Martin Carvill’s mindful philosophy helps cancer recovery and return to the top of his game

In 2019 Martin Carvill was on a life support machine battling for survival against oesophageal cancer.

Three years later, almost to the day, since Martin underwent surgery, he won the singles championship title in the Banbridge and District Darts League.

During the previous decade the world-class dart thrower was at the top of his game - a regular on the World Darts circuit and competing well in events like the Dutch, Belgium and Czech Opens, along with winning countless tournaments and trophies around Ireland as well as in Newry, with whichever team was lucky enough to have him.

One of the only people who believed he would ever play darts again – especially at the level he had done – was Martin himself.

Martin has been practising Mindfulness for 20-odd years and in the last 10 of those he developed a keen interest in Buddhism.

It’s an on-going long and painful road back from the cancer that ravaged his body, but there’s no better man to overcome that obstacle than Martin, as the two words that fuel his life are ‘belief’ and ‘fear’ – the former a force that he says has helped him succeed in the darts world and in his recovery, and the latter the thing that he feels holds people back from reaching their goals.

For this week’s podcast, Martin talks about his journey, since his cancer diagnosis and after the miraculous surgeries that couldn’t have been done a few years earlier.

He battled through the doubts both from within and from fellow darts players when he decided to give up drink in 2016… But the biggest battle was still to come.

Martin explains how Mindfulness and Buddhism has helped him through the  challenges he has overcome.

He tells us all about his darts career and how he and other top dart players really need sponsors to come on board for the little it costs them in relative terms.