The Lumberjack Tabata, [Battle] Ax Mechanics & “Don’t Be a Rubber Maid” by Mark Hatmaker

This offering is an Old-School PT Challenge, a mini tutorial on form, and a bit of a finger wag at an aspect of “functional” training.


First the PT Challenge: The Lumberjack Tabata


Gear

·        You

·        An Eastern Single-Bit Ax [you can go double-bit but you won’t be shifting surfaces.]

·        A downed log to work [or if you’ve got a tree that needs to be felled, you’ve got a twofer—conditioning and chores—you’re welcome.]

·        A timer set to Tabata Intervals.

The Protocol

·        Hit that timer and chop furiously for 20 seconds.

·        Rest for a strict 10 seconds.

·        Then back on the stick for 20 more seconds.

·        You do this for a total of 8 work rounds giving you a total of 2 minutes and 40 seconds of work.

For those unfamiliar with Tabata rounds and that seemingly paltry work ethic, if you’re playing honestly the soul will cry as soon as you start your second 20-second interval. The 10-second “rest” will quickly reveal itself as woefully insufficient BUT do not allow that to sandbag following rounds.


Chop HARD, Chop FAST.


For my history buffs, lumberjacks were noted in days of yore [and days of now] as being mighty powerful creatures. Many a boxer, wrestler, and Combination Man [that wonderful hybrid] used jack-work as fight conditioners. It builds strength, it builds stamina, it builds power, and it teaches more than a few things about mechanics.

Many an old broad swordsman augmented “playing at post” with the necessities of “working the ax.”


“Don’t Be a Rubber Maid”


In “functional” strength circles jack-work has fallen out of fashion and been replaced by smacking sledgehammers into truck tires.


A few unasked-for thoughts on that faux bad-assery.

·        Tires provide rebound, logs, and rocks do not. Since when did we want training wheels on our “toughness”?

·        As for functional, when was the last time this scenario occurred, “Mark! Come quick, there’s been a storm and we need you to beat the shit out of a tire!” 

Now, let’s allow my tire-smacking enthusiast to reply with “That’s an iffy argument, Mark, the mechanics of swinging a hammer against the tire and chopping wood are similar and I could easily transfer these skills thusly rendering my tire-assaulting habit functional.”


We will now pause as all who have ever actually felled wood, hewn logs, worked a blade smile to ourselves and marvel at the jejune assumptions. 


A Few Rejoinders [Just a few]

·        True ax work will allow no rebound, you will work on both the positive and the negative sides of the stroke, possibly more on the negative which is the opposite of the tire-experience. [We’ll come back to this.]

·        True ax-work requires precision. You must work furiously while using eye-hand coordination to carve the kerf as needed. Tire work is willy-nilly rebounding akin to Stanley Kubrick’s apish proto-humans at the beginning of 2001: A Space Odyssey.

·        True ax work requires alternating swings within the sprint set, often each stroke is alternating. That’s how kerfs are carved. Most tire work is “Swing all right this round, switch to left that round. There, now you’re cool!”

We could continue, but we see that this “functional” exercise is about as functional as beating up tires.


I’ll allow General Georgi Zhukov to express the difference between theory and practice. He may be talking about large scale maneuvers, but the concept is the same.

“From the practice of the first operations I concluded that those commanders failed most often who did not visit the terrain where action was to take place, themselves, only studied it on the map and issued written orders. The commanders who are to carry out combat missions [you, Crew] must by all means know the terrain and enemy battle formations very well in order to take advantage of weak points in his dispositions and direct the main blows there.”


A Primer on How to Swing an Ax


The Swing

·        Square up to your log.

·        Grip the sub-dominant hand at the grip [towards the end of the handle.]

·        The dominant hand further up the handle towards the shoulder [the bit of handle near the ax head.]

·        Sight where you want to strike and swing HARD sliding the dominant hand down the handle towards the grip as you make impact.

·        That is the positive portion of the stroke.

Swing Strategy

·        Your next stroke should approach the first cut from the opposite side, so now you will have an angled cut from one side and then one from the other. You have started your kerf.

·        Continue in that fashion alternating kerf sides slowly building your kerf away from the center—away from the initial cuts. This allows wood chips to fly out from the widening and deepening kerf clearing the way for each stroke.

·        Building a kerf from the outside in, or worse having no idea or plan on the chop will result in more than a few embarrassing “sticking the ax” moments.

The Retrieval

·        Every stroke into the wood should be treated as if the ax will stick.

·        As soon as it makes impact, pump the rear-most hand upward on the ax handle hard while loosely gripping [or even letting go with the forward hand.] This handle pump utilizes leverage to free the heel and blade from wood [or bone for my battle-axe swingers.]

·        At the end of the pump arc, slide the forward hand back to the shoulder of the handle to lift the heavy ax-head aloft. [You are using a heavy ax, right?]

All of the above is executed in smooth strokes at a furious pace.


Power, stamina, eye-hand coordination, impact mechanics, a taste of battle-axe revelry, functional skill, maybe a little wood for the fire or chores completed.


So, which one of these two activities is the functional one again?


And if one still muses, “Well, slinging the sledge is still kinda the same thing.”


It is if you are breaking rocks doing muck-work, not beating tires. [Another day, another beef with faux functional.]


Keep in mind, holding a big boy toy don’t make you a big boy. [Entendre acknowledged and accurate.]


“Let not thy will roar, when thy power can but whisper.”-Thomas Fuller


So, to us all being strong man jacks and jills hewing wood like a highball outfit, earning our hayward lightning and having tighter sleeves and not be sweenied and have the sap to shove a nose down when we need to.


Highball Outfit-A hard-working knowledgeable crew.


Hayward Lighting-Homemade brew. Notoriously strong.


Tight Sleeves-Strong human.


Sweenied- Shrunken muscles from shirking work.


Sap-Wherewithal.


Shove a Nose Down-Thrash an opponent easily.


[For techniques, tactics, and strategies of Rough and Tumble Combat, Old-School Boxing, Mean-Ass Wrestling, Street-Ready Frontier Scrapping & Indigenous Ability culled from the historical record see the RAW Subscription Service.]