In darts, you need to make every dart count as if it were your last. In most situations where you are losing considerably, three well placed darts could certainly almost help you catch up and definitely obtain a decisive psychological advantage. You don't actually want to experience this situation habitually, but if it does occur often, it is a tell tale sign that you need more quality practice time. Psychological advantages are most beneficial because they inspire shooters, both good and bad, and at the same time, they stir up their opponent's underlying fears and doubts that linger just below the surface of their conscious mind.

By staying well conditioned and ahead in scoring, through out the course of your games, your opponents will feel your perseverance much in the same way a boa constrictor exerts his method of operation (M. O.). Bobby Fisher use to pride himself of being able to actually hear the sound of his opponent's ego breaking. Strangely, there are a lot of people out there that think chess is a game for the weak. On the contrary, chess is the most brutal game today because it's sole purpose is to crush their opponents, both physically and mentally.

MUSCLE MEMORY
Most everyone is familiar with this term. Muscle memory is developed through repetitiveness. We all know what it feels like to do something that we've done before. The goal behind this concept is to simply duplicate that same action. In darts, we all typically shoot the same shots over and over again. It just becomes second nature to hit these targets, so we try to repeat the same actions that we did before when we've hit our targets.

Starting in Darts
If you have never played, or if you have played for a while but never put some steady time into the sport, then your problem is going to be your arm initially. You could take the old approach and just play and practice, but there is an alternative solution that would greatly shorten your "down time." When I refer to down time, I am referring to the point in time when you are in performance purgatory. During this time, you might be either not learning anything, not practicing (goal oriented), not playing (hopefully not) and worst of all, not caring! It is this down time that will destroy players that might perhaps, have some talent. If you are serious about advancing as a darts shooter, avoid this down time like the plague, because if you don't the plague will definitely kill your spirit and then your game in that order!

To have any success in darts, one first, needs to "develop" their throw. www.DartSmarts.com currently has three training devices in their catalog that will speed up this development stage while maintaining consistency and quality.

Perspective is everything! Looking at the dartboard with all the different targets and imagining the complexity of the many different "throws" there are, in order to be able to consistently hit all of them could certainly be overwhelming. However, if a person takes each step at a time and breaks the situation down, it might not be so difficult. If you first learn to throw a "straight" dart, you have just overcome half of your battle! After that, one would just need to be sensitive to the different levels of targets that would be required throughout the course of a typical game.

Getting it Straight!
Your next stage of training involves using a device that you have around your house and have not considered using, I'm sure! I'm talking about a piece of white string! Take about two feet of it and first tie one end to the numbers ring directly at the top of the board and then tie the other end to the bottom of the numbers ring so that the string is straight. This exercise involves shooting at the string. Stand directly in front of it, try and hit the string at any height, with your darts. The best thing you could do here is shoot the darts at different areas of the string, in other words, mix it up! If your point doesn't hit it but the nose of the barrel would have, then give yourself one point! The next set of three darts should be shot at it from the right side, about a foot from where you stood initially. If you hit the string there, then give yourself two points for each hit. Now do the same from the left spot, or one foot to the left of the center spot. Out of one round, you could get a maximum of 15 points. Keep doing this until you obtain an average of 10, for ten sets of nine darts. This drill will have you throwing a dart straight quickly and from all angles!