An interesting article by the Unicorn Uni Boffin: https://www.unicorn-darts.com/news/2013/...heory.aspx
String Theory
Posted by UniBoffin at 12:53 on 21st October 2013 in UniBlog
String Theory
After previously subjecting you to a blog on the theory of dart flight, I guess it’s only fair I try to make up for it this time with something of more direct interest to most players – a blog on the theory of how to throw the things in the first place. Depressingly for me, though, it’s theory I have never been able properly to implement.
The cause of this inability is in itself instructive, however. In my distant youth, hand me any sort of racquet, bat, or club and I’d use it to propel the appropriate ball or projectile with impressive speed but considerable imprecision. The mechanism behind both these qualities was excessive rotation.
In racquet sports, rotation – whether of the trunk, shoulder, forearm, or wrist, or, better still, all of them combined - is the key to power. Unfortunately, it’s also a cause of inaccuracy. If a racquet head is travelling in a circle, it is only pointing in any given direction for an instant, so there is no margin of error at all in timing a shot if it is to go in that direction. And the smaller the radius of that circle and the faster the racquet head speed, the more the error is likely to be.
Exactly the same consideration applies in darts, too much or too fast a rotation of the arm, wrist, or anything else, will make accuracy harder to achieve. What is required for precision is as linear a throwing motion as possible, so the dart is travelling in the right direction throughout the whole release area, making timing less critical and also helping to deliver the dart as straight as possible.
But unless you’re Plastic Man or Elastigirl (or Twizzle, for any nostalgic Gerry Anderson fans), a pure linear throwing action is pretty much an anatomical impossibility, by and large human joints are made to rotate, not extend. So the best that can be done is to combine rotations in opposite directions, so the angular motions cancel out, just leaving the required linear motion.
So let’s try to build such a throwing action by starting with a downward rotation of the forearm from the elbow, going from not quite vertically upright to horizontal. Then add an upward rotation of the upper arm from the shoulder, going from pointing down at maybe 20 degrees to also around horizontal.
That may sound complicated but it’s actually quite a natural linear pushing action. If you want to test that, get a long bit of string, stand on one end and run the other over your shoulder from the back and hold it out at arm’s length straight in front of you with your non-throwing hand. Now encircle the string with the thumb and forefinger of your throwing hand and run your hand up and down.
If the string were moved from your shoulder to your eye line and maybe angled up a bit, that would be the classic basic action we’re looking for and we want to add as little as possible to it – no body turn, no weight transference, and no other rotation of any sort - except one.
More on that in a minute, first I want to compare my darts string theory with darts practice, as demonstrated in the montage of photos above by two players I have had the pleasure of working with, the one-and-only dartmeister himself, Phil Taylor, and Paul Nicholson (what a nice guy, by the way – must do a Technique Spotlight on him sometime!).
Now obviously these images are from different throws, both in terms of the occasions and the styles of the two Pros, but that’s part of the point – consistency of throwing action is a given for most top professional, as is adherence to certain basic principles of how to throw.
Whilst I’m not pretending these pictures constitute a precision analysis, I am hoping that the lines I’ve added to them nonetheless “draw” attention to some interesting points. The blue ones indicating the players’ horizontal eye lines are pretty much along the direction of their focus, whereas they actually throw their darts along the upward-angled red lines (angled differently partly because of the difference in height of the two players). And look at the green lines showing their elbow levels – for both players the elbow has only raised slightly by the middle frame when the dart has already left the hand.
Going back to a hand sliding up and down that string, these images show the dart will generally be released about half-way along, when one of our two counter-acting rotations has hardly started. That linear action we were looking for with the nice extended follow-through along the line of sight may be “classic” and the main subject of a player’s conscious focus, but it neglects a major element of the throw, a semi-autonomous additional rotation which provides much of the upward velocity needed to counteract gravity.
That final rotation is an uncocking of the wrist, with the palm of the hand going, as shown, from facing up to facing more forward at release and down at the end of the follow-through.
And it’s the orientation of that semi-autonomous wrist rotation that stymies my darts, years of playing racquet sports made me too accustomed to rotating my wrist in the wrong plane, either pronating and turning the palm outward, away from the body, or, more often, supinating and turning it inward. As you can see, not much of either of those motions in Phil or Paul’s throw, as well as there being – as demanded by our classic action - very little movement of anything other than the throwing arm.
Hence if you want to play like The Power or The Asset and not The Boffin, you too need to control those rotations, especially of the wrist and especially supination (not to be confused with supermarionation by any of those nostalgic Gerry Anderson fans!).
So keep everything feeling linear, as if your hand were sliding down that length of string, and pay close attention to your wrist position at the end of a nice extended follow-through, and you shouldn’t go too far wrong.
I just hope you have far more success implementing that advice than I!
Maybe I am so inaccurate because my joints are hypermobile? Guests cannot see images in the messages. Please register at the forum by clicking here to see images.
String Theory
Posted by UniBoffin at 12:53 on 21st October 2013 in UniBlog
String Theory
After previously subjecting you to a blog on the theory of dart flight, I guess it’s only fair I try to make up for it this time with something of more direct interest to most players – a blog on the theory of how to throw the things in the first place. Depressingly for me, though, it’s theory I have never been able properly to implement.
The cause of this inability is in itself instructive, however. In my distant youth, hand me any sort of racquet, bat, or club and I’d use it to propel the appropriate ball or projectile with impressive speed but considerable imprecision. The mechanism behind both these qualities was excessive rotation.
In racquet sports, rotation – whether of the trunk, shoulder, forearm, or wrist, or, better still, all of them combined - is the key to power. Unfortunately, it’s also a cause of inaccuracy. If a racquet head is travelling in a circle, it is only pointing in any given direction for an instant, so there is no margin of error at all in timing a shot if it is to go in that direction. And the smaller the radius of that circle and the faster the racquet head speed, the more the error is likely to be.
Exactly the same consideration applies in darts, too much or too fast a rotation of the arm, wrist, or anything else, will make accuracy harder to achieve. What is required for precision is as linear a throwing motion as possible, so the dart is travelling in the right direction throughout the whole release area, making timing less critical and also helping to deliver the dart as straight as possible.
But unless you’re Plastic Man or Elastigirl (or Twizzle, for any nostalgic Gerry Anderson fans), a pure linear throwing action is pretty much an anatomical impossibility, by and large human joints are made to rotate, not extend. So the best that can be done is to combine rotations in opposite directions, so the angular motions cancel out, just leaving the required linear motion.
So let’s try to build such a throwing action by starting with a downward rotation of the forearm from the elbow, going from not quite vertically upright to horizontal. Then add an upward rotation of the upper arm from the shoulder, going from pointing down at maybe 20 degrees to also around horizontal.
That may sound complicated but it’s actually quite a natural linear pushing action. If you want to test that, get a long bit of string, stand on one end and run the other over your shoulder from the back and hold it out at arm’s length straight in front of you with your non-throwing hand. Now encircle the string with the thumb and forefinger of your throwing hand and run your hand up and down.
If the string were moved from your shoulder to your eye line and maybe angled up a bit, that would be the classic basic action we’re looking for and we want to add as little as possible to it – no body turn, no weight transference, and no other rotation of any sort - except one.
More on that in a minute, first I want to compare my darts string theory with darts practice, as demonstrated in the montage of photos above by two players I have had the pleasure of working with, the one-and-only dartmeister himself, Phil Taylor, and Paul Nicholson (what a nice guy, by the way – must do a Technique Spotlight on him sometime!).
Now obviously these images are from different throws, both in terms of the occasions and the styles of the two Pros, but that’s part of the point – consistency of throwing action is a given for most top professional, as is adherence to certain basic principles of how to throw.
Whilst I’m not pretending these pictures constitute a precision analysis, I am hoping that the lines I’ve added to them nonetheless “draw” attention to some interesting points. The blue ones indicating the players’ horizontal eye lines are pretty much along the direction of their focus, whereas they actually throw their darts along the upward-angled red lines (angled differently partly because of the difference in height of the two players). And look at the green lines showing their elbow levels – for both players the elbow has only raised slightly by the middle frame when the dart has already left the hand.
Going back to a hand sliding up and down that string, these images show the dart will generally be released about half-way along, when one of our two counter-acting rotations has hardly started. That linear action we were looking for with the nice extended follow-through along the line of sight may be “classic” and the main subject of a player’s conscious focus, but it neglects a major element of the throw, a semi-autonomous additional rotation which provides much of the upward velocity needed to counteract gravity.
That final rotation is an uncocking of the wrist, with the palm of the hand going, as shown, from facing up to facing more forward at release and down at the end of the follow-through.
And it’s the orientation of that semi-autonomous wrist rotation that stymies my darts, years of playing racquet sports made me too accustomed to rotating my wrist in the wrong plane, either pronating and turning the palm outward, away from the body, or, more often, supinating and turning it inward. As you can see, not much of either of those motions in Phil or Paul’s throw, as well as there being – as demanded by our classic action - very little movement of anything other than the throwing arm.
Hence if you want to play like The Power or The Asset and not The Boffin, you too need to control those rotations, especially of the wrist and especially supination (not to be confused with supermarionation by any of those nostalgic Gerry Anderson fans!).
So keep everything feeling linear, as if your hand were sliding down that length of string, and pay close attention to your wrist position at the end of a nice extended follow-through, and you shouldn’t go too far wrong.
I just hope you have far more success implementing that advice than I!
Maybe I am so inaccurate because my joints are hypermobile? Guests cannot see images in the messages. Please register at the forum by clicking here to see images.
