April 01, 2009 - 06:27 PM
Albert Sherwood -
I am 15 and I have suffered with dartitis for a year. I used to be a pretty decent player and regularly entered tournaments every week. It all started last may at a huge youth tournament in Walton when I was very nervous, and as I was practicing i found I could not release my darts. It got worse as the day went on, and in the hope of making at least some progress in the tournament completely altered my throw. They released a little easier but not much. I had been preparing for that day for months, putting in about 4 hours a day practice. I did not know if would be my downfall. As the year progressed I began throwing reasonably well again hitting the big scores and starting to feel like my old self. However, for some reason after I had played a former PDC pro and not struggled at all in my match with him, it came back. For months I kept going, determined not to let it beat me, but it just would not stop. I went through several stages of the dreaded disease including
Not being able to release properly
Arm locking
Arm freezing on release
Lifting my leg up and not being able to release
Staggering over oche
Trying to release the dart so hard it began to come back and hit me
All of these processes did not just happen once, they kept occurring at different times in the year. It cost me my place in the BDO youth super league team. Determined not to let it beat me I began practicing harder than ever for about 4 hours a day. I lost a huge amount of consistency and my darts were flying all over the place. A little later in the year however they started going good again and I plucked up enough courage to enter a local tournament. I reached the second round and dominating the scoring against a very decent player, however I could not hit my doubles and lost the match. I did not get over my defeat for ages, and believed that huge loss of confidence is what made my dartitis come back several days later. I have won 1 league game since May last year but with a pathetic dartitis inflicted 11 average it tells you I will be lucky to ever win a game again in that form. I still practise every day and I will never let this beat me. I am determined to show everyone just how good I really am and come back better than ever. Recently I played Dennis Priestly and I played awful but I am still playing none the less.
Dartitis hugely affected my confidence and I was scared to even go and throw at a board. It made throwing 3 darts something hard to do. I still snatch my darts, and my consistency and accuracy go out the window at times. However I can still hit the big scores just not as often as I want to. I know I am nowhere near past dartitis , but I am determined not to let it beat me!
IP : 92.23.158.236
|