Katniss and the chopping block

 I don't suppose anyone has invented a system yet for competitive wood cutting, but if someone were to do that, invent a system of style points, it might produce some interesting results.  Degree of difficulty determined by circumference and length of the piece to be split, hardwood or soft. Different weight divisions of competitors.. Form, freestyle or mandatory styles. Meanwhile with no standard to judge by and the lack of spectators at any wood pile, probably everyone has a developed a slightly different way of standing, swinging a maul and following through without jarring their arms out of the shoulder sockets.

Alaska Gothic, with my daughter at the East
Pole, circa 1987, holding that 16-pound maul.

At the East Pole for serious bouts of splitting, I have a 16-pound wedge-shaped maul I bought from the Sotz catalogue many years ago.  That takes a lot just to lift and often I can just let it drop and good dry spruce will fall apart.  But some of the thicker, newer birch takes a bit more oomph.  For particularly difficult ones, I get the maul over my head, hesitate a moment, then lift up onto the balls of my feet and with my whole body bring that monster down onto the resistant wood.  Not much can withstand that hard a hit.  With that swing I can actually feel my legs and then my lats and then shoulders and arms going into it, enough so that if my aim is a little off and I strike a glancing blow, I come close to losing my balance.  It's a full-body swing.  

I haven't watched many people split wood so I have no idea if anybody else uses that little tip-toe move to gain more power. At least I didn't until I saw a movie the other night.

I have been enchanted with Jennifer Lawrence ever since I saw her in "Hunger Games" more than a year ago.  I cheered when she won her Oscar for "Silver Linings Playbook."  Curious I looked into her career and learned her first starring role was in something called "Winter's Bone," which I had never heard of.  Movies are easy to come by with iTunes and Amazon these days and I bought it for, I think $9.  I save those movies on my iPad for times when I don't have access to another way to watch a movie. So, last time at the East Pole, I watched it.  Turns out it was nominated for four Academy Awards including best actress for her -- in her first leading role.

In it she plays a poor woman trying to keep her family alive and together in the Ozarks.  It's a pretty
rugged life made tougher by the plot. Among other things she has to split firewood to keep the family warm.  Of course in the movie, she doesn't have to do it all day like we do in real life, but she took enough licks to make it real. As I watched, something jumped out that told me she knew how to do this, or that someone had researched it and taught her.  She lifted the axe over her head, went up on the balls of her feet and brought the steel down hard right through the wood sending two splits in opposite directions.  I choose to believe she and not a stunt double did it. I often look for reality in fiction, little details that give the story and characters credibility.  Up on the balls of her feet to split firewood, yeah, that rang true to me.

The action gave me even more respect for a very young actress whom I already liked. 

But, later, as I thought through it all,  hmmm  OMG, is it me?  Maybe she wasn't doing it right at all, maybe, ugh, maybe, what if it's me, what if I swing an axe like a girl?

Firewood and revery
JJ Watt does it too

SCHOOLED: More recently I was schooled on doing things like a girl. Mo' ne Davis is 13 years old. She is the first girl to pitch and win a Little League World Series game and also the first to pitch a shutout in that tournament. She throws a 70 mph fastball. And what does she say about that? In a quietly defiant voice she says, "That's throwing like a girl." Watch out world.