How I know flight school works and the practice drills contained within do help.

Anyway, I have struggled and struggled lately. My stroke feels a mess. Well I decided to do some accuracy with just 12 targets. It took me 1 hr and 11 some odd minutes. That’s ridiculous! BUT, I found a light at the end of tunnel. Upon practicing accuracy, I found my stroke! I hit 2 or 3 “9 counts” towards the end. Triple 19 which I know I have told you used to be my worst number was the first closed. Double bull was somewhere in the middle. Triple 16 however was the last and it’s normally one of my favs.. weird… I only had one mark on it when I closed everything else out and then I closed it within 2 minutes ….I hit a couple of back to backers… anyway, accuracy found my stroke again..

I have been trying out this dart pro program that everyone talks about but it did nothing but mount frustrations!

Your drills work George…I have to get back to it… for in a couple of weeks, I have to play with a partner who could very well be the best player in the USA if he actually ever played in tournaments…. his dad was a world soft tip champ… even played Bristow in an exhibition.. he even whipped the best in our Premier league final…so anyway, I can’t let him down! I’ve got to get back to flight school … I read some of your latest article in the new ben that arrived today and it clicked… I need GEORGE

From George S.

Sometimes Flight Schoolers remind me of my kids (they’re in their forties now) in this way.
I get a call from one of them and they say, “Hey dad, you know when you told me not to stick my finger in a pencil sharpener? Well, you were right, it hurts.”

I’m happy that you are back to enjoying the game, now go get the big guns.

And, if you get the chance let some other people benefit from your experience?
Your friend in darts, George S.

          

A Flight Schooler was dejected with a poor showing following a stellar performance at a previous event.  I said this: Performance is not linear because you are a human being and are filled with inconsistency. Doing better and then worse is normal.

The first two steps to becoming as good as can be is to perfect your stroke so you can put the dart in the hole (physical practice) and know into which hole you want to put the dart (mental practice). Then it becomes doing it in front of everybody which is a whole ‘nuther thing I call emotional practice.

You are doing what is best for getting your emotional practice to move upward along your scale of competence.  All you need to do is be patient, look at your progress not your setbacks.

          

Talking to a Flight Schooler I learned he lost in the first round of an LOD and lost some confidence along with the match. My question: You know how well you can put the dart in the hole during solitary physical practice, right? OK, so – did you do that during the test flight of your game in competition? We agreed he did. I continued: Now comes the third part of your practice: emotion. Practice for this comes from competing and you have just invested some valuable time in taking your practice ability for a test flight. Don’t get down on yourself because one match, a LOD at that, did not have the results you would like. Look back at how well you played. Were you putting the dart in the hole, or coming mighty close? Of course you were, is what my guess is. We agreed again.

          

A question in Flight School: How important is how your wrist is cocked before you begin your draw? Whether your wrist is cocked at the beginning of the draw or at the point when you pause briefly should not be of concern unless you suddenly find all your darts sticking differently, and that wasn’t a problem before.

A belief of Flight School: Everything good comes from the forward stroke, everything prior to that has very little to do with accuracy, unless something suddenly changes.

Like beauty, the pause in your stroke is in the eye of the dart shooter. Hold it just long enough to focus on the hole you want to put the dart in. The length of time you hold the pause changes to fit different situations. When you’re really on and popping ‘em it’s relatively short but in pressure situations it can get longer. The thing is – don’t think about it, just let it happen, unless your darts suddenly begin sticking at odd angles, or low.

If this occurs try consciously cranking your wrist back and in line with your target spot at the pause point to see if that fixes the problem.