They say darts are decided in the head. Before the Darts World Cup 2023 in London, which begins on Thursday (December 15, 2022), Sportschau spoke to German participant Florian Hempel about the mental side of the sport.
Sportschau: Would you agree that darts is a brutal sport?
Florian Hempel: Definitive. It depends on millimeters. You may know that from archery, a centimeter at the eye is a few meters at the back of the target, you have to imagine it in a similar way with darts.
And what about the head? Are your own thoughts perhaps your greatest enemy?
Yes. If you can hide them, say goodbye to your own consciousness and let your subconscious do its thing, then you can play very good darts. You consciously mustn’t let anything get to you, neither the fans, nor the opponent, nor anything else.
“I’m building a kind of dome in my mind”
And how do you do that?
I just learned to push the thoughts away from me. I tell myself, stay with yourself, don’t pay attention to anything else. In my mind I build a kind of dome that everything bounces off. Then the subconscious takes care of the rest, because the nice thing about darts is that the board is always at the same height, the distance is always the same, and the fields are always the same size. That means what I’m good at at home, I’m also good at a World Cup.
Can you picture this dome under which you are in an oasis of well-being?
No, not like that. So that I practically put myself in my training room. I’ve tried that once, this visualization is too exhausting for me. What I do is more of a focus. Before the last World Cup, I put the Airpods in during training and listened to darts at full volume to learn to mentally shield myself from it.
Many world-class athletes such as Novak Djokovic or LeBron James practice so-called mindfulness meditation every day, where the aim is to simply let negative thoughts such as doubts about one’s own strength pass by…
These don’t have to be negative thoughts! Every hobby player knows that, you play great darts until you’re about to win, and suddenly thoughts like “you’re playing great, just don’t screw up!”, and you already feel pressure. That means just pushing those judgmental thoughts away.
Easy said …
I do this through what is called Hong Soh breathing. In tricky situations, I breathe in slowly through my nose and imagine a long drawn-out “Honnnng”, i.e. like a gong strike, which has a calming effect, and then I push the thoughts away with a strong exhale. You also learn not to whine about missed opportunities.
Do you work with a mental coach?
I have. He introduced me to a few strategies and said, take what feels best for you. Then this dome building and the breathing technique got stuck. I don’t do meditation.
How does your everyday training look like?
I’m mainly on the board in the morning, around 9 a.m. Then train my three or four hours. If things don’t go so well, I go back to work for two hours in the evening. The rest of the day is taken up by organizing my profile life, such as planning a trip.
Now, in preparation for the World Cup, I train a lot more, which adds up to four hours in the evening. I also go out and play small tournaments to get match practice. Otherwise I train alone.
Alone? Is it even possible to simulate the pressure situations we were talking about?
That’s fine. You just recall a situation like this and imagine the opponent starting with a 180 and a 140, so you just have to follow them.
How are you going to London now?
With a good one. After the year had been rather mixed, I ended up winning the Superleague (Note d.Red: the German World Cup qualifying tournament) won. I showed over five days that I can play good darts, I only lost three of 27 games, my scoring was right, my double quota was right, I’m taking this self-confidence with me now.
At the World Cup, however, things are different. Huge stage, thousands of fans, emcee, walk-on with your song “Kölsche Jung” – does it all bounce off you or does the dome fail?
I’ll definitely suck up the walk-on! It’s goosebumps, it’s the feeling that you actually do professional sport for. I’m really looking forward to it, it’s an amazing feeling. I am grateful that I can do this. But once you’re up on stage, those feelings all have to go. As soon as I have the darts in my hand, focus is the order of the day.
Frank Meyer conducted the interview.