I think I've got one of my own (well...aside from the Sunday Squib, which seems to have gone into hibernation, maybe for the best), and I hope it spreads like wildfire among dart-shooting bloggers everywhere. It's the next big thing, I can feel it!
Welcome to the first installment of...the Tuesday Ton. Where I bitch about my dart night and wonder how I ever thought I was any good to begin with.
Truth be told, this is probably the first, last and only Tuesday Ton. Let's just say I don't plan to spend the time creating a graphic for it. Should I start devoting one day a week to dartspeak, I fear my readership will dwindle to nothing. And I can't afford to lose either of you.
How is it that one night, everything during league flies to the board with barely any effort at all, and another night, you're practically tripping over the line because you feel so uncoordinated?
Maybe that's like asking how it is that the Miami Dolphins can beat the New England Patriots in Week Three.
Last week, it took me fifteen darts before I hit my first bullseye. Which was about a game and a half. I can justify that by saying that I was more than a bit distracted watching CNN as our country made history. But tonight...sure I had a couple hat tricks, and found a couple triples. The rest of my night...um, not so much. Struggle struggle struggle.
A buddy of mine sent me an e-mail a couple weeks back, asking for advice about darts, as he was getting into a social league and wanted to improve a bit. He asked for any mechanical/mental advice I could offer.
The mental part of it...that's the stumper, you know. I've made the physical dart-throwing motion thousands upon thousands of times since I started shooting in, um...the late '80s, I guess, is when I remember caring about shooting good darts.
But the mental part is so touchy. A bad day at work, or a mind filled with clutter...or a cute bartender (don't judge)...can all affect the outcome of a night of darts. Some nights on my drive to the bar, I'm amped up and focused to shoot great darts, and the entire night is a horror. And other nights, I drive in exhausted and not at all up for it, and...that's when I win five of my six games and shoot three hat tricks and seven tons.
Tonight, perhaps I'll blame it on NaBloPoMo...because I knew I had to come home and write a blog post. If I would have shot good darts, this blog post might have been about purple elephants, because I would have thought to myself on the drive home, "Well, I'm supposed to shoot good darts. That's not worthy of a blog entry."
(and...maybe this isn't, either. if not, thanks for stopping by, and hopefully you'll come back tomorrow. for a post...about purple elephants.)
All I'm saying is...and I have to try and relearn this on a daily basis, it seems...focus, focus, focus.
"Visualize this thing you want,
see it, feel it, believe in it.
Make your mental blueprint,
and begin to build."
—Robert Collier
I can equate your question about, "How is it one night..." to my passion for golfing (and really, isn't your blog all about me anyway?...).
ReplyDeleteI keep a simple Excel spreadsheet every year just to track myself (this year for the record, i've golfed 104 "9's" (a round is really 18, but when you golf weekday league for 9 holes, it's easier to keep track with nines) at an average of 43.4423 strokes per...turns out i'm still just a little better than bogey despite countless days and dollars...damn it...).
As i look at June 20th, I was at Twin Oaks in Denmark. How in the hell did I shoot 53 on the front with four penalties and then come back with a 42 on the back (two more penalties but two birds)?
It's not as if it was sleeting on the front and then became 80 and sunny on the back. It's not two different nines like links style on the front and wooded on the back. I wasn't plowed on the front.
I think my father sums it up best when after a bad round or really bad hole says, "That's why I'm not playing at (insert PGA tour stop here) this weekend."
Me either. And I suspect that's why I don't see you (yet) on ESPN2 throwing metal tipped darts at the cork board in England with that gravely voiced annoucner guy yelling "One Hundred & Eighty!!!!"
And don't worry about losing readership, where else am i gonna talk about myself and/or rant other than your blogs?
And the day I judge you about distracting bartenders is the day that....that...well, lets just say that day's not gonna come.
And good thing they don't have dart boards in BW's!!!
I'm pretty good at Cricket and 301...ummm, yeah.
ReplyDeleteIt's a lot easier to comment when your blog is less specific.
Did you realize that you've been pitching darts for like 20 years? Man, you're old!
I was just a kid in the 80's. Well, for most of the 80's anyway.
Yes, TheKid...of course my blog is all about you. That played into my decision to do this November thingie: "Gee, TheKid's gotta have a place to comment. I better do NaBlahBlah."
ReplyDeleteGolf is frustrating for me, too, even though I only play once or twice a year these last couple years. How is it possible that I have a chance to shoot a 40...a 40??...on a course as challenging as Autumn Ridge, when I usually shoot high 40s/low 50s out there.
Granted, I didn't do it, because I hit my second shot into the trees, and we won't talk about what happened from there. But a legit shot at 40, standing on the last tee! Wow.
Brad...Want me to write some more vague posts like I did on the 7th? Those are much much easier, believe me. :O)
And I knew when I wrote the words "late '80s," someone was gonna have a smart-ass remark. I even almost pegged it to be you! I'm quite perceptive.
Come to think of it, we might have started shooting semi-serious darts at Whitewater in about 1990.
But still.
Old.