Muscle Memory

Back in the dark ages (when I was in my early 20s) I used to play darts for a local pub team, we used to travel around various venues and pubs in Surrey playing other teams in a county league. Then, once a year we used to attend a league final where the top players from all the teams would battle it out for supremacy. I used to be a reasonable player and one year I made it into the final, the week before the final I lost my darts (first time ever) and the day of the final I went to the shop and bought a new set, I unwrapped them two minutes before my first match. 

Now, a set of darts is quite a personal thing, a particular shape, weight and balance that you practice endlessly with and have muscle memory for, changing any of these elements means re-learning is required! I assumed I would be useless, I'd all but written off my challenge before I started and so the whole team was totally gob-smacked when my first throw in my first match I scored 180 (the maximum) To this day I can't explain it, perhaps my extra concentration because of the new darts helped or perhaps the new darts were so similar to the old ones that adjustments weren't needed, anyway suffice to say that the high scoring didn't continue and I settled into a more regular game after that. I didn't do too badly though, I came second in the overall competition, only just losing the final in a very close match (my finishing let me down)

Fast forward to the present and the other week a good mate of mine (who also used to be in the same team back then) and I went for a couple of "Friday evening pints" in the Nags Head in Reading. When we sat down he pointed out that the dart board was empty (see picture above) and did I remember when we used to play, I certainly did and we decided to have a little re-match. We were both hopeless, almost like beginners again, scores all over the place and dozens of darts to finish on a double! We were about to give up and sit down when we were noticed by a couple of other people in the bar who challenged us to a game, we accepted and ended up playing a dozen games with them, it was great fun and we got better and better as time went on, I guess muscle memory is never erased completely! (we still lost overall but the games towards the end were respectable)