On Having an Axe to Grind (or Throw)

There’s a lot to get angry at in the world today. I feel like I’m constantly enumerating the reasons and for once I’m not going to get into them. Instead, today is about getting a little of that anger out. Some people like to have conversations when they’re angry, I just end up looking like a frothing mad man. Some people like to hit a literal punching bag, but all this writing has given me the weak little wrists of some sort of frail medieval prince. Some people like to go golfing…but as I’ve said, odds are that’s one of the reasons I’m so god damn mad in the first place! Recently, I got to do something so pure, so raw, so wild, it could make the maddest person in the world as docile as the sweetest little lamb: throwing axes!

I’m a pretty modern man, I like to think. I believe in human rights for all, healthcare that’s as free as America is supposed to be, the downfall of capitalist system that keeps us all chained to our jobs, and the coming combo robot/climate apocalypse where we’re lasered to death by Roomba’s riding tornados and tsunamis. For one hour, though, I got to feel like tenth century Viking, Eric Bloodaxe (that was his real name, I swear to God), destroying those weak and pathetic English on my way to capturing York.

When you go to an axe throwing place, they make you sign a bunch of waivers in case you have too much fun and the bloodlust becomes too insatiable. Then a guy who lived off the grid for a year, tells you a story about how a group of squirrels taught him their language and then saved him from a bear. After you nod and say, “that’s crazy, man” enough times, he goes over the rules, gives you some pointers and lets you loose with a target and a couple of different axes to throw.

The next five to ten minutes are spent tentatively throwing axes, feeling like some sort of authority figure will burst through the door and aggressively scold you for doing such a clearly dangerous activity…and then that first good throw buries itself in the target and you hear that satisfying, “thunk”. Now, you’re off to the races.

From one handed throws, to underhand throws, to two handed overhead throws, you learn them all and never grow tired of that feeling, that sound, and that visual of an axe you’ve sent spinning through the air, finding satisfying purchase in a wooden target. Maybe you imagine that target has your bosses face on it, or your ex’s face, or a certain politician who you feel may or may not have committed high crimes and misdemeanors…who ever or whatever it is, as you launch axe after axe into it, you feel the anger just melting away as you begin to focus more and more on perfecting your technique and really nailing that bullseye…and then the hour is up, and your shoulder is burning and you can barely remember why you were even angry in the first place.

Have you ever thrown axes? In the wilderness or in an axe throwing…place (arena? Emporium?)