cheating. The Straight Shooting One made a judgement of error, and swears it will never happen again.

But now for an update to an incident that regular blog readers (all 2 of them, including my girlfriend) will remember.

At my most recent outing, a saturday afternoon tournament at a social club in Birmingham, I saw a familiar face; the man I'd given a piece of my mind to when I'd felt slighted by his lack of courtesy after I'd scored for him at two separate occasions. The concerningly-I realised, with the clarity of a sober man-large man I'd given a piece of etc etc.

Now, since the first run-in, having given the matter some thought, I'd realised I was in the wrong. I've even nearly forgotten to say thanks to a scorer after a game simply because my head was still in the game, so it's easily done-though not right-and I caused a scene where it wasn't necessary. So I'd decided already, should I ever see him again, to apologise and buy him a beer. Looking at the size of the man, I decided I'd probably better up that to two beers, and full access to my girlfriend should he so wish.

The question was, how to bring about a situation where I COULD apologise, especially when in all likelihood he wouldn't even remember me. However, this would soon be resolved, for the gods of darts proved they have a sense of humour; I was playing in the first round, and it turned out he would be scoring for my game.

Irony, my friends.

So my opponent and I began warming up, and if he recognised me, he gave no sign. Taking a deep breath, I threw my practice darts and addressed him directly at the same time.

"I owe you a pint mate."

He looked at me, slightly confused, and I followed up with a smile and said, "You don't remember me do you?" He shook his head no, smiling slightly himself. I collected my darts from the board and walked over. "I'm the guy who drunkenly moaned at you after-" He interrupted me with a click of his fingers and a point, smiling fully as it dropped into place. "Wolston." He said, naming the venue. "Yeah, that was me. Look, I just wanted to say I was out of order and I'm sorry-" He waved it away, shaking his head. "Nah, don't worry about it mate." "Well, I owe you a pint, so I'll buy you one when I'm done here," I replied, offering my hand. He took it. "Nice one mate, nice one. What was the name?" he asked, meaning for the scoreboard. "Luke."

"Right. You've just lost then!" he said, and laughed, and I felt very good that the whole thing had been resolved.

And, despite going two legs down, and despite being observed by someone who I knew was an excellent darts player...I won my first competitive tournament game.

It was a crap game by both our standards, but the main thing was I was not only the guy who'd kept his head and won it, but I'd had to stage a comeback to do so. I felt like the king of the world.

But I haven't played in a tournament since, as I've undergone a change in employment.

In an industry (entertainment) where reliable, steady income is always at risk, ongoing economic fears have lead to the most lean Christmas and January of my professional life, and so I decided to forgo the convenience of a super-sweet but highly unreliable residency at a bar on the other side of the street from where I live, in exchange for going back with my old agent and going back out on the road around the Midlands. This mainly means one thing; social club audiences.

These can be notoriously hit and miss. Some clubs are brilliant, full of people who have actually come out for a good time, to socialise, to literally eat, drink, and be merry. And then there are those venues whose patrons have come out solely because they don't know-or try to think-what else to do, and to play Bingo. Note the capital B.

In the main, so far, I've been lucky. And, most importantly of all, my diary has gone from empty to full in a matter of weeks, and so I'm delighted with my decision. But the big downside is the hours at which I've been getting home, often on Sunday nights and midweek. This has meant getting up later, and then my whole day is a shambles if the routine is broken. I can't get my head together, can't concentrate; the whole sleep issue thing again. But the main thing is that practice, though affected, has still been pressing on.

And most importantly, improving, thanks to the aforementioned extra hours and two new bits of kit. A new set of darts, and the Winmau SightRight.

Liking the 26g Dennis Priestly darts I'd been using of late-darts with a significant extra weight towards the front end, or 'front loaded' as they say-but unhappy with the grip, I started a thread on double16.com darts forum asking for suggestions of similar, more grippy front-loaded darts. The response was fantastic, and eventually I settled on a set of Hi-Tec Vice in 26g. Not only have these improved my game, but combined with the Winmau Sightright my average is now solidly around the 65 mark, and often in the low 70s (my goal is to have it firmly locked in the 70s by the end of April.) The SightRight is basically a piece of kit that you place under your dartboard, directly under the bull, and look at from the oche line. If the two white lines on it appear to be in line, then you are stood in the right place. If not, you're off centre. To my great surprise, I was actually slightly too far to the left. The idea of the thing is that, over time, you will stand in the correct place naturally.

Many-including myself-thought it might be a bit of a gimmick, but I have to say I swear by it; my general standard and average shooting up to the point where 19-21 darters are commonplace, and the trebles are dropping in all the while. If you want to tweak your game, google it; they're about £20 delivered. Or you could just build your own if you can be arsed.

Apologies for the slightly subdued tone for this month's blog; I started this over a month ago, and haven't managed to get it finished. So I swore to myself I'd get it finished today, as there's actually more news to tell-and more interesting news, thank heavens-but that has to be for another time. Sigh. I'll get it up real soon, as the bishop said to the actress.

Stay Hungry,

The Straight Shooting One

Day 376-Baximum To The Maximum, Earlier Start Equals Better Finshes, The Bigger Pitcher, Fear Of Small Children, and Club Smithero-The Photo Tour

2011-01-12T05:39:00.000-08:00

Hours of practice-338

Miles Walked On The Oche-287.3
Good afternoon; see? I told you I was back on it. And so to prove it, here's a blog update EVEN sooner than anyone anticipated, or more importantly, wanted. But humour me like you have been doing and you'll be finished before you know it, and can get back to something more important. What that might be, I can't imagine.

Happy new year first and foremost; you'll notice an increase in the practice hours, though not as many as I'd like. I was pretty badly ill, like many at the time, over Christmas, which put me on my ass for about a week since the last blog, then family time at Christmas, then busy with December gigs (busiest time of year traditionally, as opposed to January, which we'll come to shortly) so it's been tough to cram as much in as I'd have liked. Still, once new year was out of the way, I've been getting in a solid 4 hours per weekday. What's that you say? "Woah, woah, hold on there Straight Shooter; not that we ever think enough of ourselves to even CONTEMPLATE correcting you, but we remember very clearly in your last blog-as we always memorise ever word you bless us with-that you said you were going to drop you practice hours to 3 hours a day? Please don't exercise your wrath upon us."

Calm down. You're correct, I DID say that; I have simply approached the issue a different way. Let me explain.

I thought about it-the reducing practice to three hours due to time constraints issue-and decided I didn't like it. But the time issues simply weren't going to go away. So I used my usual, Alexander-The-Great-when-confronted-with-the-Gordian-Knot-esque technique of powerful, decisive action ("Fuck it!") and switched back to four hours. I was simply going to have to get up earlier.

Now, take a moment to be honest with yourselves. Those of you with daytime-based jobs; if you were suddenly confronted with the task of setting your own hour of getting up in the morning, I'm guessing 95% of you certainly wouldn't be up any time sooner than 9:00am. Those that say otherwise either are liars or people that love going to bed at 8. Personally, I always like to be up at about 9:00/9:30, seeing as I generally don't go to sleep til about midnight. As has been well documented here, I have a lot of trouble with sleep generally, so as you can guess, early starts and I don't always see eye-to-bleary, bloodshot eye. So I've been pretty pleased with myself for consistantly getting up at that time when a: I sleep like The Flash on crystal meth, and b: I don't HAVE to get up that early seeing as my work is all on weekends.

So, the solution to the four hours a day whilst having time to get anything else done, eat, exercise, walk the dogs and have any kind of life-i.e, get up an hour earlier at 8:00/8:30-was a fairly daunting one. But if I was going to stay serious about this, I would have to do it. Those of you scoffing at the idea of being nervous about getting up at 8:00 ("I get up at 6:30 every day!! Ha ha!!"-well done for having a job that makes you get up extra early to enthusiastically suck The Man's filthy cock. Have a congratulatory breath mint) try doing your day when you wake up 6 times a night. Then we'll discuss how wonderful you are.

And, so far, it's working. I had the genius idea of letting the dogs sleep in the bedroom floor, seeing as they'd wake up and get excited when Angela got up to go to work, and would be jumping all over the place thus keeping me awake and stopping me from hitting that snooze button. I have to tell you, all the willpower in the world counts for nothing when you don't have to get up for anyone else but you. The thought process goes like this:

You at 11:00pm the night before: "I can't wait to get up early tomorrow! Seize the day! Get loads done! Unstoppable!!" (Go to sleep really wanting to get up, physically excited.)

You at 8:00am the next day: "mgghryeeaaaahhhh......blaaarggghghh...ALL I WANT OR CAN EVEN THINK ABOUT IS MORE SLEEP, AND THERE'S NO-ONE STOPPING ME FROM GETTING ALL THAT I WANT IN THIS WORLD BY MERELY PRESSING THIS BUT-ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzz..........

Unfortunately this genius plan backfired spectacularly with the dogs waking up even more reguarly than me, deciding that the square foot of duvet to their right was definitely more comfortable than the one they were currently occupying, or heading downstairs to the toilet via a click-click-clicking of claws on the laminate floor of the bedroom. This all added up to one of the worst night's sleep ever, and to two confused dogs being put back on their downstairs bed at 6:00am. My second solution was better; get Angela to leave the bedroom door open in the morning when she gets up for work, then to let them out downstairs after they've been behind their baby gate all night. No matter how sleepy I am, the sound of happy paws thundering up the stairs and wagging tails happily bounding onto the bed always makes me smile. And if it doesn't, the smell of dog breath and slavering tongues slopping noisily in my ear soon makes me get up just to get away from it. It's done the job so far.

So generally I stagger up at about half 8, then have a nice slow breakfast, and nurse my morning sugar free Red Bull (there's nothing like the first one of the day) til about 9:15, then make sure I'm on the Oche for half 9. I do an hour, have a short break for a very little snack (if I don't, about an hour and a half in I get pretty light headed. Only happens in the morning session. Wierd)
then get the second hour done. On a good day, the morning session is all wrapped up by 12:00 midday. Then a nice bit of dinner, take the dogs for a half hour walk, then back to crack on with whatever I'm working on for a few hours, then the afternoon two hours. Hopefully all sorted by about half 6, then tea with Angela, and whatever I'm doing that night. I find the whole thing strangely comforting; I'm in control of each day, and it's all achievable. The massive, massive downside is a distinct and rather crippling lack of human contact. This is something I'm attempting to address, and I'll let you know how that's going when I have more news. The dogs are very smart, but their conversational skills don't extend to much more than letting me know when they want a belly rub or need a shit.

But the consistent, lengthy practice has paid off; my previous record number of darts to checkout on 501 was 17. I smashed that in practice against the computer by pulling a 14 darter, much to my delight and the surprise of the dogs at my girlish, shrill scream of delight. That featured a 180 followed directly by checking out 107 in two darts (treble 19, centre bull.) And I put this down to an important adjustment to my technique.

After some horrific play recently, with my online league game against my strongest opponent yet featuring such staggeringly bad darts from myself that I was genuinely stunned and left wondering what the hell was going on. So I had a little look at my throw and realised what the problem was; I was throwing too low. I was aiming AT the lipstick, but my natural throw has a drop to it. I much prefer to use heavier darts than lighter ones, as I feel without the weight I have no control. To compensate for the weight you either have to throw harder, or allow for the drop (the 'parabolic path' of the throw, to use a wonderful term I picked up from Mr Silberzahn) and somewhere down the line, when I made a conscious effort to focus more into the treble merely than the 20 (see previous blog, if you can take more punishment) I'd forgotten this. I needed to pitch up more, allow for the drop to stop the dart dropping short of the line and landing agonisingly in the 5 or 1.

It worked; my average shot up into the 70s over the next few practice games. I felt great, hit the aforementioned 14 darter, and headed into my first tournament since last summer feeling very positive. In a last minute decision upon a bit of a search of the darting forums, I decided to attend the Cotgrave Open in Nottingham.

A much better atmosphere than the one listed in the last blog; a nice mix of people there for the craic and people focused on their darts (and I'm delighted to say I witnessed the general approach being one of making a point of not only thanking a player, but shaking their hand. Nice to see) and generally it was a positive vibe in the room (photos of the event to give you an idea can be found at this link: http://double16.com/3/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=15882&st=0&sk=t&sd=a I'm in one. See if you can spot me tucked away.

I stood in the warm up board queue, and my heart began to sink as, despite my breakthrough the previous day, my darts had reverted to awful. To add to my horror, a 13 year old kid was ahead of me in the queue comfortably throwing darts. He wasn't playing in the tournament was he?! Playing the way I was, I had horrific visions of being shown up in front of a baying crowd by the darting equivalent of Dougie Howser, MD. The only thing that could possibly worse was...

...confirmed as I glimpsed to my right. No word of a lie, a 12 year old girl was throwing in the queue opposite. The announcement over the pa of the start times for the juniors' and ladies' competitions could not have been more welcome when it came.

The poor form continued into my game. It was EMBARRASSING. It wasn't until the end that I realised what I was doing; I was trying so hard to 'focus and throw properly' that I was succeeding. Succeeding in producing the incorrect throw I'd been producing recently, and not adjusting for the higher pitch needed that currently feels unnatural and requires a deliberate effort to produce. I lost, and lost heavily, but knowing where I'd gone wrong and knowing how to fix it took a lot of the sting out of it. Onwards and upwards.

Anyway, to close out this installment of everyone's second favourite blog about trying to become a darts professional by a musician, comes the massive news of the official date of The Future Of Darts World Championships XII-February 26th, more on that nearer the time-but also, due to popular demand (4 people) I'm finishing with some photos ("Fuck me, SSLS! The blog has photos now too?! When do you stop GIVING?!??" The answer is 'When there is no more love in the world...') of my own home 'dream' darts throw and bar. Long in the planning, fumbling but successful in construction, wasteful in expense, crippling in debt, devastating in impact (when it collapses, as it doubtless will.) A guided tour, if you will, to give your a greater understanding of the world in which I find myself rattling around in all day going slowly insane. Let's

start with the external fluff:

This is the kitchen pool table...obviously. At Club Smithero, we don't just believe in darts. We believe in pool, too.

This is the living room oche. This isn't the main event; all the bells and whistles are in the bar, of course. But this is a nice, bonus oche should it ever be needed. Note the Eclipse Pro Trainer board-as mentioned in previous blogs-on this throw to give more training variety if needed. 60 to make this setup, including light and surround (not including board though.) Took about an hour, and I am CRAP at DIY. Very easy to do. If you want to know how, ask me.

This is the bar I built in the actual darts room (The Snakepit Lounge.) I must stress-HEAVILY-that that isn't me behind that bar. That's a friend of mine. I know you're looking at his hair and dress, and thinking 'FRIEND, eh?' No. Not that kind of friend. And that's not his purse on the bar stool either. Note the surround sound speaker built into the side/holding the whole thing up. Pretty proud of that.

THAT'S me behind the bar, in this not-at-all-posed shot. This kind of thing happens 24 hours a day in Club Smithero. Just with dogs. As mentioned last blog, The Snakepit Lounge also incorporates a hi-def 1080p projector with surround sound that provides us with a home cinema:

It can obviously also be used for Xbox Games too:

(That's Angela being forced to pose by the screen to give you an idea of it's size. She's 5'5".) And also can display the Sky TV feed from the living room:

And can be combined with the disco light box and mirror ball with some visualisers from the pc feed to switch it to club mode:

Actually, before we get to the main event, here's a picture of Club Smithero's other much-loved residents, sat in The Snakepit Lounge:

Angela, with Jeff and Lynne. Speaking of the latter, here's a close up:

This is where they sit and watch when I'm practicing.

This is them getting bored of watching and command me to feed them. This photo hasn't actually been touched up in any way.

So anyway...here's my pride and joy.

The first shot is with the tv as a monitor; as it's rigged to a pc, with a wireless keyboard that sits nicely on the bar, it runs n01/Dartpro and is also a fantastic scorer: The second is with it in TV mode. Here's a better shot of the scorer:

And a few close-ups of the Circumluminator/F.O.D.atron 5000:

So there you go! It took a lot of work, but let me stress as I did last time; a lot of it was done on the cheap/smart, and the only things that really cost were the projector and the FODatron. And they were only after a long period of saving, so this isn't me trying to be flash. It IS stuff I'm very proud of, but not in a look-what-we-can-afford kind of way, because these are all one-off, much saved for purchases. All those 'special favours' in back alleyways were all worth it in the end. If only I could stop brushing my teeth.

Anyway, as usual, thanks for reading; it's genuinely appreciated. And hey-HEY-if you've enjoyed this installment, why not leave me a comment? I'm regularly surprised by the amount of people that have mentioned they read this shit, given that I only have 6 followers (HINT) so let me know you're out there. Let's call a spade a spade-I'm an attention whore, and STAGGERINGLY needy. Anyone who has a blog is, didn't you know? Love me. LOVE ME.

Until next time darts fans,

Stay Hungry,

The Straight Shooter

Day 342-THE DOUBLE UPDATE...An Unpleasant Run-In, Getting The Buzz Back, Club Smithero, Future Darts, Real McCoys, and The Tungsten Mind-Meld

2010-12-09T12:19:00.000-08:00

Hours Of Practice-315
Miles Walked On The Oche-268

(I actually started this update way back in September and didn't finish it for reasons I shall shortly explain; so read the first bit which was written way back then, and I shall pick up from where this first entry leaves off later...so here's what I started nearly two months ago...)

Day 254
Hours Of Practice-274
Miles Walked On The Oche-232.9

Hi. Remember me?

Well, the blog is back (thankyou for the enquiries :-)) and before we go any further, a few of you may have noticed something a bit different from the off; no average number of darts to checkout count. I'll explain why later. But first, I'd better bring you up to speed, make my apologies, and explain my absence...

First and foremost, don't worry, Darts Fans. The Straight Shooter and his Arrows Of Outrageous Fortune are as dedicated as ever. Following the Terrific Tungsten Trail To Total Titanic Triumph. Taking the Transatlantic Train ToS iphasdlkhalkjfhafpiudqHIFUGQHFIUBHFucking darts. Whatever, what I'm trying to say is I'm still at it, and still committed with great enthusiasm. I just...lost my way for a little while. Here's what happened.

Shortly after my last blog entry, I entered into a tournament. I honestly can't remember which one it was, and if it was one of the ones on the list I made earlier. I certainly didn't play in the England or Nottingham open, because I haven't entered a tournament since then.

On this occasion, as my brother was going to be joining me lat er that day to come to a friend's birthday do that afternoon, he offered to come along to the tournament too as he was interested to see what a tournament was like. Unfortunately for his girlfriend, she got dragged along
too...as did mine.

So I was looking forward to it, having enjoyed the previous events I'd played in (played in 2 others, including the one previously mentioned at the Pint Pot) and when I turned up, this one was...wierd.

From the off, I felt deeply uncomfortable. As a professional musician, I'm used to turning up at venues where I don't know anyone. I'm used to social clubs, and the staggering ignorance that some of the regulars can display when presented with someone they dont recognise (blatant and open staring, cow-like, slack-jawed, punchable expressions) and though I've played a lot of very nice venues, received very warm welcomes and had a real laugh with a lot of the punters, I've been to an equal share of shitholes that are full of dosy fat scum. So I'm used to being stared at. I'm used to having to ignore people's stupidity, and used to having to bite my lip and not ask what the problem is.

But this was just...odd. The place itself seemed nice enough, the barstaff were great, but bloody hell, there was just an ATMOSPHERE. It got even worse when Angela turned up (she'd gone to park the car whilst I'd rushed in to register, and had a nightmare finding a space) as between her bright red hair and my spiky hair, and the fact that she was the only woman in there under 40, the stares got ridiculous. One guy in particular we both clocked; every time I looked up, he was staring at Ange. It got so bad I took to staring at him myself, to let him know he was being seen
(not something I ever normally do) and once he'd caught my eye a few times, he must have known he was rumbled, as he moved to the other side of the room.

When my brother turned up, he noticed as well. Within five minutes of being there, he said "Bloody hell...it's a bit..." and gestured in such a small way with his hand that it told me all I needed to know about how he felt. It just was not a nice place to be.

Don't get me wrong. It wasn't ROUGH. I didn't think for one second that there would be any trouble; there wasn't a hint of that. It was just very clear that, despite it being an open tournament and the majority of people not knowing each other, we were somehow different, and they knew it.

For the first time, instead of feeling relaxed and happy, I was deeply uncomfortable.

Anyway, my name was called out, and I went up for my game, where I played against a guy that clearly spent a lot of time in the pub, evident by not only his darting prowess but his immense waistline. I'm not being mean-give the man his dues, he could really play-but he was HUGE. He looked like the Michelin man in a nylon polo shirt. I was genuinely worried by his red face; I thought he was going to keel over at any moment. Regardless, I lost to a better player after an amazing start, in which having family there was, in hindsight, a bit of a hindrance. On my first two trips to the oche I scored a hundred each time, and therein lay my downfall; I was up against a clearly strong opponent, had started in a way that was definitely in my opponents league...and I knew it, and my watching brother knew it, and we both knew the other knew it. I was that busy trying to keep a straight face-and he KNEW I was trying to keep a straight face-that I just went to pieces after that. I got it back in the last two games, but too late. Anyway, no big deal.
But that's when it got more awkward.

As tournament ettiquette states, the losing player waits by that board and scores the next game on it. Again, no problem (I'm getting used to it...) But that's when the next player stepped up, who just happened to be the guy I'd scored for at the previous week's tournament. The guy who'd pissed me off the last time I scored for him...

Let's flashback a week previous. Same scenario; lost at a tournament to another old pro. No problem. So I stand by the board waiting for the pair of opponents to come over so I can score their match. But then this chap comes up to play-let's call him...Roger-and something's off. I say hello when he turns up to play? Silence. Ok. I get it. That's his game face. Fine. But...BUT...once the game is over, and he's won (he was good, very good) and he and his opponent shake hands. And then without as much as an over the shoulder 'cheers mate', he walks off without a word like I'm not even there.

This got right under my skin.

To me, please and thankyou, even for minor things, are just common courtesy and decency. If you hold a door for someone, they should say a cursory 'Ta'. If you want to get past someone in a bar, you say 'Excuse me'. And if someone stays behind at an event when they've been beaten-when they don't have to and are doing it out of respect for fellow players, especially when half of the people don't even bother-it takes nothing just to say 'Cheers'. So to me, this was straight up rude, and very annoying. His opponent even said a quick thanks, but he still just walked off.

So here I am, at the scoreboard a week later, and as it turns out, I get the same guy. Id already decided the week before that if anyone did it again, I would say a little something if there was no acknowledgement-a sotty 'You're welcome' or something equally expressing light disapproval, bordering on camp-and here was the SAME FELLA. And sure enough...he did it again.

Right, I thought. I'm not having this. The 3 or 4 pints I'd had helped to dull the fact that he was a good 6'4", and I wasn't going to go ape at the guy; I was going to calmly make it clear that it was just rude. So he's at the organiser's table, telling them the result (he'd won again. Like I said, the guy was very good) and I came up behind him and said 'Excuse me, mate.'

-------------------------------------(this is as far as I got in September. From here on in is me taking over here today, on December 9th. I'll finish the story off before I go any further.)

So he turns around, and I say 'I scored for you last week, I don't know if you remember?' And the game face drops, and he holds his hands up and starts to kind of say 'Yeah, yeah I know,' in a way that, in hindsight, might have been apologetic/concilatory, but I'd got my mindset ready for
this and was already pressing forward to quickly to notice.

'You didn't even bother to say just a quick "Ta" then,' I continued, 'And you didn't even bother today. I just want you to know that people don't HAVE to score for you, they do it out of courtesy, and the least you could do is return that courtesy and just say "thanks mate."' All of which sounds good, but unfortunately he'd turned his back on me after I got about as far as "then." He clearly wasn't used to anthing like this, and in a mild panic but still trying to keep his cool he'd turned to the judges table and raised his hands, shaking his head, silently asking why and openly muttering something about 'fucking attitude.' I'd had enough by this point and left, my lot coming with me.

The whole experience left a very, very shitty taste in my mouth. Not just the rude guy, the whole day. The people, the atmosphere...all of it was just deeply unpleasant. Was this what I would have to deal with? Was this the sort of people I would regularly have to endure? I just suddenly lost all enthusiasm, and found myself making excuses not to practice. I always knew I WOULD practice again, but it would always be tomorrow. Darts suddenly felt very bleak and crappy, when before just thinking about the game got me excited.

This went on for a good six weeks. And over time, I mulled over what had actually happened.

The experience with the rude guy was, in fact, me making a mountain out of a molehill. This guy was clearly a good player, so he clearly spent a lot of time at tournaments. And something I realised when I actually thought about it was this; his OPPONENT didn't bother saying thankyou either. Nor did his other opponent the week before. And I came to realise that at tournaments, the majority DON'T bother saying thankyou; thats just the way it's done. Do I think it's rude and crappy? Hell yes. Should I take it personally and complain? Hell no. I'll just do it my way, say thankyou, and if other people are rude, that's just the way they see it done and are doing the same. Doesn't mean I should forget my manners.

And as for the unpleasant atmosphere, well, I think I got a shock. I'd been spoiled before at previous tournaments by the banter and friendly, pleasant atmosphere, and expected more of the same. But here was a serious tournament. People had not only turned up to win, but to psyche each other out. And I hadn't been ready for it. And really, aren't they right? You can enjoy your play, but ultimately, it's a competition. You have to take it seriously to get good. And decided that now I knew better, then I wasn't going to let it bother me. Some tournaments were going to be a nice atmosphere, some were going to be bad, and I would just have to be able to shift my mindset between the two. I'd had a nasty surprise, it had killed my enthusiasm, and when I realised all this I saw that I had a choice. Stop playing, or get on with it. And I sure as hell wasn't going to stop playing. So I picked up my darts and got back on the oche, full of vigour and renewed energy.

And then we moved into an unfurnished house.

Yep, me and Angela upped sticks and moved into our own place, finally. A big, two bedroomed, two floor flat in Coventry at a surprisingly good price. This meant that the Dartmate could finally be used for it's purpose-mobile darts-and I could finally construct my dream darts, home cinema, and home bar setup. With a separate oche in the living room with the Eclipse Pro Trainer on it so I didnt have to keep swapping boards. The stuff of fantasy.

Unfortunately, before this could be done, there was shitload of other stuff to do on the house, and even when it was done, I had to gather all the things I would need for my oche setups, and even when THEY were done I had to spend days and days gathering the equipment and installing the home cinema, then finally gathering the materials and building the bar, and then housetraining our new puppies (they've quickly learned to sit BEHIND the oche line.) To put it into context; we only had our housewarming party, when the place was 90% finished, on the 20th of November. And even then the living room was pretty much bare. I only got the pictures etc up on the living room walls yesterday.

All of which means, basically that since the 14th of May, I've only gotten in 110 hours of practice. Thats 110 hours of practice in 126 days. That doesn't sound so bad, but it should be way, WAY more than that on the schedule I set myself.

Still, we are now settled, and so the practice can begin again in earnest, and yes, this blog will start to see regular updates again! One slight change, however, is that after noticing how other projects are suffering-Darts is priority, but I still need to increase my income and have a
couple of ideas to do so that I need to put more hours in on to make a reality, and so I have taken the decision to reduce the target from 4 to 3 hours a day, five days a week. I think that's still a strong amount of hours to get in, and more than is sensible for any human being, but a decision I've had to make with a heavy heart. Since we've moved, our outgoings have not only, obviously, shot through the roof, but in a piece of horrific timing, I've had my friday residency ended and my wages lowered. So I have much more severe financial demands than before, and I have to deal with them, and this needs time. It's not a lack of commitment to the cause, it's a severity of need for my life, unfortunately. Bah. Once it's sorted, back to four hours, man.

But the darts setup..oh baby.

The living room board looks great, but it's the Snakepit Lounge (the name of the darts/cinema/bar room...the kitchen has the pool table in it. I love our home, the poor man's Met Bar, Cllub Smithero. It all sounds expensive, but its not-pool table second hand, for example-and we were living at home for ages so I was able to save up...) oche that really kicks ass. I'll get some photos up soon.

I had a Circumluminator built in america; this is a fancy dart light surround that, as the name suggests, circles the board. It looks great when turned on, and even has 'The Future Of Darts' and 'Club Smithero' on it. I'll be honest, for the money it cost me I'm a bit disappointed with it,
as it's only really good as opposed to amazing (for the price, it needed to be amazing) but people are always thoroughly impressed by it. I have a verysmall flatscreen tv rigged up next to the board, which not only runs a tv feed through from the sky setup in the living room (I like my background shows to practice to) but at the flick of a switch flicks over to the pc I have wired in, controlled by a wireless keyboard that can control the software from anywhere, so I can use my Dartpro and n01 software.

Software which, ladies and gentlemen, is the future of the darts practice.

I've been using n01 for some time, and more recently Dartpro, but well get to that later. It's basically a piece of scoring software, available as a free pc download or as an app for your iphone (if you like to play darts and have a pc or an iphone, GET THIS.) It's great for use when playing
against friends, especially as I''ve downloaded the caller sounds for the home pc; so your score is actually called out, as the scoring is done for you, and the wireless keyboard means no-one is ever in the way. But where it REALLY becomes a vital training aid is when you play against the
virtual opponent that comes with the game.

There are various skill levels to test yourself against, but basically it not only gets you into the mindset of a competition (far, FAR more fun than playing against yourself) but also takes a moment to show you your opponents score going in, dart by dart, so you get more used to the rhythm of a competition. I believe this is something vital to get used to. When you practice by yourself for hours on end, and then have a competitive match where you have to wait double the time you're used to between throws, I believe this is automatically going to throw you off.

Dartpro is a similar program (again, a free download) that, whilst it has no virtual opponent, it vastly more comprehensive stat collecting abilities (meaning you can collect your averages etc over several YEARS etc and have them instantly shown to you in a graph) but more importantly means you can play opponents online. You simply load up Skype, put your webcam facing your board, and set your frames and legs etc up on Dartpro and let it handle your scoring. This is not only awesome, but means I can now play in an online league. I've had 3 defeats, one by the previous champion, and one fairly sound beating, and one game that went right down to the last frame. In all fairness to myself, I've yet to have a game where I haven't been constantly distracted by the dogs, but that's down to a lack of mental toughness and being a dog psychology nerd. (TSST!!)

In other news, I've switched darts again. After realising that Phil Taylor's Phase 5 darts were the same 'bullet' shaped barrel as my Harrows Aliens, and that they were a gram lighter (noticing that whilst I like a heavier weight, my darts have a slight tendency to drop just below the
treble 20, and wondered if a lighter weight might help) I thought I'd give them a go. After a stiff drink and a nice lie down once I discovered they were 70 BASTARD QUID, I justified the cost to myself in the usual way ("Ah, it's fuck all in a 5 year plan") They arrived, and I liked 'em,
but was worried that I didn't have a matching spare set (I have about 9 different sets of darts now, but they're really 'guest' darts for when people come over. I believe you shouldn't use different darts when playing; it's vital to stay calibrated to your own) as I like ot have a spare
set in the van along with the Dartmate. You never know...

So anyway, I discovered a company called McCoy's that make, effectively, cheap knock off versions off the Phase 5s for a mere 25 quid, right down to the black finish. The grip looked a little chunkier, but otherwise, they were the same. I liked them so much that I actually preferred them to the Phase 5s (I preferred the thicker grip) so I sold my Phase on the darts forum I use and bought another set of McCoy's as a spare. If you'd
like to see my comparison video of the two sets (as well as my pathetic sales pitch) then visit the below link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m-9d0eOD110&feature=player_embedded

So far, I like 'em. I still have my Harrows should I ever change my mind, but we'll see. And so, to what I said right at the start; why I no longer have my average number of darts to checkout on the blog.

I recently bought a copy of Darts: Beginning To End by George Silberzahn. It's the only comprehensive book I can find that actually attempts to be a full, studied training manual for darts. It's not hard to see why; most people have such individual ways of standing, throwing, and gripping when it comes to the game that you can't really say 'here's the best way to do it' as most people do it individually. BUT, if you're not afraid to listen to advice and decide which to take on board and which to reject, George's is an excellent book as he stresses overall that you have to find your own way. He just waffles a lot. A LOT. And he's american, which is sounds odd to me (to us?) But they do play it, apparently...

Anyway, the thing he makes abundantly clear, over and over, is that you should never, ever, compete with yourself. It leads to negative thought patterns and pressure, and ultimately is a bad idea. He goes to great pains to make this clear, and I find myself agreeing with him. So no more darts to checkout results here, at least not for a while. Maybe this time next year, as a progress check? We'll see.

Something else I've been looking at is darts hypnotherapy.

Ok. I'll give you a minute to compose yourself.

Yes, darts hypnotherapy. As I've stated before in this blog, the weakest facet of my game-and a vital one-is my mental game. I have a fear of victory. It's like once I sense victory within my grasp, I choke for no apparent reason. This needs to be stomped out, needs to be done through
competitive play and mental training. The competitive side is straightforward, but the mental? That's a little harder. And so I turned to the popcorn version of hypnotherapy; iTunes apps. The results were...unproductive. To my rather minimal surprise, there's a gap in the market not
being filled by darts hypnotherapy apps. I have general sporting, mental training apps, and focus developement apps, but no darts apps. I even found a hypnotherapy app, to my utter astonishment, called Improve Your Darts, but it just turned out to be a general sporting app that you could tack your own goals onto, as was utter clear from the minute the voiceover started referring to the goal of the audio as being 'this problem', and sounding so well-bred that he probably would think a dart is always prefixed by the french pronunciation of Object.

Or so I thought, until one day I thought I'd give it a go before bed. As I was starting to drift off to sleep-as I often do with these things, incredibly, being someone who literally has to take drugs to control his sleeping patterns-I heard the word 'darts' come over my headphones! I nearly jumped out of bed! I could barely keep a straight face listening to someone who has clearly never played the game discussing it in his slow....hypnotic....voice.....I listened to it all the way through, then ran downstairs to test it out; and immediately threw two 180s in a row!!

Of course I didn't really, but I've being using it a lot, and as someone who believes in the benefits of hypnotherapy-even if it only works as a placebo-we'll see if any good comes of it.

Well, that's it for now Darts Fans. Again, apologies for the delay-I knew it was long, but none since May? It won't happen again-and thanks for reading. I'll get some photos of the Snakepit Lounge up soon and a new list of competitions for next year. I'll hopefully get another entry up
before Christmas, but just in case I don't, have a great Christmas and a safe new year. And think of me; i'll be at work. And if any of you are on Skype, have a dartboard and a webcam and fancy a game against the Straight Shooting one, let me know; get Dartpro downloaded and I'll see you on the oche.

Stay Hungry,

The Straight Shooter.

Day 128-FUUUUCCKKKK, Contemplative Reflection, Dimplex Disaster, Going Hardcore, Let's Play Knockout Darts, Stage One Complete, and The Torture Board

2010-05-14T08:20:00.000-07:00

Hours Of Practice-205
Average Number Of Darts To Checkout-29
Miles Walked On The Oche-174.25

Ok, let's get this out of the way first.

I lost The Future Of Darts XI. (See previous blog entry.)

Anything I say to follow that now will only be perceived as making excuses, whining, or trying to put a false spin on what actually happened, and there ARE some things I would like to say about it; so let me say from the off that there was no excuse for losing. None. I won't attempt to try and excuse it. But I WILL say what my feelings about the tournament are, as much of it as I can remember (which, as usual, isn't a vast amount...I'm not the only one.)

I played well in the group stages; and something I realised after the tournament was-to my credit-I was never really aware of any of my opponent's scores. I felt so confident, and was playing at such a good degree that I didn't ever really worry about what they were doing, which for me, with my never-shutting-the-fuck-up mind rattling away 24/7, is a big deal. It came to the semi-finals, and yes, I was a little worse for wear on several pints if Strongbow, but this is par for the course for F.O.D. World Championships. Besides, I played my best darts of the day in that semi; double trouble on the first leg hampered me, and once I was in I was throwing comfortable 80s, but too late. The second leg was regarded by many there as the best leg in F.O.D. history (which, although it sounds impressive, given the hazy recollections of past tournaments is a highly unreliable statement; it was a hell of a leg though.) I didn't play to my best-which is my fault-however, I still played very well, as did my opponent, Craig 'The Lord Of The Board' Nicholls. Bottom line, I was first to a finish, and had three darts at my favourite double. I bent the wire on all three, out my a gnats knacker. He had three at double tops, and hit it on the second dart, taking the place in the final, the rabid, delighted cheers of my alleged friends (fuckers) and a small piece of my soul.

Ouch.

I can't really complain; what can I say? Craigy played really well, reaching his first final in the last five tournaments. He turned up on the day, and deserved to win. I had to produce my best darts under pressure, and unlike my opponent, I didn't. Good darts for me? Yes. Great darts for me? No. And like I say, that isn't to disrespect Craigy; half the skill of being a good darts player is producing your best when you need to. He did, I didn't, and therefore on the day the better man won. Even though he's Ginger.

I was quite surprised at how well I took it, to be honest. I was fine until sat in the Allesley Village Harvester the next day with Angela and, laughing over a barbecued chicken that tasted like dried rubber due to both horrific hangover and shit kitchen staff, realisation fully hit me. I nearly threw up at the table, but again, that could be laid at the door of the Strongbow.

Funnily enough, I'd sent my brother an update text during the tournament saying something like 'Breezing through the group stages, already qualified foir the semis, just Craigy in my last group game for bragging rights.' He said the next day that when he'd received that, he knew I was going to lose. 'Why?' I said. 'Because he was in your head; you'd said beforehand he was the man to watch.' He was probably right; he was the only player I actually felt worried about, due to us practicing together most weekends. Craigy had also been overheard saying in the day, regarding me, 'I know how to beat him.' When I asked Craigy about this the next day, he refused to tell me what he'd actually done, but said he'd noticed a few things about me when I played that he thought he could manipulate a little bit.

This all was entirely new thinking to me. It never would have occured to me to watch a player and think about what I could do to throw him off his rhythm; I was only thinking about getting the darts right. But that's all part of the game, and not only is it something to keep in mind, and something I SHOULD have done, but a positive I took away from the tournament was this: I learned I had a mental weakness in my game. More on this later.

After the tournament, I took a week off practice. After that, the very idea of playing darts made me feel a little bit sick. But of course, the addiction slowly crept back in, and I began throwing again. People were asking 'Do you feel like all the practice has been a waste?' and though I felt crappy about practicing more, I can honestly say the answer was, and is, no. I played far better and with more confidence than I ever have before, and lost in the semi-finals to someone who played a better game. I'll just have to beat him next time. And do it so bad that in generations to come his descendants' first words will be 'Fuck me, The Straight Shooter took our great-great-great-great-great Grandad to school at darts.' And they'll be ginger.

So I'd made a ton of progress; how could that be a waste? I pressed on.

I did of course have to sit back and take stock. What had gone wrong? The first part was obvious. Being a musician/performer, I've always held to the theory that on the day, at best you will only be 80% as good as you are in your best practice days. Therefore, you have to get your practice performance to the standard that is ALWAYS 120% to properly turn up, if you get me.

On F.O.D. day, I probably was at about 70%. 80% in the semi. And when I wrote the last blog, I realised I'd been getting nowhere near 4 hours a day, five days a week. I'd been treating it as something optional, something to TRY and do; I realised that had to change. The main problem was time. With my job, most days of the week I can do as I please (which is nowhere near as much fun as it sounds when you want your life to actually go somewhere) and I never sleep particularly well, so I tended to get up about 10am. Add breakfast, dinner, the fact that Angela gets home about 6ish most days, and if you're playing four hours of darts a day you don't have much time left, or rather, you do your other stuff (I'm always working on some nonsense) and you don't have four hours left.

The answer, therefore, was to get up at 7:30am/8am. Hard for me (I have to take special tablets to moderate my body clock) but it just meant being more consistent with an 11/12pm bedtime (getting to sleep at a reasonable hour is next to impossible without the tablets. Melatonin-which I discovered a year ago-has literally changed my life.) So for the last 3 weeks, that's what I've been doing, and the four hours a day has been achieved.

The result? I finally broke the 30-dart average barrier for my checkouts. Over 100-odd games, my average was 29 darts.

Feeling rejeuvenated, I entered a small level charity tournament two weeks ago in a pub in Sutton Coldfield ('Let's Play Knockout Darts!') that I found on the Uk Darts Forum (an excellent resource folks, no doubt about it...) This is discovering that I'd got the dates wrong for my UK Open qualifier in Solihull. BASSSStard. Some lucky sod waltzes through thanks to me . If you're reading this, you're welcome, but know you are a fraud.

It's was a nice place, and a nice atmosphere, and I felt good; I read a great piece of extremely simple advice in the article 'How The Pros Do It' by Ken Berman (quite simply the most useful one I have ever read. Read it here at http://www.crowsdarts.com/dprosdoit.html I found that via THIS website, which is phenomenal: http://www.dartbase.com/nojs.htm If you're in any way interested in getting into darts, you HAVE to go there.) Simply put, it basically says that even when you throw bad darts, stand up like a champion, and carry on. Don't worry. That sort of thing usually just bounces off my skull ineffectively ('Don't worry, she'll love you no matter how long you take, if you worry you'll only make it WORSE!!!') but that really seemed to stick with me.

Plus, I felt better with my actual darts. Before the tournament, I'd been played with leaf shaped, dimplex flights (dimplex being an almost mini-'bubble wrap' effect on the surface of the dart. Apparently it reduces spin, if you want that. I found this out after I'd been using them for a while; I like spin.) All I knew was that Dimplex was supposed to be a good thing, and I'd given these flights a try and stuck with them. My last set of those got damaged, so I started using the flights I had left, some Ameri-thon brand, non Dimplex kite-shaped darts (I now have an overwhelming amount of stems and flights. I will never allow this running-out-of-shit situation to happen again.) I liked these, and found I played better with them. Then I had a brain wave. Played well with Dimplex leaf shaped flights? Played BETTER with non-Dimplex kite shaped flights? Play BEST with Dimplex kite shaped flights!!

So I ordered some two weeks before F.O.D. After the tournament, when I just couldn't seem to get my game quite right, I tried the smooth Ameri-thons again, and marked the point in the checkout dart tally where I switched flights from the Dimplex ones; 36 games. To test it, I played 36 games with the Ameri-thons. My average was one dart better with the Ameri-thons. Doesn't sound like much, but it is.

Bastard.

Anyway, my darts case was now stuffed to bursting with Ameri-thon flights, and in the warm-up I swas playing out of my skin and feeling good. Angela, bless her wonderful soul, had driven me there so I could drink, and didn't complain once when it turned out the start was delayed by two hours. She's either a wonderful girlfriend or I'm a really amazing boyfriend. I think we all know which it is, darts fans.

Tournament atmosphere is great; hustle and bustle, drink and banter. Lots of people who love their darts, some deadly serious, some who are up for a chat. Bullshit flying around the room. Great. The guy I was chatting to keep coughing. 'You alright?' I said. 'Yeah. Just recovering from bronchitis.' The professional singer wished he'd warmed up on board 5.

My opponent clearly played a lot of darts; I'd seen him warm up, and he knew his stuff, team shirt, the lot. I'd had three pints, felt just right, and felt happy. I lost the first leg, after playing far better than I had at F.O.D. I won the second, and despite an extremely close few legs, he went 3-1 up in a best 0f 7 game. But to my delight, I still felt ok. If there's one thing I know about darts, it's that comebacks are common. Especially when I knew that I hadn't let my head drop, and I was winning the leg despite him throwing first. If I could win this, suddenly it'd be 3-2 and wide open. I missed my finish, and he produced a big finish to win the leg and the match.

But I didn't mind. I'd played in a tournament and kept my head, and played better than at F.O.D. Being the loser, I had to score the next game.

It was a wake-up call. The standard was fantastic; constant tons, a few 180s. It was interesting to observe the 'danger' player fall apart once he went behind. I spoke to the winner when he came to get his darts. 'Is that your usual standard mate? That was brilliant!' 'I'm shaking, to be honest mate,' he said, only a few years older than me. 'That guy's a really good player.'

I came away with a feeling of optimism, and I realised something. I'd completed stage 1. I'd gotten my average checkout under 30 darts, I'd kept my head and played confidently in a tournament-better than other players there I'd watched-and had started solid, consistent practice. Hell, look at the number of hours played in the five weeks since the last blog.

But I'd seen where I needed to go next. I was, and still am, slotting 3 darts into the 20 with a fair amount of ease. That will win a lot of pub games, and that is something. But...the reason I lost that game was even though I literally was scoring 60, 60, 60, and my opponent fluffed a few arrows, he was hitting the TREBLE 20 more than I did and that made that 10% difference to win. The guys I'd seen after me were hitting it at least once every 6 darts, and that's WITH hitting the 20s, and I knew that I'd been settling for too little. I'd been happy with just hitting the 20, and hoping to hit the treble, but realised I needed to start gambling more and TRAINING to hit the lipstick, and risk more resultant 5s and 1s. I really had a feeling of 'Ok, you've reached the top of the first stage; now you're at the bottom of the second stage.' And that felt good.

And right on cue, about a week later, a darts catalogue came through my door. Amongst the myriad of other darts crap I bought (any old shit. I'm such a sucker) I saw the Eclipse Pro (the board I use, and the one they use in the Premier League) next to the Eclipse Pro Trainer, which somehow cost more. I couldn't see why, but then found it has 40% thinner doubles and trebles. This was a revelation to me. What a great idea! Train on that until it feels normal, then a NORMAL board will feel like a walk in the park! Though obviously it would utterly and catastrophically fuck my checkout average, if I could nail the action for a solid treble 20 hit on that bad boy, I'd be sorted. I paid up. ("Including a special micro bull for extra training torture!" It literally says that on the box. No joke.)

The first game I played on it I envisioned weeks of hell on this bastard. Even double 16 seemed harder to find than anyone other than a woman who would say Sarah Jessica Parker is fit.

But after about 4 games, a funny thing happened. I don't know if it was just the extra focus that came with knowing I was playing on such a hard-to-hit board, but I suddenly felt like I was playing on a normal one. The double were dropping in, and even if the trebles didn't, they were landing where they would be in the treble on a normal board. Hell, today I even threw two 22 darters, an 18 darter, and a 180 (this is the difference the extra practice made; before the true 4 hour adjustment, 180s never happened. Now they've started to creep in, and today's was the first one on the Pro Trainer.) I think this board is the best bit of training kit I've ever bought.

In fact, the above average is taken from BEFORE the Pro Trainer. I haven't done it yet, but the majority of checkouts are in the 20s, undoubtedly. However, there's a handful of 40s in there that may shaft the average...sod it, I'm gonna go work it out now. I'm no mathematician, butu to me, if it's 40% harder to finish and score big on, if my average is below a 40% increase, then I'm laughing. Right?....Right? Sod it, let's check.

Fuck me ragged.

Over 96 games, my average number of darts to checkout-on a harder board-is 28.

I've IMPROVED it by one dart.
I need to keep that board up.

It couldn't happen at a better time; after finishing work at probably about 2am, I'm driving to Wales at 7:30am on Sunday to play in the Welsh Open.

Well...Angela is. Wish us luck.

And join the blog as a follower, it only takes a minute!

Stay Hungry,

The Straight Shooter

Day 93-A Hated Sabbatical, The Mystery Man, The Dartmate, The Summer Gauntlet, and of course, The Future Of Darts XI

2010-04-08T13:35:00.000-07:00

Hours Of Pratice-130

Average Number Of Darts To Checkout-31

Miles Walked On The Oche-110.5

Far, FAR too long in between updates; this is because I record the number of darts taken to checkout for EVERY game of solo practice I play, and when it comes to add all the scores up and work out the average, it takes a long, long time. I hate the idea of doing an update without it, and so it was one of those things that kept getting put off. I think the answer is to maybe not update the average EVERY blog; we'll see.

That said...in the last 8 weeks, as you can see, I've shaved 6 darts off the average. Not too shabby. Getting it below 26 darts is slowly becoming a possibility...

So what's changed in the last 2 months? Well, for starters, I've left my old practice haunt in The Plough, Cramlington, simply because my girlfriend and I are now living in Derby whilst we find a house to hopefully buy (the pain of a stiff gazumping has not yet left us.) This is a double edged sword; not having a nice boozer close by with an often-free board has meant I've had to sort out a home darts set-up (more on that later) which has lead to an increase in practice hours (more on THAT later) but it's also meant I'm not really getting out of the house in the week. This is...troubling. Cabin fever and I have never been the best of friends. I need to address this somehow, and soon, especially as Captain Howdy keeps whispering to me in my sleep that I need to redruM Angela before she tells all the bad people all my special secrets...maybe thinking about strapping the old stomach-injury protecting belt and getting back in the gym might be a good idea after all.

Most annoyingly, shortly after the last blog injury, I caught an illness that laid me low for a good two weeks, during which time not one dart was thrown. When I nervously made my comeback on the dartboard, my average was shot. Badly. It took a long, depressing further two weeks to get back onto winning ways, and annoyingly, my encounter with Steve The Mystery Man came just before I'd really corrected my form.

One evening, upon arriving at The Plough, one of my two pseudo Plough chums (two guys that came in and sat at the bar every day I practiced there. Casual grunted hellos turned into brief conversation and saying bye upon leaving as the weeks progressed, and then questions-"Do you play for a team of something?") turned to the man I was surprised to see on the Oche (normally always empty) and said, "How, Steve, this fella'll give you a game", pointing to me. I had no idea who Steve was, but even though Steve seemed a bit reluctant to play, we shook hands and started playing, during which time he got more into it once he realised I was reasonable competition. It did become clear, though, after a few games that Steve was a better player than me; if he needed to correct an uneven score, 50% of the time he could hit a treble to correct it in style. I couldn't do that; even now, I'd say it was about 25% of the time that I manage it. But what made it really interesting was that throughout our marathon (19 games in total) three separate people asked Steve, as they entered the pub, questions along the lines of "Oh, Steve, right, you've taken up the darts again?" with mildly excited tones. Every time, Steve dismissively waved his hand and looked at the floor. "No, no..."

Who was this Steve? Why was his comeback to darts a minor league big deal? My mind raced with the possibilities. Former local darting hero? A FALLEN hero perhaps, maybe one who left the sport after killing an innocent spectator with a wild dart thrown in a rage...either way, the final score was 7-12 to Steve. A respectable score for me, I though, against a superior player. I'd love to play him now, see how I'd do.

Anyway, since temporarily moving home, realising that four hours a day (a hard target to hit at the best of times) is next to impossible at home without a dart board and a Mother terrified of even the smallest changes to her home, and also realising that generally I wasn't getting enough practice in when away on weekends working on gigs, I decided it was time to consider investing in a mobile setup. And so I bought a Dartmate (The F.O.D.atron 4000):

http://www.a180.co.uk/shop/product.php?xProd=542

One of the best investments I've ever made, frankly. The difference it's made to my practice is phenomenal. Being able to walk into your living room and throw as opposed to heading to the pub speaks for itself, plus being able to take it anywhere for a game is a big blessing. As you'll see, the number of hours practice I've racked up is nowhere near four hours a day; until I bought the Dartmate I was averaging about an hour a day. The only reason it's as high as it is the amount of extra hours I've gotten in since the few weeks I've had it.

Practice is going well; I've moved on from Round The Clock Doubles to Round The Clock Ledgendary Endurance. I won't go into the rules today, it'll take too long, but I've only done it twice and it took an hour and a half each time. You bust out so much I had a light sweat by the end from the constant pacing.

I know I said I was going to explain this time why I'm a PDC man through and through, but that's gonna have to wait agai; there's more important news to say. Well, important news, and VERY important news.

Important news first. I have a list of my first tournaments for this year, all throughout the summer. Here it is:

April 5th-Lincolnshire Open

May 2nd-UK Open Regional Qualifier

May 16th-Welsh Open

June 6th-Worcestershire Open

June 20th-Nottinghamshire Open

26th June-England Open

Not too unrealistic, I think; the UK open is particularly exciting. Get tothe last 32 in that one, then I get to play in the Pro qualifiers...unlikely, but hey, fuck it. And yes, the Lincolnshire Open was last week. I paid my £10 entrance money...and forgot it was on.

But anyway...the BIG news. This saturday is The Future Of Darts World Championships XI. My first tournament test of any kind, and something I want very, very badly to win.

On paper, it's sewn up. I've practiced 20 times as much as everybody else involved, I was arguably the best player in it even before all this (4 titles, 5 finals, 9 semi-finals. My nearest rival has two titles) and I'm playing the best darts of my life, being easily three times the player I was before.

But then...but then...

Played a few saturdays' pratice with Craigy and Briggsy, and yes, the constant banter and chatting doesn't really allow for a true, focused, competitive game of darts, but the results have ranged from me whitewashing them both, to a draw, to even me taking a loss. Don't underestimate the important of silence and concentration on a proper game, but just knowing that those days weren't always one sided weighs on me a tad.

But then...but then...

The record minimum number of darts taken to checkout at a Future Of Darts World Championships is 15. This has stood for many years, being equalled once but never broken. In the eyes of FOD players, 15 darts is eye-poppingly good, as in everyone in the room screaming drunkenly good. It's usually more like 35-40 darts. Tonight, just for the purpose of this blog really, I played 21 games of FOD Rules darts (can't score until you've hit a double, then 301 down to a double finish) then worked out my average. It was 24 darts, including a 16 and 17 darter.

A few people have said "If you lose the Future Of Darts thing, are you just going to quit?" No, of course not. I'll be gutted, humiliated-and make no mistake, it can happen; it's been a long, long time since I played any deadly serious competitive darts, and all it takes is for the head to go and it's all in the shit-but I'll simply have to see what went wrong and fix it. And then save F.O.D. retirement for another year :-) But if I DO win, one thing I WILL quit will be being a competitive F.O.D. player...a genuinely sad thing.

That's it; if I lose, it can only be self-sabotage. That's it.

Either way, needless to say, I cannot fucking WAIT for saturday, and happily, I'm definitely not the only one. It's been too long since the last F.O.D, and the boys are pumped. It's just a shame that I'm going to have to fucking crush and mangle them all into whimpering little bitches. Pressure? Yes. I've waited-and you could argue-trained for this for a very long time, and this is-again, arguably-my first proper step on the road I've taken. It's a tournament, and for all the fun and hilarious, wonderful nonsense that comes with it, the actual darts played is deadly serious. It's a perfect day for me, and I say that genuinely. Come on boys.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C5LFoe6fblI

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=52K5tBIg-7c

I'll let you know how I did next week.

Stay Hungry,

The Very, Very Excited Straight Shooter.

Day 38-The Long Walk To Greatness, The Rematch, The Aftermath, and An Unexpected Challenge

2010-02-12T10:59:00.000-08:00

Numbers Of Hours Practice-60

Average Number Of Darts To Checkout-37.28

Miles Walked On The Oche-51 miles

Now, you may be reading that last line and thinking, 'Hang on, 51 miles? That's a long way! But still 10 times less than The Proclamers would walk!...plus 1 mile. Where are you getting these figures from Luke?' Well, my darting chums, I'll tell you.

On thursday I bought a pedometer, and did a typical hour's practice. At the end of the hour I wrote down the number of steps I'd taken during practice, the obviously got on with the other 3 hours of hardcore darting action. Later, at home, I measured my typical step length, and did the maths; I walk 0.85 miles back and forth on the oche every hour. 60 hours practice therefore equals roughly 51 miles.

Now, that sounds like a lot, but think about it. The average human walking pace is 3-4 miles an hour. Now, that's the speed I'll be walking to the board and back, but I'm stopping every ten seconds to throw darts, so the distance I cover in an hour would be about a third of what it would be normally, which would be 180-240 miles. So all of a sudden, 51 miles sounds about right, doesn't it? You could say people walk all over the place in a day, but, I'm doing that plus the extra walking, which in a 4 hour practice day is about 3.4 miles. That's a lot of walking, and that would explain-laugh all you like-why I've lost weight since I started playing darts. (Although that 8 pint experiment day probably wasn't a contributing factor to that.) Either way, though it's obviously absolutely NO kind of cardiovascular exercise, as long as you're not sinking pint after pint, you ARE getting more walking done than most. Hell, the game involves standing, walking, throwing, and a high level of hand to eye co-ordination. Anyone that says it isn't a sport (even though it's recognised officially as such by all four governing sports bodies of the UK, making it OFFICIALLY a sport) legitimately is an idiot or opening their mouth without looking at the facts. What REALLY winds me up is when you say 'well, it's a sport because X, Y, and Z, so why ISN'T it a sport?' And the best they can come back with is 'Well...it just isn't.' You'll have to better than that, twats.

Anyway. The darts, eh? Just look at that checkout average. Just look at it. Take a moment to absorb it. That 13 DARTS shaved off my checkout average in just 31 days (practice only started on day 7.) That's pretty good going in my book.

But anyway. You want to know how the rematch went after the beating that threw my game temporarily into chaos. Chris and Craigy, the Paul and Barry Chuckle of the West Midlands darts scene. Nah, that's disrespectful, but if you read the previous blog you know full well the psychological damage they inflicted on my good self and my game, making my hours of practice all seem for nought.

This week, Briggsy came along too after following this very blog and eager for his pound of flesh too. Briggsy is no slouch in the darts department, and I would say that on his day he is a better player than the other two, so I was interested to see how this would go. Having been through the psychological doldrums and out again, and back to a higher level ala Rocky 3, I felt relaxed and even excited.

Me and Chris started before the other two got there, and I checked in straight away. I raced away, throwing big darts, and got to a finish well ahead of chris; 83.

Now, a better player would have automatically have gone for treble 17 (51) then the professional's favourite, double 16. But hitting those trebles on demand is extremely difficult, and I had a point to prove; I HAD to be the winner this week. But as I said to Chris at the time, this is practice, and you've got to go for it...and I HAD been hitting the odd treble in practice (other than treble 20, obviously, they're fairly common now) So I went for it. I missed it, cleaned the odd numbers up, got to a finish, and was stuck there for about 18 darts whilst Chris slowly caught up and checked out cleanly. One down. (There's a reason for going into this detail, you'll see why shortly.)

However, the previous week had taken all the toll it could, and I was able to shrug it off, and in the next game, funnily enough, I had 83 again, with three darts to do it. Again, Chris and I looked at each other, shrugged, and I went for it; I hit the treble! Two darts at double 16 and the finish was wrapped up, a great checkout, and beautifully, I did all of this just as Craigy and Briggsy
walked in. It couldn't have been sweeter.

After that, they couldn't get me off the board. I was checking in-and out-with my first dart pretty much every time. I was on fire. Chris was champing at the bit to get back on the oche and have more chances at revenge, but with four of us up there it took longer to get back to the board. When he did get on the oche, I think he had a dose of what I'd had last week. His head was shot, to the point where, in one game, he got that frustrated at his continued inability to check in, he missed with his first two darts and just randomly threw his dart into the board in a rage. I didn't feel any smugness. I could relate. The score at the was Luke 7, every other motherfucker 1. That 1 being Chris' win. The other two didn't get a look in. The call to my girlfriend afterwards was obviously giddy. Vindicated, I was. Vindicated.

Anyway, obviously practice on Monday started with a bang, and I was pleased to realise that I'm now going Round The Clock Doubles in the about the same time it took me to go Round The Clock singles. But the REAL story was on Tuesday.

As I was in Coventry to take my turn running the Whitefriars tuesday night pub quiz, I got my practice in on the excellent darting set up they have at The Chestnut Tree in Chapelfields (they have a buy-4-pints-get-a-fifth-free-stamp-your-loyalty-card system going. Good idea) and towards the end of the third hour I noticed two 40 something chaps come in carrying darts cases. One of them being a particularly large gentleman.

I actually recognised him; about a year ago I was drinking in there with a friend, and their pub darts team were in there practicing. He'd been the team captain.

My first thought was (knowing the Chapelfields league is on a wednesday; we used to be in it, in my first brief run around with darts) it must be a team practice night, and therefore they're not going to want a stranger taking up darting time on their board that could be used by their players.

But then I stopped. Every day when I practice I wish someone would come and say 'Fancy a game, mate?' just to have some competitive practice. Here was a golden opportunity to not only get that, but to play someone who I knew was of a good standard. Someone who a month ago I knew would have beaten me. I really didn't want to, feeling very awkward, but I could see they were thinking 'We've come to play darts, and this guy-handsome as he is-is taking up the board,' but not being rude enough to claim their turf. So I nodded nervously at their cases and said 'Fancy a game?'

They accepted immediately, and whilst they threw some warm-up arrows, I frantically bought a pint and began to chug it. No nerves. No nerves.

They introduced themselves as Jay and Andy, and I played Jay, the former team captain (their team doesn't play anymore, but according to the landlord, he and Andy were in there most nights.)

He threw big darts. So did I. I beat him.

I was over the moon. I didn't really know what to do though; I wanted to be respectful on his turf, so I held my hand out for the traditional shake. He'd already turned his back to get his pint, however, and I was left standing there with my hand out. Just when I thought 'Shit...is this stupid?' he turned around and saw my hand, and there was an awkward pause. Then he said 'Nah, nah, we don't shake hands yet, there's loads more,' and I felt, frankly, like a penis. I just hadn't wanted to seem cocky in victory, like I was brushing him aside once I was done.

As we threw for bull to see who throws first, like an idiot I tried again. 'In all fairness, I'd had a lot more of a warm up than you.' It was meant to be magnanimous, to be gracious in victory, but it just came out wrong. It sounded like I was patronising him. Again there was a bit of a silent pause from Jay whilst he faced the board, and eventually responded with 'Well, it's a funny game, isn't it.'

Was he pissed off? Was he saying it's a funny game because he'd lost?

We played again whilst we waited for Andy, and Jay won this time, after I'd struggled to check in and raced back with big scores, but not fast enough. I scored Jay and Andy's game (surprisingly nervously; I was concerned about getting it wrong, even though I can score effortlessly now.)

I beat Andy (a good player, but on the day worse than Jay) and as I realised Andy was an extremely friendly and affable guy, I realised I nothing to worry about with Jay either. I should have just shut my mouth and got on with it, and the atmosphere was very pleasant, Jay and Andy taking a fag break and asking if I wanted one etc. I told them I found smoking offensive and I liked my lungs exactly the way they are, thankyou very much. Of course I didn't.

Either way, I beat Jay on the return leg, and by the end of the session, the scores were 6 to me, 2 to Jay, and 1 to Andy (not including the scores they took off each other; they are purely the scores between me versus each of them.)

I was absolutely elated. Genuinely overjoyed, for here was progress, and big progress at that. I'd convincingly beaten two guys who I wouldn't have been able to beat a month ago. This was pub league standard, and I was now one of the guys in a pub league that people would have been nervous about playing. I had-have-taken the first step on the ladder. Definitely, definitely, a Big Cock Day. Again, the phone call to the other half was breathless. And I was happy about the darts too, ba-bum tish. And God bless her, she was chuffed to bits for me. And I realised something else; this is not a fad. I'm going all the way. Because the interest isn't waning, isn't fading, it's getting bigger. I love playing darts. And I sincerely hope that you, dear reader, stick with me to the finish.

I've a story to tell about how I've worked out my route into the Professional Darts Corporation, but I've written enough for today, and that's a long one, including my feelings about each of the rival organisations, the PDC and the BDO (British Darts Organisation) and why I'm a PDC man all the way. Phil Taylor is shitting himself.

But I've got to get to practice.

Thanks for reading, and Stay Hungry.

The Straight Shooter.

Day 30-Out Of The Lipstick And Into The Doldrums, Nutritional Experimentation, The Phoenix From The Ashes, and The Comeback Kid

2010-02-04T04:05:00.000-08:00

Number Of Hours Practice-45
Average Number Of Darts Thrown To Checkout-Read on...

Ups and downs, peaks and troughs. And Jeez Louise, I have been in a trough, although there may be a light at the end of this tunnel...

The best way I can tell the story is to illustrate it with averages. On the afternoon of Saturday the 23rd of January, my average number of darts thrown to checkout on a game of 501 was 42.3. That's another 1 darts shaved off my previous average. Chuffed, I was, and feeling highly confident about my practice games against my mates Chris and Craigy later on, due to the many hours of practice I had put in compared to their zero hours.

But I reckoned without the pressure factor.

Though I felt confident, I threw badly at first, thinking to much about my throwing action as opposed to just focusing on the board and doing it. I lost the first game; and after that, I went to pot. The pressure on myself was immense; surely I should be crushing these two goofballs? And now I was a GAME DOWN to these people, when I should be crushing them beneath my heels. The frustration began, and every three bad darts I threw it got worse. So did the anger, which fortunately I didn't direct at my two grinning opponents. I did, however, throw my darts into the wooden floor at one point. I make no apologies.

Looking back, I should have known it was a doomed effort; I've not been practicing long enough, nor have I nailed my action enough, for it to hold up under pressure. Plus I was playing a against two former Future Of Darts World Championship opponents who have EVERYTHING to gain by beating Mr Four-Hours-Practice-A-Day, whilst I have everything to lose. They could play with a sense of fun and excitement. I could only play with fear. It was like being on the oche with the Sword Of Damocles swinging over my head. The final score was Chris 7, Craigy 3, me 2. The only consolation was the last two games of the night had me beating the pair of them.

It sat very heavily with me, despite knowing that I'd lost through a poor (equally important) mental game as opposed to being beaten by superior players. It had come down to them having a strong psychological advantage, and I had been good enough mentally to beat it. Plus Chris suddenly played the best darts of his entire life. You won't see THAT again...

Plus, it revealed a major flaw in my game, and one I half expected; there's no practice like competitive play. Thankfully-and perhaps this is unwise-the three of us are going to continue our saturday meets.

Either way, come the following week, I threw myself, and my darts, back into practice with a renewed vigour. But something was different. I was consistently analysing my throw for what I believed had gone wrong. I had been applying the finger flick enough as I released, or wasn't throwing my forearm over my elbow straight enough. As the 26s kept landing repeatedly, the frustration came back within 5 minutes of practice. It wasn't fun, it was torture, and I couldn't work out what the hell was going wrong. It was maddening. Where had all my new skill gone? Why the hell couldn't I sink three into the 20 anymore? Why wasn't my new technique to find the treble 20 working? All that kept happening was the dreaded Bed And Breakfast (single 1, single 20, single 5, all in a row. 2 and six, the once-upon-a-time price of a B and B) and it was enough to make me want to scream.

Something had happened in my head, and I was staggered that the amount of damage one horrific evening of darts against two chumps had done. Overnight, I'd gone from looking forward to practice to dreading it, from delighting in my progression to feeling helpless and confused. It may sound ridiculous, but when you put hours into something, and you suddenly just go shit and don't know why and even worse, can't fix it, then it is deeply unpleasant. My checkout average slumped to 49.2. Drastic steps had to be taken.

I had to calm my head. It was time to experiment with booze.

I took my life in my hands on the thursday and went into Angela's village's working men's club. In Newcastle. In the middle of the day. And I'm not a member. But I could see through the window they had two great boards, so I figured it'd be worth it. And apart from a pleasant conversation with two toothless gentlemen playing pool ("Ah wah jus' seeyin to him like, ah said, ee's a shit at daaahts as we ah at poo-al") I had no other interaction with the locals. All was well.

My thinking was the classic darts player's approach: A few pints to relax oneself and clear the mind, then get started. I had two pints of strong cider before I started, but still felt the same anxieties I'd developed. I realised I perhaps needed another, so got one and carried on playing. But that didn't quite calm the mind either, and the B and B's were still falling. The problem wasn't being fixed. So I had another. Four hours later I'd had 8 pints of Bulmer's, my darts were even worse than when I'd started (114 darts to checkout at one point) and I was fucked. The experiment had achieved nothing, except getting me drunk by myself and leaving me the best part of 25 quid lighter.

On paper, at least, it had been a waste of time. My average was still well into the high 40s, and by the end I could even hit a single 20 out of 9 darts (at one point I hit a 7) and I realised it was probably time to go home, to stagger back to a wonderfully understanding Angela ("Well, in that case, I'll have an amaretto and diet coke." Good on you, gal. :-) ) But it was only very, very late in the session that I realised I'd changed a part of my practice that was probably vital.

In an effort to come back guns blazing after my defeat, and get my average checkout down to new levels of greatness and prove my worth, I'd thrown out the Round The Clock Doubles I'd been playing every five legs, sticking simply to 501. I realised in my drunken haze that this was probably having a very negative effect; the extra focus required to hit the doubles all the way round the board and into the bull would obviously spill over into the next five legs I would play, meaning a better game. Plus, it breaks up the monotony of the repeated 501 game, and helps keep the focus there. Upon realising this, I had a game of Round The Clock, and the following 5 legs proved the theory correct-36, 25 (best yet is 24, done that a few times on other days, but 35 on such a terrible session shows the difference Round The Clock made) 25, 42, and 41.

Ok, 42 and 41 aren't going to set the world on fire, but they're respectable for me at this stage, and either way there was an improvement. Plus I learned something else about my throw.

As I became more drunk, and therefore more lazy, I found the 'release rather than throw' thing seemed to work best when I almost casually swung my arm at the board, more like a cast than a throw. When it was done right, it found the lipstick. This goes utterly against my previous, lifelong (well, darting lifelong) belief of throwing your forearm directly in line with your elbow.

I'd had the theory (backed up by Roland; read his always interesting reflection of yankee doodle life here at rolandhulme.blogspot.com) of releasing rather than throwing half-right. I was doing it, but in a way my arm was uncomfortable with. It wasn't natural. Working, flat viewing, and, more cripplingly, travelling schedules over the last few days stopped me getting onto the oche until yesterday, but in a more sober frame of mind I applied these two revelations into the days practice.

To my great surprise, the cast-throw made the biggest difference to my finishing. I had a far, far happier session, my enjoyment and, more importantly, my confidence returning as the numbers fell and the darts consistently thudded three at a time into the 20, so well in fact I finished the day with a new record checkout average: 40.9. In fact, it was only topped by one of the so-far nameless pair of guys that come into the Plough at about 5 o'clock every day saying 'You should plee-ay for a teeem mee-ate.'

Although he does see me play darts by myself for hours on end most days, so I suppose it's to be expected.

So, to sum up, it appears my day of getting drunk wasn't so fruitless after all. In fact, it could be argued it was a mind-expanding experience that led me to discover hitherto-uncovered facets of my game that have taken me to another level. This can only mean I need to have session ripped to my tits on LSD, trying to hit that pesky treble elephant lawnmower.

Still no tournament shcedule for this year yet. I know, I know; but I WILL do it. And I suppose I may as well mention at least one definite calendar entry for this year.

In possibly the shortest retirement in darting history, I have been cajoled-mainly by Chris Revill, backed by Craig Nicholls and Keith Lawrence-back into the Showcase Of The Immortals. I am officially announcing my return to the FOD for the next Future Of Darts World Championships XI. It's been argued that I need a swan song, and a chance for everyone else to have one poke at me after months of practice, in the hope that I will fold like a minimum wage worker in chinese dry cleaner's under the pressure. I have to admit, I'm extremely glad, and I agree with the logic; I'm not going to be unbeatable to them by then, and it will be a great test. And what better way to kick off a quest to be the future of darts than by winning The Future Of Darts XI?

April 10th. Two months. I want to be well into the 30 checkout zone by then.

Thanks for reading, and Stay Hungry.

The Straight Shooter

Day 14-Zen Darts, Finding The Lipstick, And Different Kinds Of Targets

2010-01-19T13:39:00.000-08:00

Number Of Hours Practice-25
Average Number Of Darts Thrown To Checkout-43.8

Number Of Hours Practice-25
Average Number Of Darts Thrown To Checkout-43.8

The Good News: The pain is pretty much gone, to the point where I only now get a little bit of neck stiffness and a few complaints from the lower back.

Also, as you can see, with only an extra 17 hours practice, I've shaved 9 darts of my average checkout number. I didn't know that figure until I sat down to write this, and only just worked it out; my intial reaction is pleasure that it's a big drop, mixed with disappointment that it's not bigger. This is because I've worked out the way I need to be throwing to find 'the lipstick' (treble 20) more often; and funnily enough it actually came from doing a bit of research into what I could do to avoid the pain in my elbow.

Apparently, a common mistake is for beginners to release the dart and stop their arm moving at the point they let go. Not only is this a mistake in terms of looking after the joint, but also in terms of technique; it's better to let your arm follow through with the throwing motion.

I incorporated this into my practice, and though it felt a little odd at first, I found I threw with better precision, and learned at which point releasing gives me the best odds of hitting the treble. I'm finding it-and getting three darts into the 20 bed-with much greater repitition now. And with that has come the knowledge of how best to adapt that motion for the upper, middle, and lower parts of the board. So that's good too. It;s just that I've been doing it so much more I half expected my average to be in the 30s somewhere. But it's obviously not happening enough. (I know it's only halfway through the second week, but still...)

And also in the good news column, I'm still waking up every day excited about playing darts. I'm still thoroughly enjoying the practice, although I've struggled sometimes in the evening sessions to find pubs with dartboards that aren't being used (and often sometimes pubs that have a board at all, these two factors meaning only an hour's practice one day last week.)

I've also discovered what I think of as the Zen factor of darts. As someone who is generally anxious a lot of the time (usually manifesting itself in the form of guilt, or that I should be doing something more productive even during times set aside for watching a film etc, or that there is something I should be doing but I can't think of what it is) I take a great, great pleasure in losing myself in the board. All I'm there to do is get the darts inbetween the little wires, and concentrate on the technique required to do so. Then there's the logical cognitive process of the deductive scoring, and working out the best finish to checkout. Again, nothing else to worry about there. Just me, the board, and knowing that's all I have to worry about for the next two hours. And yes, I'm serious about all that.

And my finishing is improving to the point where I've stopped doing normal Round The Clock and have started playing it with doubles. I've even gotten two doubles out of three darts a few times, and I really feel like I'm learning the best way to throw to each individual one. So that's good too...

Ok. The bad news...

...isn't really that bad actually. It's just my usual problem of focus.

Yes, I train with an iPod on to keep it interesting (plus, I think this is good training for working at a distraction, as you'll never play in total silence) and this doesn't unfocus me as a rule. What does is that, on occasion, with my ever-chattering-away brain, my mind wanders. And of course, I don't realise this until I wonder why three darts are in the 9, the wall, and my groin respectively. It means I throw without concentrating, or just start rushing my throws without realising, and this costs my average dearly. Having realised it, I've started a rule: Never throw until I'm utterly certain and aware what I'm throwing for, and have told myself so. It's kind of a double check, and although it's easier to say rather than remember, I'm getting better.

And my thumbtip has healed after being cut up by repeatedly catching the burrs on the dart barrels. That should go in the good news column...

However, I've learned how far I have to go just to get to the 'Pretty Good' level.

In the book 'Murder On The Darts Board' by Justin Irwin that I'm reading-a true story by the guy who attempted to do what I'm doing, and a thoroughly good read so far, I highly recommend it-he goes to a county tournament, at which there's guys from amateur to semi-pro level, and roughly works out the average number of darts to check out across the tournament. It's 24 to 27 darts. Look above for the comparison.

Yes, I've shaved off 9 darts in a week, but I don't expect it to continue going down at that level. I should imagine that as I go on, shaving those last few off will get harder and harder. But we'll see.

I'm going to get online and look at the open county and regional tournaments coming up across the year, and set out a calendar of events I'm going to take part in, hopefully progressing further with each one as the year continues. I should hopefully have that VERY exciting (for me, anyway) list ready for next time.

Plus, there's early rumblings of my FOD retirement lasting less than a fortnight; I announced it as I felt I'd have an unfair advantage in terms of practice, but more than one FOD member has expressed a desire for me to play in one last tournament to a: give me a proper swan song, and b: for the crack of watching me buckle under the immense pressure of being the man who has played four hours a day, five days a week for several months. But it'll have to be the majority, so we'll see...

Sorry to write such a factual, here's-what's-been-going-on blog tonight. I know that's kind of the point, but I like to add a bit more of my thoughts and other factors that have been going on, but I'm pushed for time again and I have to get the important stuff out. Basically, leaving it so long inbetween blogs has meant I have a lot of updating to do here (due to an utterly avoidable laptop screen breakage that will cost £140 to fix, bastaaaaaaaaard) and therefore not allowing much time for meandering. Don't worry; there will be much meandering in future. Lucky you.

Stay Hungry,

The Straight Shooter

Day Seven-The Actual, Physical Agony And The Ecstasy

2010-01-12T12:28:00.000-08:00

Total Hours Practice: 8
Average Number Of Darts Thrown To Checkout: 52.4

My entire spine hurts.

My neck is stiff, my lower back aches, my trapezius muscles crunch, and either side of my right elbow is starting to complain. Ladies and Gentlemen, this is the Darts Pain Barrier.

This is as a result of the first two days of the new, four hours of practice a day darts regime. I had suspicions of possible elbow complications (during my first time around with darts, I got carried away and played one day in the flat for hours. I strained the tendon in my elbow, and went out and bought an elbow support. I love darts accessories with a burning, gullible passion that is an salesman's dream, but that is a blog subject for another day) but never expected the spinal issues I'm currently experiencing.

I think this is due to A: being slightly too short to have a comfortable view of the board (just scraping 5'10 in good shoes; I think 6 foot plus and your head is at an ideal height to view the whole board, with minimal neck strain should you be there for hours at a time) thus giving me the neck strain and B: discovering I throw better with more of a lean from the oche line, thus giving me the lower back pain.

To be honest, these should pass, but bloody hell this was unexpected.

But anyway. The regime itself.

I'd forgotten how much I love to play. Darts is a fantastic game, and every throw is an opportunity. There's nothing like it, in my book. But even if you disagree, I've thoroughly enjoyed the initital sessions, even if I know there will be a time when I can't stand the sight of tungsten. I may even develop an allergy. That'd just be typical...

I've started a simple system of practice: five games of 501 (throwing three darts at a time and totalling up your score, then deducting it each time from steadily downwards from 501. You must reach zero with your last dart hitting a double. Anything over zero and you go back to whatever your score was before your last turn) and then one game of Round The World/Round The Clock (throwing upwards to 20 by hitting sequential numbers-1,2,3-then outer bullseye then centre bullseye to finish.) Then repeat the whole thing for two hours, at which point I have something to eat (either in the pub or some sort of packed lunch; so far it's all been pub) and then switch venues to another pub so I don't get cabin fever and go on a claustrophobia induced naked killing spree.

You may have noticed I'm playing in pubs, not at home. Yes, playing at home is possible, but speaking from experience, being in the house all day is a bastard (for those of you that don't know, I only work weekends as a singer. It's a nice job, but shit for your social life) so I decided to make this interesting by playing in different pubs every day (two hours in two pubs.)

I've been keeping a record of how many darts it takes me to checkout (finish) on 501 with each leg, the idea being that I can find out my average score and hopefully watch it get smaller over time, giving me a record of my progress. A bust-out is classed as 3 darts taken. The scores have ranged from the-at this stage-sublime (24) to the ridiculous (109.) Admittedly, the highest and worst scores have all come from-you guessed it-The Madhouse.

To the unititated, The Madhouse is a double 1 finish. Not only does it mean you've played a fucking shit leg of darts (as the odds are you kept hitting the single versions of whatever double you were going for-and therefore missing-andc slowly worked your way down to a pitiful double 1) but it means you're in for a nightmare. If you missed any other double on your first dart-say, double 16 (32)-and hit the single 16 instead, obviously, you'd be left with 16. This means you still have a chance of finishing on that turn with your other two darts (hit a double 8, and if you miss and hit a single 8, you can go for double 4, etc)

But with double one, you're fucked. You hit a single 1, that's it, there isn't a double 1/2; it's back to the oche. And it's the most frustrating thing in the world...

But anyway, here's the scores from the last two days (8 hours). You don't have to read this bit if you don't want to, you can just skip to the average score, but here it is, direct from the text I saved on my phone:

88, 108, 35 (64)-the number in the brackets means a decent checkout, in this case 64-44(55), 47, 42, 44, 44, 52, 58, break for dinner, 102, 33, 33, 64, 50, 75, 52, 32, 42, 54, 57, 33, 56, DAY TWO-104, 59, 47, 91, 27, 36, 32, break for dinner, 34, 61, 40, 46, 45, Change venue, 98, 47, 38, 57, 41, 40, 42, 48, break, 57, 67, 31, 40, 42, 24 (152)-we'll come back to this in a second-33, 100.

That's right; a 152 checkout. That was treble 20, treble 20, and under self-induced pressure, a double 16 to finish. I was so delighted that I couldn't stop myself from spinning around with my arms spread to face the 6 guys at the bar. They hadn't noticed either the throw or the spin fortunately, as I realised once I'd done it that it kind of looked like I was offering them all out.

Anyway, by workings (which may be wrong) the average number of darts taken to check out from those legs played is 52.4.

It's a start.

Now for my muscle soak bath. What an athelete.

Becoming A Professional Darts Player-Day TWO

2010-01-07T04:42:00.000-08:00

First things first; I need some new darts.

Technically, I don't NEED new darts as such; I have a very nice set, and actually probably three or four other sets left with me by friends after various tournaments, but I've never seemed to get on with these narrow, straight barrelled, more modern ones. I need a set like the set I played my best darts ever with, the set that won me three back to back FOD World Championship victories. I need a set with a lil' curve in the barrel.

Unfortunately, darts buying is a surprisingly harsh minefield. You buy them online ('Ooh, they look nice, just the right size and shape') then they turn up and they're not as heavy as advertised, too short, etc etc. You go to your local JJB and the selection is either A: Shit, B: Sold out, or C: mainly brass darts as thick as lead pipe. For the unititated, modern darts tend to be a mix of 80% tungsten and nickel, the high density of tungsten meaning that you can get the right weight with a thinner barrel. It's also very hard wearing. And I fully intend for these fuckers to be getting a lot of wear.

This means, therefore, the best place to find darts tends to be small, privately owned, sporting accessory stores; they have a better selection that the chain stores generally, and more variety. A quick Google search on 'sports shops Derby' revealed the suspected JJB's and Argos...es (Argi?) and one promising looking gaff in Borrowash. A 20 minute drive later revealed a small outlet full of cricket pads, football studs, whistles, snooker cues, etc. Perfect.

Except they had one packet of darts in the whole fucking shop.

And he had to get them out of the back.

Apparently they tended to order in, which was annoying, and even more annoying the barrels were the perfect shape. For a second, I got very excited, but then I saw the weight; 21 grams. No good. I'm a 27 gram man. (Not literally. I was up to 13 stone last year.) I tend to have a more lobbing, lift-and-drop throw; lighter darts can't drop the way I need them to. Blast.

However, he very kindly recommended a shop a 15 minute drive away in Long Eaton (thank God I got a stat nav for christmas) and as the guy in the other place had rightly claimed, there was a big stand full of the things great.

Straight away I saw the perfect set-the only ones on the stand that were the right shape, and only one packet left at that. Naturally, my heart sank as I realised the odds of that one remaining packet of the one correct shape being the right weight were less than zero.

Incredibly, they were 27 grams.

Elated, I snatched them up, only to hear the guy behind the counter say 'Do you wanna try them out? ' I looked to my right, and there was a dartboard set up.

This, I should point out, was the stuff of fabled times gone by. Back in the days of my first time round with darts, in the days of playing for one season with the Whitefriars pub team I started, the older guys used to talk about a shop in Coventry that had a board set up specifically for the purpose of trying before buying. This was always during times when we had a go with each other's arrows, seeing which were better than others, and lamenting just having to buy darts of the shelf without seeing if you actually got on with them. The idea of this board in a shop with modern, pre-packaged darts that could be taken out of the boxes, tried, and then put back if you didn't like them was unthinkable.

"Ok," I said to the fella (who probably really didn't give a shit seeing as it turned out he was filling in, usually working in the bike shop next door) "If I can throw..." I thought about it. Keep it realistic, for God's sake. "...over 40 with three darts, I know I'm off to a good start and I'll take them." He shrugged, doing a good job of seeming nonchalant despite his massive internal excitement.

Thud, thud, thud. 58.

"I'll take them."

An outer bull (good line, bad height; wasn't ready for the weight) a recalibrated after the first shot 20 (right on the wire of the treble) and a random 13. Hardly electrifying, admittedly, but at last they felt right in my hand. Haven't had that for a while (which would explain a dip in form in the last FOD...)

Either way, I have my arrows of outrageous fortune (22 bastard quid?? Aah, the sponsorship money will cover it.) Getting the rest of this week out of the way, and rigorous discipline starts Monday. RIGOROUS. DISCIPLINE.

4 hours a day, minimum 5 days a week.

That's a lot of darts.

Becoming A Professional Darts Player-Day One

2010-01-05T10:16:00.000-08:00

Fuck it. It's time to get serious.

After 10 classic tournaments-and still being the only man to win back-to-back FOD World Titles, not just once, but three in a row, and the only one of two men (well, one man and one half man/half dog) to win more than one title, and the only man to win more than two tournaments (becoming a four time FOD World Champion)-it is with a very heavy heart that I am officially announcing my retirement from the Future Of Darts world championships.

OBVIOUSLY, I shall still organise, compere, and attend the event (as it extremely dear to my heart, and still the best crack to be had in a room full of men) but I shall no longer be entering as a player.

No doubt this will be met with a mixture of dismay (no one gets to test themselves against the man) and delight (with one of the biggest guns in the FOD organisation gone, everyones road to the top gets that little bit easier) but I feel I should explain my reasons.

Finding myself watching the lamentably now small-time BDO World Championships (again) and getting excited about Darts (again) and thinking about Justin Irwin's 'Murder On The Darts Board' again, I've decided to commit.

For those of you that don't know, I heard about Justin Irwin a couple of years ago, before his book came out. It's his own true story, based around one simple assumption; that if you put the hours of practice in, and have a modicum of ability to play the game, you can compete in Darts at the top level. The resulting novel is a story of his journey. I don't know how it turned out (I should imagine, due to not seeing him in the Premier League, it probably led to failure) but I'm not going to let that put me off. I thought it was a great idea when I heard it, and though I hate to copy ANYONE'S ideas, I'm having a go.

I kind of started this about the same time I first heard of Mr. Irwin, but it lasted about a week, due to a time of major upheaval in my life, so it's time to make it this year's project. Last years is day's away from completion (finishing the second draft of my novel) and I'll be following that up this year with attempts to get the sodding thing onto the right desks of the right people, but taking centre stage is going to be the Darts.

Hence my departure from the FOD World Championships; the amount of practice I'm going to be putting in (four hours a day) will frankly be vastly more than that put in by the other competitors (barring, of course, the week before the tournament when every one goes nuts with the practice and pretends they haven't, leading to sudden, unexpected, dramatic upturns in skill level. Steve Revill, I'm looking at you) and therefore it would give me a major and unfair advantage. I could lie, and keep it secret, but not only do I respect the tournament too much to do so, but it would only make me a paper champion, and lord alone knows the last thing we need is another one of those...

Here's my thinking, anyway. I have all the free time in the world, all week, every week, due to being a professional musician and singer on the weekends. So there's that; I have a MAJOR advantage over anyone wanting to get into Darts. I have the time.

And if I were to get the skills necessary, what do we currently have in the world of professional darts? Fat, old, boring, unattractive men that have zero charisma (barring Taylor. In terms of charisma and boringness only, obviously.)

Then you have me, and let's be blunt here, compared to the faces we see on the TV I'm Brad Pitt. I'm young, not unattractive, slim, and though you may argue with the other bits there, there's one thing that can't be denied; put me on the microphone and I'll talk so much outrageous, arrogant, wrestling bad guy shit that people that don't even watch Darts will be tuning in to see either what I've got to say or to see me get my ass handed to me. I'd be so different, I'd be massive. I'd do for Darts what Alex Higgins did for Snooker.

Obviously, though...that's all a far way off. So here's this year's goal.

Within the next 12 months, I intend to enter-and win-an amatuer level open regional tournament.

If you're at all interested in following my progress, then sign up as a follower, then I THINK you get email notifications of anything new. Alternatively, you might just not give a fuck.

Wish me luck.

The Straight Shooter

PS While you're at it, go to YouTube and type in Future Of Darts to see some beautiful montages to music of drunken men in the throes of sporting glory.