Today is the very first day I felt anywhere close to my typical, gregarious self. For the past...hell...12 days (!) I've been very, very ill with some sort of para-influenza that did me dirty. But, fortunately, the illness hit me up during the holiday break, so I didn't miss much.
And being hella sick presented me with a really amazing opportunity to experience the joy of throwing while ill, which is something I had yet to experience in my throwventures thus far.
For those who are curious about the experience, let me give a tl;dr wrap up here: it isn't fun. It's like putting a fish-bowl on your head, filling it with your own mucus, and then trying to dance. It's like taking several punches to the face and trying to paint a still life.
But, because everything is content in my life, I thought I'd try to be analytical about the whole experience and share what I got out of the experience. Because if all I got was a series of lost matches (and a bit of lost self-esteem) from the whole thing, well, I just don't know.
A first note: I wasn't contagious, but I also should have just stayed home.
Were it not week 7, I would have stayed in the little badger burrow of blankets and pillows my partner had kindly made me, but I have a real big rule about not missing league nights as it is, and the idea of forfeiting matches was just too much, so I took as many drugs as I could find and shuffled my way out to the Meadery. I should have known (given that a 5 minute walk took me about 15) I was not going to perform even close to my best, but alas.
The truth of the matter is this: I didn't really enjoy myself, people didn't enjoy having me shuffling around, and the whole matter likely would have played out better had I just stayed at home and pined for the ringing and thunk of axes.
I didn't get that supernatural power I expected by holding my axes in my hands.
You know that scene in Lord of The Rings when ol' King Theoden gets un-puppeted by Gandalf? Where he's all life-alert and Gandy the White is like "you'd remember how baller you were if you picked up your horse sword?" and Theoden is like "fuck yeah my guy, holding a sword reminds me how much I wanna top-rope Wormtongue!"?
Well, a guess a part of me was expecting that to happen when I put my mitts on my own axes. But, as it turns out, without Gandalf there to do his magicks, I just felt like my axe was a lot heavier than I remembered.
Instead, I was greeted by the confusing experience of having targets move around whilst I was aiming, my arms not listening to what I was asking, and - perhaps the most concerning - I didn't really give a damn how my throws landed. It was kind of like watching a movie I didn't care about. Just 4 matches of Paul Blart Mall Cop 2.
I realized axe throwing is a lot more physically taxing than I imagined.
I'm not saying axe throwing is, you know, a real athletic thing. It's not. But I was winded and exhausted by the end of the night. I'd like to say I went home and immediately got the best night's sleep, but I was coughing so much that I ended up sleeping about an hour whilst wondering if my eyes were gonna eject from my skull like two very round astronauts escaping a snotty spacestation.
I think that was a good sort of lesson, though. Because if nothing else, it made me admire how much focus and technique actually has to be in place during regular, not sicky-time throwing. I guess it's easy to take for granted by the healthy - how much we're actually putting into the ding-dang effort - but as a wheezing, dizzy, half-awake thrower, I admired my previous successes.
Why am I telling you all of this.
I don't know. I just missed you, I guess. And I'm feeling MUCH better now (after seeing 2 sets of doctors and eventually finding someone who seemed to care about helping me feel better), so I wanted to make sure you all knew I was still alive, and still love you.
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