Of all the harebrained ideas I’ve had, axe throwing might be quite near the top of the list. I have to tell you though, it was a blast.
I worried that my 70-year-old shoulders wouldn’t be able to heft an axe over my head and hurl it at a target, but that didn’t cause me an ounce of trouble.
I also worried that my instructor would hate the time he had to spend with a senior. If he did, he sure didn’t show it. I was immediately comfortable.
Bury the Hatchet has a number of lanes (I’m told there’s even an axe-throwing league – who knew?) but I went mid-week in the afternoon (purposefully so I wouldn’t be laughed at by a younger crew) and was the only one there. I don’t know if that added to my comfort level or not but I’m guessing it might have.
My instructor, Alex, said he really needed to practice with his other hand, so would I mind if he threw left-handed? You see? That’s the way to make the student comfortable: Don’t make a total fool of them from the get-go. Let them see it’s okay to throw badly and it’s okay to miss.
He was great at offering suggestions on stance, wrist control and aim. It wasn’t long before I was hitting 4s consistently.
They teach you two-handed throws with the smaller but heftier axe and single-handed throws with the lighter tomahawk. I did better with the tomahawk and had several bullseyes before my time was up.
The establishment itself has an open but cozy feel to it. There’s a bar at the back and plenty of places for friends to sit and watch. There are even games like Jenga to keep you occupied while waiting for your turn to throw.
Near the back of the room was this board with hundreds of names on it. It seems that the two red dots toward the outside top of the circle (called “kill shots”) are difficult to hit and if you’re successful, you get to sign the kill shot board.
Spoiler alert: You won’t find my signature there.
Once I got the hang of it and settled on the tomahawk as my “weapon du jour,” Alex introduced me to the games. He said they have about a dozen or so. We played two. For the first one, the goal was to hit a score of 21 without going over. The second one was a form of Tic-Tac-Toe where the numbers represent the numbers on the target. If you hit a 2, for instance, you get to pick which of the 2s you want. As you can see, my very first throw was a bullseye.
I think I like this game!
This particular establishment also has a painting business attached so if you don’t want to try your hand at axe throwing, you can do something a bit more soothing. The paints are spun on a disk and the colors are black light.
That said, once I got started and got a feel for it, my interest was all in on the axe throwing. Although Alex beat me at several games (even left-handed), I still managed to consistently hit 3s and 4s and had a handful of bullseyes before we quit.
Back in my professional dance days in Vegas, I was always very good with props. Give me a top hat, huge feather fan, cane or whatever, and I had no trouble. I think I could be pretty good at axe throwing if I ever had a mind to join a league (I don’t) but I might just do this one again. It was a fun afternoon.
And don’t let them fool you. The secret was not how close or how far I was standing from the target, or even whether or not I kept my wrist locked, but when I released the tomahawk in the throw.
Just listen to me giving advice after one session. I think I’m a natural.
- 939 Oakfield Dr., Brandon, Florida
- 813-556-7137
- $30 for an hour
Lisa Browder 
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