Hawk Throwing Styles

D

DancesWithKnives

Joined
Apr 21, 2001
Messages
1,385
I'm only a beginner at throwing hawks (but have done a lot of knife throwing). I have always thrown hawks by gripping the handle with the edge down. A more experienced thrower showed me that I could stick the hawk at intermediate ranges (such as between 1 and 2 full rotations with the edge-down grip) by throwing edge up. What I am wondering is whether anyone uses the edge-up grip as their primary throwing grip and, if so, are there any advantages to it?
 
I beleive you are referring to half turns with an hawk. Where the hawk sticks in the target with the handle up? If so I played around with that throw for a little while. No real advantages other than you can vary your throwing distance more. I find hawk throwing to be sort of easy and it puts a little bit of a challenge into it. Just my two cents.
Kevin
 
If the tomahawk head is center balanced (which is rare) the tomahawk will rotate the same regardless if the edge is up or down. If the head is not center balanced it will rotate slightly differently depending on the edge orientation, so just throw it a few times and get the feel for it. You can also hit intermediate distances with spike hits.

In regards to style, what is important is being consistent. Once you get the distance down you want to be able to repeat the throw again and again. Be smooth, and have a complete follow through. Keep the distance small until you get your hit rate high as it is nothing but frustration to move out too soon.

-Cliff
 
Normal hawk-throwing competitions at Rendezvous are conducted at 1-turn, turn-and-a-half, and 2-turn distances. The throwing point is determined by your own pace length (and I assume that you have "tuned" your hawk to your own arm length, pace length, and other physical characteristics).
The 1-turn throw is done from 6 steps (actually, you take one extra pace as you will be stepping into the throw). This is the baseline. The hawk is thrown with the blade edge down, and sticks in the target approximately square, with the handle down.
The turn-and-a-half throw is done from 3 steps farther out (9 steps plus your "extra" step) with the blade edge UP. The hawk again sticks squarely in the target, but with the handle up.
The 2-turn throw is from another 3 steps out (12 paces plus the "extra" step) and is again executed with the blade edge down when the hawk is in the hand. It again sticks squarely, with the handle again down.
As Cliff correctly pointed out, a smooth and consistent release is a necessity. Arm motion must also be vertical (not sideways to any degree) and no "wrist snap" can be tolerated as it screws up the consistency of the release. The hawk handle, when the hawk sticks in the target, should be vertical whether "up" (1 and 2 turn throws) or "down" (turn-and-a-half throws).
Hope this information is of use to you.
TWO HAWKS
http://www.2hawks.net
 
Just an additional bit of information. At Rendezvous, we often have to use the blade back method of throwing if the target is resting on or very near to the ground. Otherwise the handle hits the ground and knocks the hawk off target. One gets to know and will be able to judge distances such that you can throw the hawk from varied places and not have to pace from the target. After a while you know just where one rotation, 1.5 rotations and 2, etc will work. We've trown out to 5 rotations with good success (of course that was after a lot of trial and error.)
 
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