If you think it’s easy to throw an axe and make it stick, think again. You have to be at just the right distance, with just the right spin for the blade to make right angle contact with the target and dig solidly in there. Otherwise, it just bounces helplessly to the ground.
So, you’re sitting there by the campfire, all casual and partially liquored. In the darkness, from somewhere beyond the edge of the tree line, you hear a voice yell, “Help! That GUY stole my purse!” You, think, I have my axe, I will throw it at him as he runs by and he will be killed immediately. Holding the axe in one hand, you raise your arm, then swing and let go. The axe goes out, and it lands firmly upon the perpetrator’s lower back. Flatly, though, with a thud. Not sharply, like a slish, with an instant kill and no follow up complaining. Nope. Just a thud, sounding exactly like a lawsuit.
“What the bloody hell?” Your victim screams in pain. “What the hell was that? You know, that really, really hurts! What was that? Did you just throw an axe at me? Who does that? Are you a stupid moron?” The rhetorical verbal berating goes on for quite some time afterwards. An axe thrown in the movies is not the same in reality. There’s a lot more whining about it after the fact.
I would suggest practice. A lot of practice. Overhand, underhand. Sober? Maybe not so much. Remember, step into it, and… release.
—DG.
Inside Doug's Head 