One of the very worst frustrations of coaching darts is the disproportionate influence of those with little or no knowledge but loud opinions.
The damage, both temporary and long term, done to talented players by folk on the sidelines chipping in their two penny-worth is much greater than you might imagine!
As we all know darts in a confidence affected game, and when a player’s confidence has been knocked by a poor performance or a tough personal time they can be susceptible to comments, suggestions or friendly advice offered by those ranging from the pub bore to the frustrated player via a myriad of self appointed oche psychologists.
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However, in the final analysis it is the adult player’s responsibility to perform some common sense due diligence on the offered view and see if it even gets to first base! Here are a couple examples:
A serious player plying their trade at an elite level and suffering a poor run of results was repeatedly told that they were poor at doubles and needed to spend a hugely disproportionate amount of time pounding the double top. In the end they began to believe this.
A tiny amount of thought reveals this to be utter nonsense. The player concerned had played at the World Championship level and reached Pro Tour finals. They simply cannot be a poor double hitter. The offered cure is also nonsense. The breakdown of the doubles is often just as important as the double itself as are two and three dart combinations.
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The actual truth was the player was a very strong scorer and but suffered quite a few deflections which often led to different and awkward finishes and the wrong practice being deployed. We minimised the first and built the later into his routines. He later reached another World Championship and claimed PDC titles.
More recently we had a player struggling to find their best position on the oche.
Upon inquiring why we were informed the player had been told, at a very young age that as they were left handed they must play from the far left of the oche.
Now we cannot blame a child player. But a modicum of thought would encourage their mentors to check where the best left-handed players stood?
James Wade – perhaps the best left hander ever – was firmly side on and in the middle while Alan Glazier was more front-on, with his right foot in the middle. Colin Lloyd (above) moved to the left of the oche on occasion despite being right handed. Thus immediately we can rule out the ‘you must’ element of that advice!
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So, if you hear a nugget of free assistance while a little downcast about your game, just give such ‘pearls of wisdom’ the once over in the realm of common sense or YouTube darts history…
AIM180 have coached PDC event winners and other title winners at all levels and across the full spectrum of players.
