Dear Clutchy: I don’t enjoy larger axe Throwing Tournament Weekends – help!

Dear Clutchy,
The U.S. Championship is coming up next week, and lots of my league friends are going. They want me to come along, but I don’t want to spend lots of money to just go 0-2, pay for lodging, pay for food, and get stressed out over how well I throw. How can I find the excitement and sense of accomplishment they seem to get (that I don’t seem to have)?

– Tourney-adverse in Toronto.

Tourney, I get where you’re coming from. Tournament weekends are expensive. It’s easy to forget how a $130-ish entry fee, plus AirBnB, plus food and beer and T-shirts and patches and whatever else can add up.

And the truth is: you gotta at least pretend to be financially responsible. Dropping a few hundred dollars (conservatively) to just experience an axe throwing tournament is, you know, a lot of money. If you can’t afford it, don’t do it. Simple as that. FOMO is a ploy of consumerism to push people, I think.

But your question included the suggestion that you’re not excited about tourneys – that going 0-2 kinda limits the point of a tourney weekend for you. And that’s somewhere I can help, maybe.

really large axe tournament weekends, for most of us, shouldn’t be about reaching the podium

Sure, it’d be nice if every single one of us could expect to make it to the top three – but if I’m being honest with you, and with myself, that’s likely not going to factor into the cost or the enjoyment of an axe tournament weekend. For like, 95% of us, it’s gotta be more about the experience, the connections, and the chance to do just a little bit better than we typically do.

Truth is, if you want the thrill of reaching the podium, you should probably put those hopes and dreams into your local league or a smaller, more local-er tourney experience. One that doesn’t require a lot of travel or overnight arrangements or anything like that. Get a few of those under your belt, and then maybe shift your gaze to the larger tourneys (that draw in top throwers from all around).

So what about that sense of accomplishment? Well, Tourney, it’s gotta be from anything else. Maybe it’s a matter of using the experience of a larger tourney to make deeper connections with the axe throwing community – or simply having a weekend with people you rarely get to spend that much time with from your own axe venue. Maybe it’s working on your tourney jitters via exposure therapy.

Maybe it’s just a chance to try some new food and regional delicacies. Who knows.

What I’m getting at, poorly, is that doing well in a tourney like the U.S. Championships should be a perk, not an absolute, all-or-nothing goal. If reaching the podium is the only thing that makes spending time/money/effort worth it, I think you’ll spend lots of your time getting frustrated.

Figure out what you do enjoy at a tourney, and go for that

Badger, I’ve been told, likes talking to people and watching how people throw. Brings along a camera and everything. He goes for ideas. And while he’s a pretty miserable thrower, he finds a lot of happiness in just experiencing things.

[[Okay real talk – writing as if I’m Clutchy and then referring to myself feels cheesy as hell. I hate it. I hate it so much. Am I gonna stop? Probably not.]]

I’m telling you that, Tourney, because having those other goals/senses of achievement make for a lot more reasons to invest in travel/arrangements/tourney costs. It fills out the entire experience a bit more, and that makes going 0-2, for example, a bit more palatable. At least that’s the justification he gives himself whenever he stops to think about it, I bet.

Axe throwing weekends are expensive. But they don’t have to be.

I think there’s a lot of peer pressure at axe throwing weekend tourneys – and I’m not talking about always going for Clutch.

There’s an expectation of cutting loose with bar tabs, going to food places, buying new axes or axewear or a million other things. Plus the cost of staying somewhere – it can be, easily, a couple hundred bucks just to huck tools at wood.

But it doesn’t have to be that way. It’s possible to figure out how to live on the cheap:

• Stay with fellow throwers: This shouldn’t surprise anyone, but if you group-buy an AirBnB or, even better, manage to secure a couch from a local axe thrower, you can save hundreds. Don’t go it alone.
• Bring your groceries: this one might sound impractical (hell, maybe it is), but I’ve saved money by bringing a little cooler with food from home. Sure, it’s not gonna cover a three day weekend, but even if it covers a dinner and a breakfast, you’re saving. You could also, you know, go to a grocery store wherever you are and make a meal if you’re staying at a place with a kitchen.
• Actually set a budget for yourself: Easier to write than do, but if you set a hard limit for what you’re allowed to spend at a tourney on an axe or goodies, you’re more likely to not, you know, live off ramen for a month afterwards.
• Be accountable to each other: Having a road dawg is a great idea – and it’s even better if you ask your buddy to keep you in check when you’re eyeing up a $400 axe. Sure, my Road Dawwwwwwwwgggggsss all try to push me into buying pretty things, but I have no doubt that if I asked them to check in with me before I buy something big (or to push back on me when I thought about it), they would. We can save each other, friends. We sure can.

In the end, it comes down to what you want from your axe throwing experience

If someone doesn’t like going to bigger tourneys, I’m not gonna be the one to force ’em. I’m a firm believer that if you don’t like doing something that’s sole purpose is supposed to be fun, you should stop doing that thing.

But if you want to enjoy larger axe throwing tourneys, and are having a hard time finding that enjoyment, maybe try re-aligning what you’re going for.

Have a question that needs Clutchy’s Advice? Use the contact form at the bottom of the page and Clutchy will be more than happy to help!