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.
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