Vernon in Virginia~Formerly Alaska
New member
[size=large]Below is a sequence of photos of Lee (16) spitting wood with an 8 pound splitting maul. Both Lee and Sarah have helped me get wood for years, both here and and Alaska. I would split and they would load the cart and help me stack it.
2 winters ago Lee was helping me get some wood and asked if she could try splitting once (she was 14 at the time). I said "Lee, I don't think you realize how heavy this maul is and how hard you have to hit wood to split it. And if you don't have control, you could hurt yourself." But she insisted, so I gave her the basic fundamentals of splitting wood: stance, grip, mental concentration, swing and follow through. Follow through is thinking beyond the wood and burying that maul into the ground right through the piece of wood. I also told her that the directions to splitting a piece of wood is on the wood its self. Well of course when she first tried it she hit it like a girl; but after just a little more tutelage, she caught on. I would let her split the poplar, which is fairly easy wood to split. She really enjoyed it, continued to improve, gain strength and moved up to oak and even hickory. She can bust open the big pieces with a wedge if it needs it. Needless to say, she doesn't hit like a girl anymore, she's got the power thing down as you can see in some of these photos. Any man or teenage boy who watches her is very impressed, and can't believe she can do that with an 8 pound maul.
We were working outside today taking down a few trees along the fence line that I'm redoing. She's been bugging me for about 3 weeks to split some wood. Thanks for looking. [/size]
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2 winters ago Lee was helping me get some wood and asked if she could try splitting once (she was 14 at the time). I said "Lee, I don't think you realize how heavy this maul is and how hard you have to hit wood to split it. And if you don't have control, you could hurt yourself." But she insisted, so I gave her the basic fundamentals of splitting wood: stance, grip, mental concentration, swing and follow through. Follow through is thinking beyond the wood and burying that maul into the ground right through the piece of wood. I also told her that the directions to splitting a piece of wood is on the wood its self. Well of course when she first tried it she hit it like a girl; but after just a little more tutelage, she caught on. I would let her split the poplar, which is fairly easy wood to split. She really enjoyed it, continued to improve, gain strength and moved up to oak and even hickory. She can bust open the big pieces with a wedge if it needs it. Needless to say, she doesn't hit like a girl anymore, she's got the power thing down as you can see in some of these photos. Any man or teenage boy who watches her is very impressed, and can't believe she can do that with an 8 pound maul.
We were working outside today taking down a few trees along the fence line that I'm redoing. She's been bugging me for about 3 weeks to split some wood. Thanks for looking. [/size]
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