How to Aim Darts: 8 Techniques to Quickly Improve Your Game
So you want to up your accuracy when you throw darts? Getting a dart to hit bulls eye actually relies on several components, but the most crucial step is to aim the right way.
The game of darts is tricky. Knowing how to aim darts quickly, while maintaining both accuracy and precision, maximizes your results in the best way possible to enjoy your dart game better.
If you’re someone who wants to learn that impressive aim, this article is for you. So, how do you aim a dart? Let’s look at some strategies to polish your dart throwing skills.
8 Effective Techniques to Aim Darts With More Accuracy
1. Get Into a Proper Stance
Standing in a pro-stance can be vital in learning how to aim darts properly.
First, keep your whole body straight yet relaxed. Don’t bend your back; any unnecessary bend or twitch in your body can cause the dart to go off track.
Next, have your best foot forward. Place your dominant foot in front, and the other behind, but don’t position them too far away from each other. Just find your balance and stay focused.
Balance your body position by distributing your body weight equally. Planting too much of your body weight on one side throws your aim off.
Still, try to develop a posture that feels right and convenient for your aim. There’s no need to veer TOO far away from what feels comfortable.
2. Grip Your Dart Wisely
Because a good dart throw relies on letting go at the perfect time, how you grip your dart assists your trajectory; so grip that dart wisely.
For more serious dart players, there can be plenty of different ways to grip a dart. However, if you want to get a head start, we can start with the most basic yet most effective one – the pencil grip.
Getting the hang of learning any dart grip can really take quite some time to master, so don’t be discouraged if you fail a few times.
How to Hold a Dart
1. You need three fingers at most to grip the dart with accuracy so that you can have full control over the dart.
Balance it with your index and the middle finger clamping down the middle of the barrel or shaft from the top, and your thumb supporting it from the bottom. Don’t hold towards the backside of the dart.
Holding the barrel with your whole hand makes it hard to release the dart from all your fingers simultaneously, so it’s best to keep the count to three. You may support extra-long darts with your ring finger.
2. Avoid curling your fingers because this loosens the grasp you have on the body of your dart. Keep your fingers open at all times instead.
3. Have a firm but relaxed grip. Don’t put too much pressure on your finger muscles that your fingers turn white. Again, you want to release darts easily. At the same time, you want to make sure your hold isn’t flimsy either so that you can speed up your throws.
Make sure the rest of your fingers aren’t stiff and are easy to shift around. When in doubt in finding the right pressure to apply, it’s better to have a looser grip than a firm one.
3. Find Your Dominant Eye and Hand
Good hand-eye coordination comes with knowing how to use your more powerful hand and eye to your advantage.
We all know what our dominant hand is, but how can we tell which eye is our more dominant one?
Your dominant eye is simply the one that provides slightly more input to the visual cortex of your brain and relays information more accurately, such as the location of objects.
Most, but not all, people have a dominant eye, and the amount of dominance varies per person.
For some, it may be obvious to see which eye is dominant but because our eyes work together, it can also be tricky to figure it out.
How to Find Your Dominant Eye
Here are 3 simple tests you can do to find your dominant eye for darts:
- Extend your finger in front of you, search for an object in the distance and point to it. Then, have one eye closed. If your finger appears to have moved far from the object then the closed eye is your dominant eye.
- Put your hands out in front of you and make a triangle, positioning the bull’s eye at the center. Then, slowly bring your hands to your face, the whole time making sure to keep the target in the center of the triangle. Once your hands are near your face, you’ll find that your hands are not in the middle of your eyes but rather nearer either the left or right. This is your dominant eye.
- Lastly: Try throwing three darts at a time per eye while the other is closed. The eye that you struggle keeping shut is your dominant eye.
Why Knowing This Matters for Darts
For games that require a precise aim and throw, your dominant eye helps to more accurately determine the position of your target. It’s what you’ll use primarily to aim darts.
When throwing darts, one of the most effective darting techniques is to learn to raise the dart up and position it in front of your dominant eye.
This does not mean you should close your other eye when you aim and throw the dart. Both eyes are important for depth perception; just let your dominant eye lead the way with confidence.
4. Find Your Sight Line
A sight line is an imaginary straight line that starts from eye level, goes past your hands and dart, and ends at the dart board. Aligning all elements can enhance your throw accuracy. This line is up to you!
The purpose of doing this is to pin your eyes to the target and make sure they stay there. A good line of sight will help you line up your game shots consistently.
Sight lines vary from one player to the other. Some people use their little finger to line up properly, or even have their knuckle of their throwing arm sticking up.
Some also use the dart tip to aim. Regardless, the most important thing about this tip is to search what line works best for you and be consistent with it every time.
5. Stay Still When You Throw
It’s highly recommended to minimize your movement.
Any pro dart player can vouch for this tip because they know that it’s essential for the shoulder and elbow to be motionless.
Otherwise, even with the slightest movement when you release the dart, your aim will likely go off course. So don’t miss your shot, and stay still.
6. Point With Your Elbow
Bet you didn’t know that your elbow contributes significantly to how precise your throw will be.
Because your elbow serves as your pivot for your throw, the position of your upper arm and even your wrist dictate where your darts go.
The first thing to do is to be aware of where your throwing arm’s elbow is, including the direction it is pointing.
You’ll aim better if your elbow is pointing up and directly at the dart board, and leaned in towards you.
Have your upper arm almost parallel to the ground as much as possible, and align your shoulder, elbow and wrist at a 90-degree angle.
If your throws were already precise but lacked accuracy before reading this article, this tip might just be what you need; your elbow could have been pointed down all along.
7. Aim the Tip of the Dart Upwards
Before throwing your dart, make sure the sharp tip is tilted slightly upward (emphasis on slightly). Also, not the entire dart, but just the tip. This ensures the best trajectory for your throw.
How much it should be tilted depends on how heavy your dart is and how fast you throw darts. Determining the actual angle of your dart is something you’ll get the hang of over time.
The important thing here, if anything, is to never keep the dart tip pointing down when playing darts. This ensures that you miss your target when you throw.
8. Lock-In on Your Target
This may sound like a no-brainer tip, but it’s important to know that losing target leads to poor throws. It could be that the player aimed at the wrong thing, or was distracted at the last moment.
Eyeing your target as you walk up to your throwing line. As you move left and right to find your stance, don’t forget that your eyes should always be fixated on the target.
Don’t just look at the general board direction. Directly aim exactly where you want your dart to land, and turn your game mode on.
Conclusion
All of these techniques discussed on how to aim darts more accurately can sound like throwing darts is easy-peasy. However, playing darts is challenging and requires consistent practice.
The moment you incorporate these strategies and improve your mistakes by learning your own style, you’ll be dart throwing like a pro in no time! Find an effective style that feels second nature to you.
Ready to impress people when you join dart games? Keep at it and let us know if you have any tips you’d like to share as a dart thrower by leaving a comment on the article below. Enjoy playing!