The exclusive benefits of an open axe house culture.

Dear reader, I'm sure you, like me, think a lot about the impacts of a tribalism mindset on our day-to-day lives. How we, being a communal species, create sub-groups and sub-sets of groups, and how all that club-housing makes for tight-knit, often exclusionary behavior.

Like, I'm sure you think about that all the time. Just like me. It almost doesn't require me to start the post with any mention of it.

So, keeping that in mind, I want to talk about axe venues. Particularly what happens when we, as axe throwers, get too territorial about our venues (and about who we count as part of that venue, or not part of that venue. Maybe a little bit about how that axe-house-tribalism comes into play when we look at, let's say, the Round 1 qualification process to get to Worlds). Yep, it's time to talk about axe house culture and where it can fail.

First, the obvious: nobody (typically) wants to exclude anyone in axe throwing. We like our community.

I don't wanna put too fine a point on it, but axe throwing absolutely does have a culture of inclusivity. This is a mix of an established cultural expectation and the necessity of getting as many axe throwers as possible in our ranks, I think.

And I'm not just saying this to be feel-goody about it. I've been part of a lot of groups in my life, and axe throwing has proven itself, more often than not, to be a pretty wide-open sort of membership. If you're not a jerk (sometimes even if you are), and you aren't ruining anyone else's fun, you're welcome to be a member.

oh oh oh real quick oh wait note a note here: I haven't thrown WATL at all, or really anything other than IATF. I hella don't know what the community culture is for those other organizations. Don't @ me.

But not wanting to be exclusionary doesn't mean we aren't. Espesh when there are limited "resources."

This is where I think things get a little more tribalicious.

See, it's easy to be welcoming and inclusive and sweet-hearty when there is plenty to go around. In the case of axe throwing, "enough to go around" means time and matches and whatever else. The bar is really low, here, for there being enough for everyone to get a slice of that sweet, sweet experience.

How-ev-er, this shifts when there is a scarcity. The one I'm thinking about, in particular, is the qualification process for IATC.

Because venues only get so many invitational spots, the nature of our wide-open, everyone-is-welcome attitude can get tested.

I can't speak for other axe venues. Hell, I can't really speak for my local venue (holla, Meduseld Meadery!), but I can tell you what happened this last Round 1, and how much of a sour taste it left in my mouth.

Also a note here wowee another one?: Writing this out puts me in a weird position where I can seem really accusatory/calling people out. I don't wanna do that. So I'm not gonna include any names, and am gonna hashtag vaguebook a little bit. But the individuals aren't really the point. The point is how things went down. So here we go.

The little axe venue that would rather not.

This year, Meduseld Meadery managed to snag an additional spot for Worlds. 3 in total. Now, this is a big deal for our tiny little venue, and it came in part due to increased league numbers, expanding marathon leagues and, well, just a really good job at recruiting from a number of people.

Now, we have a few people who, typically, qualify every year to go to Worlds. That's fine. Those people, in the past, have stepped aside to let other people lower on the invitation list get a chance to go. And that's swell.

A weird thing happened this time around, though, and it made the whole round 1 qualifying process pretty sour in the mouth. At least in mine.

See - because we have regular folk who come up from other axe venues, a few people qualified who weren't local throwers (don't ask me what qualifies as "local," in this case. I don't know if it's geographic or % of leagues thrown or what), and the idea that (and here it comes, everyone) non-meadery-throwers could get spots really threw a wrench into the Meadery's otherwise sterling reputation as an open, everyone-welcome axe throwing venue.

To condense down the history part of this: some of us were frustrated we had so few spots, and were losing them to axe throwers who had more local venues they could qualify out of, some of us were frustrated with how those people were frustrated, and most folks were frustrated by the whole ding-dang process as a whole.

But the one group our "us"-ism didn't address was the "everyone."

Long and short of it, people got hurt. Feelings, I mean. Nobody rolled out with pitchforks or anything. Point in fact, the majority of the frustration was at the IATF process of determining who goes to Worlds - and none was directed at individuals.

However, it's nearly impossible to not hurt people's feelings when you make them feel like an "other," and, dear reader, we did that despite trying to avoid it.

And I don't wanna come off as some hero, here. I sure as hell wasn't. I positioned myself around the "if you don't want people to get your invitational spots, throw better" line, maybe with a little "I'm not a strong enough thrower to qualify, anyway, so what do I care" thrown in.

In hindsight, I could have been more involved in all of it - maybe thrown in my voice more to set the tone, but I found the whole thing fairly frustrating to talk about, and kinda confusing.

I haven't stopped thinking about how ugly the situation felt.

Out of the entire shit-show of griping and explaining and justifying, the thing lingering with me for about a month, now?, is when the meadery "locals" (again, whatever definition works, there) got so protective about our few spots, we made anyone else who throws with us feel like they weren't entitled and welcome to those spots.

Tribalism - otherism, reared up its head.

Frankly, as soon as you make someone feel unwelcome, it's difficult to get back to a point where they do. At least 100%.

So that brings us to a question: Is it better to have an exclusive axe house, where everything "earned" is kept in-house? Or is it better to be inclusive, and everything "earned" is shared across everyone, regardless of how close or how involved they are?

I think you know the way I lean. At least I think I know the way I lean. But I wonder if this was just a learning opportunity for my fellow league-throwers about what constitutes "us," or if it was a fluke situation where we, as a group, got hung up on what we wanted instead of considering what we had.

Sweet Moses this is turning into another Carrie Bradshaw sign off. Forget it. Post over.