Dart Throwing Technique for Beginners: Your First Steps at the Oche mydart Dart Throwing Technique for Beginners: Your First Steps at the Oche ===================================================================== How to start as a beginner: setting up distance and height, finding a stance, holding the dart loosely and practising your first throws so that no mistakes settle in. Pose-Tracking Echtzeit 8+ Metriken [ mydart ](https://mydart.app/en) [Features](https://mydart.app/en/features) [Training](https://mydart.app/en/training) [Price](https://mydart.app/en/pricing) [Blog](https://mydart.app/en/blog) EN [ DE Deutsch ](https://mydart.app/de/blog/wurftechnik-grundlagen) EN English [ Features ](https://mydart.app/en/features) [ Training ](https://mydart.app/en/training) [ Price ](https://mydart.app/en/pricing) [ Blog ](https://mydart.app/en/blog) 1. [Home](https://mydart.app/en) 2. [Blog](https://mydart.app/en/blog) 3. Dart Throwing Technique for Beginners: Your First Steps at the Oche Technique 10 min read • 28. February 2026 Dart Throwing Technique for Beginners: Your First Steps at the Oche ===================================================================== How to start as a beginner: setting up distance and height, finding a stance, holding the dart loosely and practising your first throws so that no mistakes settle in. Before you throw: board, distance and equipment ----------------------------------------------- Plenty of beginners spend weeks working on their motion while the actual problem hangs on the wall. A board mounted at the wrong height makes technique work worthless, because you train a compensation that has to disappear again on a correctly set up board. Two measurements matter. The bullseye sits 1.73 metres above the floor. The throwing line, the oche, is 2.37 metres from the board, measured horizontally from the wall rather than diagonally from the bullseye. The diagonal distance between oche and bullseye therefore comes to 2.93 metres. Use that figure as a check and your setup is right. Equipment needs little at the start. A set of steel tip darts between 21 and 24 grams covers almost every type of player. Lighter darts need more force and forgive less, heavier ones fly more calmly but ask for slightly more impulse. Start in the middle of that range and only switch once your motion is stable. Changing hardware in the first month simply hides whether a change came from you or from the dart. More important than barrel shape or flight design is that you always throw the same set. Every switch resets your calibration. Your first stance: find a position and keep it ---------------------------------------------- There is no correct stance, only one you can repeat reliably. Three variants are common and all three work. In the front on stance both feet stand parallel to the throwing line and the body faces the board. It is the most intuitive option and the best starting point if you feel unsure. In the side on stance the body turns roughly 90 degrees and the front foot points at the board. That position is stable and common among professionals, but it loads the hip and takes getting used to. The stance at 45 degrees sits between the two and is the most sensible compromise for most beginners. Whichever variant you pick, roughly 70 to 80 percent of your weight rests on the front foot. The back foot only stabilises. It stops you tipping forward. The practical part many people skip: mark your foot position. A strip of tape on the floor is enough. Beginners unconsciously stand slightly differently each time they warm up, and that shift explains a large share of their spread later on. Fixing the position removes one source of error entirely without changing anything about the motion. Holding the dart: three things that matter early ------------------------------------------------ The grip is where most experimenting happens and least is gained. There is no anatomically correct grip, so only three points are relevant at the start. First, the number of fingers. Three fingers, meaning thumb, index and middle finger, is the most common variant and a good starting point. Two fingers give too little control over the rotation, four fingers demand a very cleanly synchronised release. Both are worth trying later. Second, the pressure. The grip has to hold the dart, nothing more. A cramped grip blocks the fingers on release, the dart does not leave the hand cleanly and starts to tip. A useful comparison is a raw egg: firm enough that it does not fall, loose enough that the shell survives. Third, the spot on the barrel. Every dart has a centre of gravity, the point where it balances on your finger. Hold it there or marginally behind it. Further forward the tip drops in flight, further back it rises. What counts is less the ideal point than the repetition: same finger, same spot, every throw. The first throw: only the forearm works --------------------------------------- The motion itself is simpler than it looks in slow motion. The upper arm stays still, the elbow is the pivot, the forearm draws back and accelerates forward. Nothing else happens. During the backswing the elbow stays where it is, as if fixed to a wall. How far you pull back is a matter of taste. Some players barely move the dart, others bring it almost to the ear. Both work, as long as the distance is the same every time. The acceleration runs forward evenly rather than in a jerk. The most common misconception early on is that more force brings more precision. A dart needs very little energy for 2.37 metres. Extra force creates tension in the arm and makes the motion harder to control, not more accurate. On release every finger involved opens at the same moment. If one stays on the barrel longer, it deflects the dart sideways. The arm then swings out toward the target with the fingers pointing at the board. That follow through can no longer influence the dart, but it tells you whether the motion before it ran straight. The typical beginner mistakes ----------------------------- Four patterns show up in almost everyone who starts out. They have little to do with talent and can be dealt with early. The first is too much force. Throwing hard tenses the shoulder and forearm and costs you the feel for the release point. Throw deliberately softer than feels right. The second is constant switching. Beginners often change stance, grip and motion within a single session because a few darts miss. That never leaves enough repetitions to tell whether something works. Stick with one variant for at least two to three weeks before judging it. The third is the head. Many players push the head forward during the throw or follow the dart with their eyes. That changes the perspective on the target with every throw. The head stays still until the dart is in the board. The fourth is the missing routine. A fixed sequence before every throw, meaning step up, take the dart, fix the target, throw, creates identical starting conditions. Without it every throw begins from a different state. Practising sensibly in the first weeks -------------------------------------- Beginners almost always play doubles too early and practise repetition too rarely. For the first weeks a different approach works better. Throw series at a single field, usually the 20 or the bullseye, and pay attention not to whether you hit but to whether the three darts of a visit land close together. A tight group next to the target is technically far better than one hit and two strays. The group shows a repeatable motion, the hit may be chance. Three to four sessions a week of 20 to 30 minutes each achieve more than one long session at the weekend. The motion is automated through frequency of repetition, not through total duration. As soon as concentration drops you are training mistakes along with everything else, so stopping early beats pushing through. Warm up for a few minutes before each session. The first throws of a session are measurably less settled for almost every player, and counting them into your judgement leads to wrong conclusions about your technique. When technical detail starts to matter -------------------------------------- As long as stance, grip and the basic motion are not in place, detailed questions gain you little. The exact elbow angle at release or the finer points of aiming only become relevant once the motion runs reliably. If you are at that point and consistency is still missing, the next step is narrowing down specific faults. How to read your grouping to work out which part of your technique is drifting is covered in the article on [improving your dart throwing technique](https://mydart.app/en/blog/dart-throwing-technique). If aiming interests you first, the dominant eye and the aiming line are covered in the article on [how to aim a dart](https://mydart.app/en/blog/how-to-aim-a-dart). Making your own motion visible ------------------------------ The underlying problem in technique training is that you cannot see your own motion. What feels right while throwing often looks different from the outside, and early on you lack the experience to notice deviations by feel. **mydart** captures the throwing motion through the camera and automatically measures what you cannot judge yourself: the elbow angle across the whole sequence, how still the upper arm and shoulder stay, how straight the arm travels and how much consecutive throws differ from each other. For beginners the last point is the useful one. It answers the question you have most often in the first weeks: is my motion actually becoming more even, or does it just feel that way? You might also be interested in ------------------------------- - [Improving Your Dart Throwing Technique: Narrow Down the Fault Instead of Guessing](https://mydart.app/en/blog/dart-throwing-technique) - [How to Aim a Dart: Dominant Eye, Aiming Line and Focus Point](https://mydart.app/en/blog/how-to-aim-a-dart) - [Dart Elbow Angle: Why Consistency Beats the Perfect Angle](https://mydart.app/en/blog/elbow-angle-decisive) Ready to analyze your technique? ---------------------------------- Register for free and let mydart measure your throwing technique. [ ![Download mydart on the App Store](https://mydart.app/storage/apple-black-en.svg)](https://apps.apple.com/de/app/mydart-app/id6762560486?ct=organic-blog-dart-throwing-technique-bas&mt=8) [ ![Get mydart on Google Play](https://mydart.app/storage/android-black-en.png)](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.mydart.android&referrer=utm_source%3Dmydart-web%26utm_medium%3Dreferral%26utm_campaign%3Dorganic%26utm_content%3Dblog-dart-throwing-technique-basics) Related reading --------------- [ Technique How to Aim a Dart: Dominant Eye, Aiming Line and Focus Point Aiming a dart is not sighting a rifle. How to find your dominant eye, what you actually look at, how long aiming makes sense and which mistakes happen most often. Read more ](https://mydart.app/en/blog/how-to-aim-a-dart) [ Technique The Five Phases of a Dart Throw: The Motion in Detail Every dart throw consists of setup, backswing, acceleration, release and follow through. What happens in each phase, how long it lasts and where typical breakdowns occur. Read more ](https://mydart.app/en/blog/dart-throw-analysis) [ Technique Improving Your Dart Throwing Technique: Narrow Down the Fault Instead of Guessing When the technique is there but consistency is not: which reference values apply to stance, grip and arm motion, how to narrow down your own fault and what is worth changing at all. Read more ](https://mydart.app/en/blog/dart-throwing-technique) Follow us [ ](https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61588643532421) [ ](https://www.instagram.com/mydart.app/) [ ](https://www.tiktok.com/@mydart.app) [ mydart ](https://mydart.app/en) Improve your throwing technique with real-time feedback and pose tracking. 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