Wednesday, February 20, 2008

Practice Routine: Foam Axe

The Foam Axe is so named because its pronunciation is identical to 'faux max' give or take a micro pause. It is a very short routine except on the worst of practice days because all you have to do is get all three darts into the triple 20 and they do not need to be all in the same round. In fact by definition they are not! Because then that would be a genuine maximum. I will very often use the foam axe as a warm up routine for regular practice.

Here is how it works: you throw your darts at the triple 20 until one hits. Then you leave it in there! You retrieve the two errant darts and return to the oche. Now your task is to hit the triple 20 with one dart already in there. Believe it or not having your first dart stick in the triple is in fact a cause for a small psychological charge but with repeated practice can be overcome. Once you get your second dart in there, now you leave it and return to the oche with the single errant dart. The task now is to get that last dart in the triple 20 with the other two already in there. Keep throwing and retrieving it until you do. Make sure each shot is a studied determined 'spot' shot. Take a breath. Make a routine out of throwing that last dart for the max, this way you have a behavioral guideline for when this occurs in a match. When this condition does occur in a live game the last thing you want to happen is to be thinking "oh my gosh I hope I don't miss!". Instead you want to have hit the max a hundred times before in Foam Axe situations. The stress of having two darts in the triple 20 is tremendous and for the novice player usually results in a choke (a wide miss) but this is a situation that can and should be desensitized.

2 comments:

Tommo said...

I like the way you mess about with words. Would a faux pas be a father who hates you :o)

Zeeple said...

hm.... no I think a faux pas would be someone who says they are your father but really isn't. like daniel day-louis in there will be blood...