Practice and Frustration

[Lurker1]

I am a firm believer in regular practice for darts. I strive to get at least 5 days worth of practice or playing done during the week. I also try to set a general timeline for how long I want to practice on a a given day based on my work / life schedule etc.

Lately I have had a few practice sessions that have started out so horribly that I have put the darts down and discontinued practice well before my stated timeline.

My question is:
Should I continue to practice through the frustration as you will have to deal with that in match play

or

Discontinuing is best - you're not really going to be focussing on enhancing your technique etc when your frustrated ?

Thoughts, advice, suggestions?

[ChrisTheFish]

I have never set a time period for practice just throw for as long as I feel comfortable ( read can get away with ) when I get the chance. Sometimes it can be days between throwing with sessions of anything from 30 minutes to 3 or 4 hours, always better longer sessions though once I'm in the groove

[ranger86]

I have had the same experience. I think it comes down to how you handle frustrations. Sometimes I just take a step back and a few deep breaths and I am good. Other times I need to take a full on break. I think if you practice working through frustration it will ultimately help you should this crop up during a game. Having said that, I do not think that forcing a session when you are frustrated helps at all. I lose focus and find that bad habits creep in.

[BigE]

Frustration is something that you must learn to recover from..... I get frustrated *very* easily.... my game goes south fast. I am learning slowly how to deal with it.

First step: Do not berate yourself.

Instead, calmly reassert what you ought to be doing, then attempt to do it.

Step one: Control your heart rate, focus your thoughts. ( calm )

Step two: Define your goals -- know what you are going to shoot at.

Step three: Reassert how you are going to do this.

Step four: DO IT.

Clarify: It is essential that you can distinguish a poorly lined up shot from simple variance/spray due to skill level.

It is up to you to know the difference between missing with a good stroke and missing because of a poor stroke. In my opinion, that is the whole goal of "detect and correct" as you practice.

There is not much point in getting frustrated and squeezing the dart, as that interferes with the "correction" in "detect and correct". Especially, if the dart was thrown well.

At a minimum, when getting frustrated, try to figure out what is going wrong.

Afterall, if everything went perfectly at practice, you would not need to practice. Missing presents an opportunity to learn.

[Lurker1]

Thanks for the replies all.

[davidsproull]

Thanks for the replies all.

The other thing to do is to remember that the one who is willing to FAIL the most, is the one in the end who ends up WINNING the most!

[Red]

Also, when you're frustrated doing one routine, simply pick something completely different.

For example, when frustrated doing your round the clock triple/double routine, switch to 170 out or something.
If that doesn't work either, just call it quits and try again later. It's a hobby, not a chore! Guests cannot see images in the messages. Please register at the forum by clicking here to see images.

[Omp]

Don't forget that you take time to warm up. Your throwing after 20 minutes will be different to how it is after 5 minutes.
I always have to remind myself about Patience, relaxation, focus and fundamentals

[gumbo2176]

When in the man cave and practicing by myself, I'll take a good 15-20 minutes just warming up the arm. When first starting out, I'll just throw to the board with no particular wedge in mind and as time progresses, I'll narrow it down to particular spots on the board for targeting.

If I find myself getting frustrated doing a particular drill, I'll stop for a bit and then do a different drill. If I'm still getting frustrated and can't work through it, I figure it's just not my day and stop. I feel all you are doing when throwing frustrated is introducing negativity into your game. Like most folks, I have great days, so-so days, and plain horrible days on the board. If it was easy, everybody would be trying to make a living at it.

[RichardUK]

I get frustrated quite a lot, especially when I know I can play well. Like the rest have said its best not to get frustrated about it, just take a break from it and come back to the board later. As gumbo said above too, we all have our good and bad days on the dart board. I'm currently going through a bad patch myself.

[0ldjoblo]

For me with darts,,,,it is all about looking forward to the next shot,,, the next trip to the oche,,,, not about looking back and thinking what could/should of been,,,,,For me that is the first rule of keeping my head in the game,,,,,,,,,