The highly useful multi-purpose lever-system of the human arm

Looking at the above image, the 2 attaching joints are elbow and wrist, the fixing joint is the shoulder, while the 3 levers are the upper arm, the forearm and the hand.

 Those of you who had the misfortune of being tortured by mechanical science in school will remember that this is a very neat arrangement: It can theoretically draw every possible curve within its range when the levers are moved properly, and although the human arm is slightly less movable the parabolic curve is still an easy exercise.

The above image already shows the 'aiming' position when throwing darts. In the following animation you can watch how the 'levers' and 'hinges' work in a decent darts throw, keeping the dart exactly along the curve.

                      Diagrammatic animation of a neat darting technique using the 3-lever system

Before proceeding you can (and you should!) take yourself some time to watch the above animation carefully. First watch each element on its own, then continue to see the whole arrangement, and how each part of it interacts with the others to keep the dart on course.

The shoulder: This is the only point in the whole process that doesn't change its postion. So you must not move (that's a DON'T, yes!) your body when throwing. The only throwing action comes from your arm.

The elbow: It stays in position when moving the dart backward, and on some point in the acceleration phase starts to go up. This is a very intersting thing, because you may have heard the advice that the elbow should also stay fixed during the throw. This is actually wrong. Again, watch the animation: A fixed elbow would force you to release the dart earlier. This is like the difference in accuracy between a pistol and a rifle. The rifle's longer barrel increases accuracy. The same does the longer guidance of the dart, and as we have to keep the dart on course, too, the elbow must be raised in the later phase of throwing. Also note that the hand still follows the way of the dart after we released it. This makes the release easier, because we don't have to find an absolutely exact release point any more. It doesn't matter much if we drag it out a bit, the dart will still stay in a nice flying position anyway.

The wrist: Wrist action is an often discussed subject. In the animation there is not much of it, so you see it is not absolutely necessary. But most pro players use wrist snap because of one reason: It helps in acceleration. Doesn't the way the 3 'levers' move remind you of a whip? If you do wrist snap the tip of our 'whip' (which is, actually, uhm, the dart) will go faster, and therefore you will be able to move the other parts of the lever system slower, thus put less force in your throw, and this will improve accuracy. But there is one danger in wrist snap: It's one more thing that must be controlled, and so one more source for errors. While most experts and pros use it, I wouldn't recommend it to beginners that don't have the natural gift to control it.

Aiming: Put your eyes, the dart and the target you want to hit in one line. Focus the target, not the dart or that pretty girl/boy just entering the bar. Use aiming points on the target if you like, or aim in a different way, but: Aim!. Most darters do aiming naturally, but surpisingly some beginners don't do from the start. It's a must DO, so do it.

Backward move: Do this, but don't do it too fast. Many beginners fear the necessary loss of aiming during the backward move, but controlling this is only a matter of practice. There are only few successful players out who omit the backward movement, so it's another DO for 99 percent of us. How far you move back is a personal thing, but it's good to move back quite a bit. If you find it comfortable, you can and should move back as far as possible. You can avoid slamming into your eyes or nose by pulling back under your chin or beside your cheek (the one in your FACE, of course!), that depends on your personal technique. A typical error here is not to pull back enough because control of this is difficult, but you will thus sacrifice a lot of acceleration space and accuracy. Better practice more than going the easy way!

 Acceleration: Not that crucial as you might think. Do it naturally, and don't do it too fast or with too much force. Do it smoothely in one move and all the way to the follow-through. Remember the elbow coming up. IF you do wrist-snap, then your hand goes forward in this phase until full extension of the whole arm in follow-through.

 Release: As wrote above, with the right throwing this comes naturally and is no big problem. If you have troubles with the release point, then most probably you do a technical error, don't raise your elbow or don't do follow-through. This is the critical point for your wrist-snap. The hand must be in the correct angle to the forearm here. If it has travelled further, your dart points down at the release point, and this - well, refer to the 'The Dart' section at the end of this document.

Follow-through: A very important thing. Remember the shotgun-rifle comparison. Best way to follow-through is to end up with your hand aiming at the chosen target. A typical error is to let your arm 'fall down' after the release. Just keep your arm in the straight and slight upward position for a moment, just like in the above animation, and you will get the feeling for follow-through quite fast.

The dart: The real object of our desire is last here. Remember to guide the dart along the parabolic curve. In geometric language, your dart must always be in line with the throwing parabola's tangent in the point of intersection of your hand and the parabola (mph, hope that's even near...). You don't have to tape your throw with a video camera and draw a perfect parabola on the TV with this neat everlast paint to achieve this, it usually develops quite naturally (thank god and our stone-throwing-and-thus-animals-killing-for-getting-yummy-food-ancestor's genetic heritage on throwing parabolas). Keep your attention on the following things: The dart points up in the aiming position. This angle is increased in the backward movement, and it then decreases steadily in the acceleration part. When the dart is released it is nearly horizontally, but still points up a bit. In every circumstances a dart that points down in any of the throwing phases is bad, bad, bad! You got it? That's another DON'T!

Wobble: Almost every beginner's dart wobbles considerably. Pro's and expert's darts hardly ever wobble. Wobbling can have the following reasons:

• The dart is accelerated in a curve that's rather anything else than parabolic.
• The dart's flight-shaft system doesn't meet the aerodynamic requirements. Use standard form flights and middle length shafts for a first trouble-shooting.
• Somewhere in your throw there is a noticable 'yip' of the arm.
• Most probable: The dart points downwards somewhere in your throw.
• Highly unlikely: The dart points too much upwards.

That's so far my analyzes on the mechanics of dart throwing. As always, I encourage you to write me your thoughts, questions or simple 2cents in the feedback section or through normal mail.

 Make sure you have read the section on 'The throw' before proceeding with this. Grip and stance just follow the requirements of the throw. You will benefit more when you know the connections.

The grip is the most variable part of darting technique. In general you can use here what's comfortable for you. There are only a few DON'Ts you have to be aware of.

 The basic grip:

 Put the dart in your open palm. Balance it and find the center of gravity. Now with your thumb roll the dart to your finger tips. Place your thumb a bit behind the center of gravity, hold it with as much fingers as you like, then move your arm to aiming position. Ready.

Most grips are only slight variations of this standard grip.

 Basic requirements:

• Point up! As you know from chapter 1 your grip's main objective must be to keep the tip of your dart pointing up in every throwing phase. If yours doesn't meet this, change it immediately.
• Solid but not tensed. The grip must be firm, but it must not strain your finger muscles. If your fingers get white from pressure or the knurling digs into your fingertips, this is too much. If your muscles are that strained you have problems in release and all along the throw, this is too much. Darts is a game of touch, not force. To maintain your touch hold the dart loose enough it doesn't slip away, but hold it firm enough to keep control when accelerating. Typical error is rather holding the dart too firm than too loose.
• How many fingers? An often asked question, and it can't be answered in general. At least 3 fingers (thumb + 2), maximum all 5. All fingers should touch the barrel or the point, no finger shall touch the shaft or even the flight. A 2 finger (thumb +1) grip gives not enough control, so 3 at least. More fingers give more control in acceleration and more touch, but it makes the release more difficult as more fingers have to be coordinated. Finger coordination in release is a key point for a grip. You have to make sure that no finger can give the dart an unlucky 'kick' in release to slip it out of position at the last moment. This leads directly to the next point:
• Barrel shape: Not all kinds of grips are usable on different kinds of barrels. So it's obvious that longer barrels force a more finger grip, while less fingers must be used for short barrels (well, that's just simple-minded reasoning). Not only do you have to find your right grip, you also have to find your right barrel. These things can of course only be seen combined, and reversely. Just another issue of personal preference.
• No fist! What to do with fingers not involved in the grip? The best is to spread them away, or keep them in the same position as the other fingers. It's bad e.g. if you hold the dart with 4 fingers (thumb + 3) and the small finger touches the palm like when making a fist. What happens is that the other fingers will suffer from muscle strain and will tend to a fist more than to the open hand required for a nice release. This will improve the chance of the unlucky finger 'kick' mentioned above, and it also tends to pointing the dart downwards, which we have already discovered as very bad.

To illustrate the wide variaty of grips, some examples from the pros. Note that the grip, as written above, also partly results from the preferred barrel shape, and vice versa:

• Pencil - Phil Taylor: Phil holds the dart in the common pencil-grip. This grip is as good or as bad as any other one, as long as you can keep the dart pointing forward and not too much sideways. The pencil grip is the second most used after the lot of basic grip variations. It usually requires a thin cylindrical barrel, like used by Phil.
• Wide open hand - Dennis Priestley: Dennis used to keep his fingers in a nearly vertical shape and does all the required stabilization only by his thumb. He closed the hand a bit more when I last saw him an video, but he is still the one with the most open hand I know. The grip looks very loose, a good advantage when it comes to exact release, but also a good chance to lose control in accelerating. How he maintains his touch with this grip is a complete miracle to me and seems to be only known by him. When I tried this grip I actually had problems hitting the board. He is either naturally gifted with it, or he has worked on it for years. A grip on the extreme side. Dennis uses a thicker more ton shaped barrel, somewhere between Phil Taylor and John Lowe.
• Small finger on the tip - Eric Bristow: Eric in his brilliant years used to keep his small finger wide away from the others, touching the tip of the dart. Long cylindric barrel. His grip is one variation of the basic grip, not the best, not the worst. Less talented players might struggle with it.
• Three fingers - John Lowe: John uses a ton shaped rather thick and short dart, so the 3 finger grip develops natural because more fingers hardly find the space to touch the barrel. Should be considered as a standard grip for this kind of darts.
• Small finger spread away - Rod Harrington: Rod uses a long and thin barrel as it becomes usual more and more when standards and accuracy of the game improve. He uses the basic grip and spreads his small finger away vertically, while the others touch the barrel. A grip that seems very logic to me, I use a similiar one, on quite the same barrel.
• Holding the dart on the front end - Bob Anderson: Bob holds the dart way before the center of gravity, just a bit behind the tip. This is unusual, as most players will struggle to develop a good touch for the throw when doing this. Bob 'pulls' the dart more than he throws it. His overall throw is faster than most others and it actually seems as if he permanently is in a hurry. Lots of wrist action. He uses a pencil derived grip which seems logic with this extreme technique, and a pretty long cylindric barrel. Not the grip to recommend, but a sophisticated technique for a man who throws a very dynamic dart.

                      Some pictures of grips!

                                #1: 2 basic grips on a cylindrical barrel 

The Below picture shows my standard grip - 3 fingers on the barrel (the 4th finger is not touching, although it might look like this on the picture). The small finger is spread away slightly. 

                                  (  The Below picture shows a 4 finger grip on the same dart. )

Both pictures show my thumb placed well behind the dart's center of gravity -- good for touch. The tip of the dart of course points nicely up.

            ( the dart used is a Bottelsen Hammer Head "Bernd Hebecker", 18gr barrel )                         

                           #2: The same Grip As #1 On A Shorter Barrel

These 2 pictures show that it is often no problem to use the same grip on a different dart. 3 fingers touch the barrel which is more ton-shaped and shorter -- 4 fingers wouldn't fit on the dart here. 

                                                        (the dart is Harrows "Dennis Priestley")

Both pictures show the "pencil" grip from different angles. This grip is widespread and good to use, at least good enough for world champ Phil Taylor. 

                                         ( the dart is again my "Bernd Hebecker" Hammer Head ) 

                                                                        #4 - Variations

 A grip used by one of my teammates. The Below picture shows the "original", the right me trying to copy it on my dart. This grip is a bit on the extreme side, so not recommended for beginners.