Michelle, our Stirling social meet up facilitator, shares the group’s exciting experience with axe throwing in a recent SWAN outing. Read on to discover how this unique activity became a fun adventure!
Hello fellow SWANs!
My name is Michelle. I’m the Volunteer Facilitator for the Stirling meet up group. If you have met me before a hearty hello! If you haven’t, good to meet you in some form and thanks for reading.
Recently the Stirling group took part in an outing, and we wanted to share it with the wider community. We decided to put some available funding from the Stirling Community Mental Health and Wellbeing Fund towards an activity in addition to our usual meet ups. For the activity itself, we went a bit outside the box...
Here is what happened!
During discussions, axe throwing was suggested; knowing there was a place in Stirling and having heard good things about the activity itself, we decided to look into it further and then eventually go for it. I definitely wanted to try, and I’m glad others felt the same.
I had never been axe throwing before, so understandably there were a lot of unknowns.
What will the space be like? How busy will the venue be? What kind of sensory challenges could I have? Would the sound of the axe hitting or falling be painful to my already sensitive hearing? Would I be able to keep my balance? As a very clumsy person, this was a real concern. I’ve fallen over playing mini golf and crossing the road – gravity is not my friend. This had potential to be a lot of fun or a new and exciting way to injure myself. Either way, I was determined to meet my inner Viking or Dwarf persona. Quick spoiler, no injuries sustained, so success there!
Game of Throws in Stirling (a wonderfully thought out pun), provided us with a very unique and stress free session of fun. With three lanes in the venue we had the space to ourselves and a supportive instructor who took the time with us to help find our footing, throw strength and offer helpful advice to get the most out of our experience.
Each lane is set up to allow a safe throwing experience. Chips of rubber from old tyres coat the lane to cushion the fall of the axes if they didn’t stick into the board. With a simple scoring system, it was a fun way to keep track of your throws (14 points in one throw – I was very pleased with that one).
The axe throwing itself was both relaxing and exhilarating. There are no loud aggressive noises and no expectation to get it right on every throw. There is a feeling of pride and accomplishment when you managed to make contact with the board.
You can take your time with no pressure on tactics if you don’t want to play for points. The repetitive motion was soothing and the sound of the axe blade hitting the board was much quieter than I had expected and very satisfying every time it managed to land.
We have additional tickets for future trips to the Stirling venue – so there will be more opportunities to come along and check out this autism friendly experience with your fellow SWANs! Details will be forthcoming once we have a date confirmed - keep an eye out on the SWAN Places calendar or our Facebook page.
Hope to see you there!