When you hear of a sport like “axe throwing”, your mind may conjure up images of burly lumberjacks, bushy beards and a heaping helping of machismo. But it’s not like that… at least not entirely.
As the youthful sport grows more entrenched in the mainstream, an increasing number of women have taken up the sport, whether as a fun leisure activity or as a serious competitive endeavor. And they’re proving themselves every bit as adroit and adeptas their male counterparts when it comes to hurling axes.
A perennial discussion, here on the Internet and in progressive circles, is “how can we empower women through sport?”What are the right conditions for encouraging women to occupy traditionally male-dominated spaces? As it turns out, axe throwing might hold the key.
Axe throwing has the potential to be particularly empowering for women for three reasons: one, it’s subversive; two, it’s a level playing field; and three, it’s community-oriented. Whether you join an axe-throwing league or simply book an epic bachelorette party axe throwing can be as empowering as it is fun.
Axing the Stereotype
A large part of what makes axe throwing so empowering for women is that it subverts expectation. When women partake in traditionally male-dominated activities, they are able to rewrite the narrative – to flip the script, in other words.
The great thing about axe throwing is that it hasn’t been around for very long – just over a decade – so it doesn’t carry the same gendered baggage as other traditionally male sports, like wrestling or boxing for instance. Axes may be a traditional symbol for masculinity, but axe throwing doesn’t have to be.
A Level Playing Field
Axe throwing is accessible. Not only does the fledgling sport pride itself on being inclusive, offering spaces accessible to people of all abilities and ages, but it’s a truly level playing field. There’s nothing in the male physiology that gives them the advantage when throwing axes – it’s a matter of aim and technique.
There are other sports like this – darts and bowling, to name a couple – but they remain male-dominated because they were popularized at a time when recreational activities were the sphere of men and not women. Again, because axe throwing is so new, it doesn’t carry that same baggage. If women can be just as good as men at it, and if a culture of female axe throwing is created early enough, it can be a truly egalitarian activity.
A League of Their Own
Finally, axe throwing is about coming together to create community. Whether it’s for birthday parties and bachelorette parties, or as part of a dedicated axe-throwing league, community is built into the sport. Where other sports – like tennis for instance –are primarily solo sports, and therefore isolate women from each other, axe throwing brings them all together. And community is a key step toward empowerment.
It may seem like a burly, masculine sport, but it doesn’t have to be. If you want to feel empowered and have fun, try axe throwing!
The association is being presented by Viking’s Landing, Burlington’s first completely authorized hatchet tossing office and computer-generated reality arcade. The debut meeting of the hatchet tossing class, called the Shield Maidens, starts on January nineteenth and runs for eight back to back weeks.
Len Almeida, author of Viking’s Landing, says his clients have been demonstrating enthusiasm for joining a class, and he saw that there were no groups in the area cooking explicitly to ladies.
“I’ve seen that there’s interest for it, particularly among ladies,” he says. “They need to feel engaged, they need to have a fabulous time and they need that energy.”
The alliance is available to ladies everything being equal and all expertise levels—even first-time hatchet hurlers. The capacity to learn new aptitudes and improve method is a key advantage of the group. Individuals from the Shield Maidens will be prepared by experienced mentors all through the two months, so the two novices and experienced hatchet hurlers the same can take a shot at upgrading their procedure in a protected and agreeable condition.
“We have devoted mentors on staff who will experience that whole procedure with them,” Len says. Since a first-time hatchet hurler can improve definitely through the span of only two hours, he says, individuals from the association are probably going to gain surprising ground all through the eight-week meeting.
Despite the fact that the possibility of tossing a hatchet can be scary for the individuals who have never attempted it, Len says it is a fulfilling and engaging experience for everybody who attempts it.
“Perhaps they’re not entirely OK with it from the outset, yet when they leave, they are simply totally cherishing it,” he says. “That enthusiastic connection that customers have to the whole experience is staggeringly amazing.”
The possibility of interfacing with others in the network is another large piece of the intrigue, Len says. “The human association component of this is so significant—the chance to mingle and play around with similarly invested individuals through the span of about two months.”
Individuals from the class will play exclusively against each other. The initial a month and a half are composed as a cooperative competition, with individuals aggregating focuses every week. End of the season games will happen during the last two weeks, with a victor delegated on the last week.
