The last time I played darts, I’d just moved to a new city – one Thursday night I wandered into a bar down the street, got a pint & some house darts & tried to warm up on one of their 3 boards (sorry all soft-tip stories here – hard to find steel tip games in California).
Hadn’t thrown in a couple of years. A gentleman comes up to me and proposes a game of Cricket – loser buying the next round. But of course! We start out, I’m not feeling warmed up at all, but we’re both ok and it’s neck & neck until we get to the fifteen – I throw and hit the triple, and I feel IT – can’t explain if you’ve never been there.
I look at my opponent and say, “And another one,” and nail another triple 15. I look at him again and say, “And a bulls”. Hit the double.
He laughs and says, “Hustling the hustler, I like it!” I didn’t miss again and he bought the next round – then we teamed up against some other patrons & had to hold back so’s not to win so badly as to generate ill will.

I like & applaud concentrating on good form,.. though I never did. Some parts came naturally, I guess, though I’ve seen other for whom it’s not so easy. The follow through is very important, consistency is too – but I’ve never aimed to be a “machine” player.
The guy who steps up & does the same thing every time, no variation, & has drilled his way to high skill. This does work though.

When I started playing, it was meeting some friends after work in a local bar – a pitcher or two, some games of team cricket – good times. I was ok, but I didn’t care that much. At the time I’d met someone that I found very interesting, and it seemed mutual, call her X – well in one game we got down to the bullseye & no one could hit it, it seemed. My turn again, a friend said, “Hey, pretend it’s X.” Well a double and 2 singles ended the game in victory right there, And brought me back to The Zone.

I’d experienced it a couple times in college playing Ultimate Frisbee – that feeling of not being able to miss or make a mistake, knowing that you couldn’t miss. It always seemed a fluke, inexplicable. In darts, after that night, I had it back, and learned to summon it fairly regularly. And no, it didn’t depend on X, lol. One of the basic triggers for it in fact had to do with not caring if you won – caring too much gets in the way, tenses you up. I guess I see why they call it The Flow now, that’s very much what it feels like.

Our group attracted another player in the bar (not that many dart players around then) who it turned out could kick all our butts blindfolded, if he chose to, But he was a gentler, more interesting man than that. Former Navy SEAL. This was a guy who could take 3 steps back from the line and throw all 3 darts at once and get at least 2 in the bulls eye, often 3. I wound up playing with him a lot and learned a few things, and for a while we had a regular darts night there that drew more good players and the bar started having tournaments.

He never really got on me about form. One of the best practices he ever shared with me, I’ll share with you: stand with your heels at the line, your back to the board. Pick a target and twist your upper body around so you can see the board & make the throw – your body won’t let you keep this twisted position for more than half a second, so you have to just go for it in that tiny window. With a little practice it becomes fluid: acquire target; fire.
All in one motion. This develops your aim like nothing else.

I had my own darts by then, & just fooling around (not caring) had several different throwing styles – and I could win games by throwing classic stance, or using overhand flip throws, underhand, or underhand flip throws. It unnerves an opponent when you can nail a triple w/ classic stance, then flip one in right next to it. Just save the showing off for friends – don’t humiliate strangers, it’s not nice. Or safe, lol.

I’m rambling a bit – for more on The Flow, I recommend a book by Rob Schultheis, “Bone Games”. One and a half more anecdotes related to this topic: the first time I threw a White Horse (3 triple twenties) I was just in the bar one afternoon flailing around when my SEAL friend shows up – we drop in the quarters for a game of Cutthroat Cricket & I hit the White Horse just because I know its on & I guess my body responded to that – we had some good games. The second time, I’d just finished a game with a casual player friend -next game I was up first & I said, “Here’s 120 points for you.” Bullshitting, I was; empty bravado; I tossed my 3 darts without trying, no really like trying a new throw, but they all landed in the triple 20. Somewhat aghast I turned to him and apologized, but he said, “No, that was amazing.”
So final point: don’t try too hard, don’t tense up; have fun. Let it happen.

1) Repetition – Throw at the 20 wedge for 10 rounds by yourself then take a break, repeat until totally bored. A lot people only throw darts when they play with a group and so there is a long pause between throws. Doing the same mechanics over and over with no wait really helps you get the feel for the throw.
2) Snapping the wrist – Don’t… yet. Professionals do it. You are not a professional. Many new players who snap their wrist introduce motion into the dart that is not part of that parabolic path. Once you get the mechanics of the arm down, go ahead and introduce the hand.
2.5) Letting go. Open your hand all the way when throwing. You are setting the dart in motion with your arm. You hand is just “deploying” the dart. Many people don’t open their hand enough. As a result the flights and nick the fingers, introducing motion you don’t want. Opening my hand all the way really helps. I recommend being obnoxious about this at first. Open it all the way as if you were waving to the board afterwords. Once you get the feeling, go ahead and reign in that motion. I often offer the metaphor of a fighter jet letting go of a missile. Deploy the dart; Not throw.
3) Throwing speed / style – I wholeheartedly agree with the follow through comment above. I would like to extend that to the aim. Mentally aim so that the parabolic path you have in mind goes through the target you want, rather than stopping there. Some people throw to land in the target; they often have darts that fall out and they tend to “lob” the dart and use heavier darts (lawn darts). I have definitely seen some throwers who “lob” the dart and do very well. It often baffles me, but then I look at them and realize that they have been doing it for long enough to figure it out the personal style. Personally I recommend throwing with a flatter arc but not to the point that zipping it at the board. If someone says “easy Legolas”, you are throwing to hard.
4) Big hands? If you are like me and you have big hands, you should get longer stems.. I like nylon ones. A longer stem will give you a little more room to hold the dart and not touch the flight with your knuckle.

Suggested practice game for a pair of throwers of any level. How many 20s can you hit before they hit 3 bulls? Flip. The person with the highest number of 20s wins. I love this game because it reduces what you throw at to two high value targets, and it gives you some consistency. It is very gratifying when you are learning, and then suddenly you hit a bull; your next one will be right behind it, because you’ve been consistently aiming for the same thing. This is opposed to something like Cricket or *01, which runs you all over the board. Truth be told, it is my warm up game. We often also pair 18/19 and 16/15 with the target number of 5 instead of 3. Also variations of Killer are good for consistency. Don’t worry about doubles yet. http://www.diddleforthemiddle.com/killer.php