The Last* Choptober: Revelations

There are, of course, the typical things.

Eating free waffles at the Sleep Inn every morning.

People whoo-ing across the venue, the sound moving like a murmuration of birds.

Jell-o shots.

But this was not just another Choptober. This was the last* Choptober. I didn't quite know how sentimental the whole event would become. If people would just stop, mid-throw, to hug their competitor and cry big heartwarming tears about the move to a new location. Or if the entire event would shift to a blowout, ending in our accidental burning of the place in a sacrifice to the axe gods.

Fortunately for our collective hearts and Don's insurance liability, none of that really happened (for most of Choptober, at least) - though I did put out a burning butt can out front and the Choppies did have some big feels.

Instead, the event was very much like past Choptobers, in that regard, save for a few notable exceptions.

I'm gonna have a big ol' post of photos soon, and a few offshoot "here's what I learned/thought about" posts and interviews and all that shit, but for now, I just wanted to hit some highlights.

Stormy is the first woman to win Choptober.

Stormy's meteoric rise continued, with an amazing set of matches and, ultimately, a first-place finish at the final* Choptober. I kinda forget about how effing good she is until I see her throw again and, of course, I realize the amount of skill she's able to wield is second-to-none.

I think that bit of herstory is such a good send off to the building, and a great way to solidify the historic importance of Chopper's as a venue.

BERT! won the 0-2, bringing glory to our house.

BERT! is a fellow Meadery thrower, and an all-around swell guy. He's been struggling a bit with some stuff (ambiguous enough?) and perhaps wasn't expecting much from his own performance at Choptober.

After going 0-2, he entered the Owen Too tourney and, lo, won the whole ding dang thing after like a million big axe throws in the first round. I'm so very proud of our boy, and hope, sincerely, it reminded him that he, like all of us, always have a shot at the podium on any given tourney day.

Deep-in-the-paint throwing theory.

I got into at least 3 deep-dive conversations about throwing theory. I won't bore you (yet) about them, but I'm super-duper excited to talk about it. In short, it all came down to considering last touch, movement power, and positioning. It all made me very excited about messing up my own throw even more whist thinking too much about it.

Enlightening conversations with amazing people.

this shouldn't shock anyone terribly much, but I look up to a lot of people in this silly hobby. I managed to grab a bunch of really fun, really insightful interviews that I'm excited to share.

This Choptober, I swallowed my fear a bit and managed to snag a particular interview with someone who (for me and prolly lots of people) represents the heart of axe throwing. So that'll be coming along.

I will say this particular talk felt like it changed my outlook on the sport, so, you know, gird yer loins.

So stay tuned - once I get caught up at work and get over my post-tourney-ick, I'll have lots to share and say about the whole dig dang thing.

*last one at Cherry Hill, duh.