darts practice rings (on going review)

[jamie373]

going to review these for at least a month maybe longer. my plan is to see how good these actually are. so apart from joining in and doing a weekly challenge on a sunday i shall just be using these. also to make it clearer that it is the rings that are the improvement and not just normal progression , i've decided to take a bit of a weird step to doing this. i have removed the spider and completely painted a board black! it was a dot trainer board and it sucked anyway , so may as well get some use out of it. week one will be starting of with the biggest ring and then moving down in size as the week progress. not necessarily moving down a ring a week ,but just as i feel i'm ready to move down i size. to start with i shall just be using one ring on the board . mainly over the t20 (where the t20 should be), but moving it around occasionally to other areas of the board. i have used the progress sheets to map how much i have (if any) improved. the first one is before using the rings then 1 a week after that.

so to start with here is the test sheet
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and here is the board. (pic is from 2nd week with 2nd largest ring)
you can see the doubles and trebles more in the photo then in actual life
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as i said the 1st week was with the largest ring and after seven days i think my grouping is better
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the rings don't seem it at first when you look at them but they are up to the task of being hit by steel points, this is after 7 days of use
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i'm in the 2nd week at the moment and shall keep this thread going to update the review

[rockettman]

this looks like it works i might use something to simulate this but well done

[REBEL]

Nice 1st part of the review Jamie mate - my only question at this point - how will shooting at rings improve your match game?

I am not being facetious, I genuinely would like to know if they could be successful in improving your game as once in a match there are no longer rings to aim for.

They look more robust than I was expecting too, thought could of hits could snap them, plenty oflife left in that one for sure.

Cheers,
Greg

[Getagrip]

Good one Jamie have a +2, I must review mine too I keep saying I will just not had the time really. Hope they work out well for you.

[jamie373]

@ grip cheers mate . if anything the give you a fresh approach and take a bit of boredom of playing alone away.

@rebel to be honest mate i don't know lol. the way i'm looking at it is confidence. you can throw darts at a board and group them as close as the largest ring and score low , but there is a sense of achievement getting them in the ring and forgetting about scores. it's also close to bristows method of just trying to group the darts close and not worrying to much where they land as long as they are close. but i'm just thinking about the confidence side at the moment and hoping while i'm chucking the darts into the bigger rings the old muscle memory is working away in the background . i guess only time will tell .

@ rockettman seems to be working so far but a few more weeks and we'll see . needs to be done over a long period i think. as on the start sheet i may have been having a good or bad day and likewise for the following sheet . we'll see . cheers mate

[REBEL]

Fair comment mate, good luck with it and I hope it works Guests cannot see images in the messages. Please register at the forum by clicking here to see images.

[hamo]

I actually opened a set of these yesterday and decided to give them a try as part of my routine aswell....I'm still unsure wether they will be of any benefit or not but its worth a try, even if its just to add a few new things to the routine...they should be handy for practice when theres more than one player aswell to give a few extra games to play.

i must upload my first progress sheet when I get a chance.

[djrocs88]

wow this is a great review and I can't wait to see how well these rings work if at all!!

[jamie373]

well at the end of week 2 now. the all black board has been abandoned. i put the normal board up yesterday to do the weekly challenge and struggled playing on it so for the rest of the test i'll be on the blade 4 . still using the rings almost constantly only removing for challenges .
i have been using the next smallest ring all week. the step down does seem a lot smaller once on the board ,but all thoughts of this quickly left my mind and i got used to it pretty quickly. i think the damage on the rings can be quite a good indicator of progress too! comparing the 2 rings used so far shows in my eyes at least the been hit just as much. course the idea is to get them inside the rings lol !
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week 2's ring

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week 1's ring

and here is the progress charts in order
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it is pretty hard to tell , but i had all 3 opened up as layers in photoshop and switching on and off layers you can see them bunching up. so i'm pretty happy so far.

the next size ring i'm a little unsure as to go on to next so i'm going to try it for today and maybe stay on the 2nd ring for one more week , but i'll update you on that next week.

[Getagrip]

the dots look closer together I think but you strayed a bit to the left, dont think thats a big deal at the moment though.

[jamie373]

yeah you're right there is more in the 5's but less in the 1's . pretty hard to get a definitive picture to this as the day i do the test could just be me having a good or bad day , so i think the answer will become clearer after a few more weeks. the one thing i will say is they do make darts more fun. how long the novelty stays remains to be seen. it's also like forget stats as they can bring you down. get 3 in a ring is far more rewarding than hitting a 26 thats all on the wires if you know what i mean

[Getagrip]

Might break mine out next week if I have time.

[bentnbroken]

Are the progress charts used with out the rings? is there a set number of darts to be thrown at the chart?

[jamie373]

yes i use the charts without the rings. you can throw as many or as little as you like . i have went with 30 just as it's easy enough to keep track of and enough to show what's happening

[hamo]

I'll upload my first chart tomorrow when I get a chance.. I have used the rings over the last few days but I have only been making them part of my routine rather than using them as my only practice...so far I think they could be helpful but only if used as part of a balanced practice routine..ill keep it up anyway to see how we get on