How to Caber

So You Want to Toss a Caber
by Jim Jardine, CCSF Athletics Committee
Background image is Ryan Vierra

One of the questions most frequently asked at Scottish Games of AD's (Athletic Directors), athletes, information people, web masters and sometimes just anyone at the Games with a badge or even a kilt is, "Can I toss a caber at your Games?"

The first reaction most of us have is: "Get away from me!" Come on, John Q. Public, can you toss a football at an NFL game? Do you get to drive at the Indy 500? But then we calm down, put the thoughts of blood, ambulances and liability in the back of our mind and do what we can to encourage the person while gently but firmly saying, "No way!"

So, ah...where do the throwers come from? Believe it or not we were all born earthside, grew up around other almost normal people and somehow found ourselves out there, looking up at a too-big caber and saying, "What the hell am I doing here?"

But the path between seeing your first caber toss and getting your hands on that slippery stick is one oft filled with seemingly impossible barriers. What I hope to do here is to steer you in the right direction by linking you to local groups who have all come through the same route.

Before you start your e-mail barrage against these people (and me) let me give you a few general ideas that will help you shape up and psyche up for the Big Event.

Because our events resemble the Olympics in many ways they are sometimes described as Scottish Olympics. There are eight events (and sometimes nine): a light and heavy stone, a light and heavy hammer, a light and heavy weight-for-distance, the weight-over-the-bar and the caber. The ninth event (not usually done on the West coast) is the sheath toss.

The main point here is that there is not a single event, the caber, but eight or nine events. Furthermore this is a competitive sport and you must compete in all events if you are to participate at all. The story behind this is that some really good Olympians came to Scottish Games many years ago, signed up for a single event they could win and walked away with the prize money for that event. So now it's the whole nine yards or you don't compete.

"But, but...I only wanted to try tossing a caber!" Sure, we have all been through the same argument. And if you want to do that you can try contacting some of the groups below and asking where people work out so you can try. And in this environment you'll have friendly advice, encouragement, reality checks and the lot.

Or you can go to some of the smaller, local Games and hang around in the afternoon when everything is over and before stuff is packed up and pester people to see if they'll let you try it. What you will usually hear is, "I can't let you handle our equipment unless you sign a release and we're out of forms." or how about, "You'll have to get clearance from the AD first." "Where's he?" "Probably participating in the closing ceremonies." Or, if he/she is smart and truly Scottish he'll be in his clan's tent having a wee dram 'n a beer after a sweaty and hectic day on the field.

So if you go the do-right route you'll find the following advantages: people who know what they're doing and what the dangers are; a spirit of friendly camaraderie; an attitude that you are mainly competing against yourself; information on when the next Games are coming up; and how to join one of the organizations that do all of the work to make sure we have safe and friendly throwing areas. I think you'll find that there is a community of Scottish Games and Heavy Events people working to make this all come together and, as with any worthwhile endeavor, what goes around come around. You put in: you get out.

For Local Information currently the following URLs point to the major organizations' main pages. Simply send a brief e-mail with your location and then be patient: everyone in this circuit is a volunteer.

If you already work out with weights, just work yourself back up to what you consider "good" shape. Don't get carried away trying to become the world's strongest. Keep a simple goal in mind: avoid injury. If you go out on the field with no prior conditioning and put out some real effort into maneuvers you are unfamiliar with, you are looking for trouble.

For the couch potato: get in shape, period. You not only have to pick up 60-90 lbs. of slippery stick (the small ones!) using the palms of your hands, you have to lift it straight up to chest height, shift your hands under it and then run with to build up momentum. If you have a 60-90 lb kid in your family, just pick him or her up, hold him about mid-chest height and run twenty yards. From the results you can see what kind of shape you're in!

For the non-weight lifters, do your old high school or military calisthenics, or get a book from the library on weight training and do some of the moves with makeshift stuff (buckets with rocks secured to a broom handle can do it.) You could also bite the bullet and go to a gym. What is needed is mostly leg strength so the recommended exercises are squats and cleans, as well as light overhead work and some of the dumbbell exercises for general flexibility and arm strength. Anything else you can pick up from the guys on the field. And the standard disclaimer applies here: this is free advice, and you get what you pay for!

If you take any of this lightly and are already saying, "Yeah, yeah, just lemme out there!" keep in mind the T word: Testosterone. I have seen guys losing control of a caber on their first time out, ignoring the advice of judges, athletes and by-standers to drop it and get clear, and then against all laws of physics, muscle the stick back up in the air, using their shoulder as the fulcrum. What I didn't get to see was the resulting damage to the shoulder and the pain over the following days and weeks. So you think you're going to be cool and do it all so smooth and then you get out there and forget it all because you know you can do this impossible trick. Working out with other guys and gals and starting with a smaller stick will get you over this before you get to a Games.

The best way to start this phase is to get together with a group of athletes and ask around. But if you are hard-headed, independent and stubborn like me you can follow my trail:

I went nuts trying to find a write-up that gave some how-to info in the handful of Games programs I had seen in 1993 when I first had the bug. I searched a large university library. Nothing I found really helped. But I wanted to get started anyway. I went to a telephone company junk yard and found short posts more than a foot across that must have weighed 200 lb each. Finally someone steered me to a lumber yard in Modesto, California, some 120 miles from home. After I parked, the owner drove up from the back 40 with a huge fork lift and when I told him what I wanted. He looked at me sideways and said, "Not for you, is it?" Then he showed me a pile of 16-footers and said that this was the pile that the guys got theirs from. My eyes lighted on a relative toothpick: 12 feet long and 62.5 lb soaking wet (48 dry.) "I'll try this and come back later on for a bigger one," paid him something like $5 a foot and left. I was actually considering turning around and going back and taking the big one, too, so that I wouldn't have to make another trip out there when I was ready for the next size. Hah!

You can also avoid this interesting but time-consuming adventure by going to your nearest Scottish Games and asking if you can buy one of their damaged smaller sticks and then duct tape the hell out of it to hold it together, or ask where they get theirs, etc.

Let me tell you what the novice does with a caber if no one tells him or her what the technique is...and of course no one is going to tell us when we're too proud to ask! I went into my back yard, walked the caber up and picked it up. It was a big moment. I grabbed and grasped and finally found myself embracing the rough and ugly chunk of wood which was stained with some sort of green preservative - carcinogenic - I was sure! Above me was a mysterious force and it kept pushing the top of the pole in all directions. I knew that if I looked up I would see this giant hand pushing on the caber. But I also knew that if I looked up I would drop it and it would kill me and my wife was off at work and...well you can see how bad this can all get. About six weeks later I actually turned it though, and felt pretty good. I called it my turning point.

Suggestion: to follow and practice the explanation below, just take a 12' - 2x4 to get used to the actions without the weight and the balance problems.

The caber is always put in an upright position by the previous thrower or Games staffers. You stand with your heels together and toes out with the narrow end of the caber on the ground between your feet while the other athlete "walks" it up. I.e.: he grabs the heavy end, raises it over his head and walks toward you until the caber is upright and right in your face. The he (or she) says, "You got it?" And you say, "Yup." But then, what else can you say? "No, I don't even know what I'm doing here!"?

You let the stick angle slightly back. resting on your shoulder. Then you start a slow, snaking action, moving your hands toward the ground down the shaft, all the while sensing for a shift in the weight that will tell you that the caber is not going to stay where you want it. You are squatting, back almost parallel to the ground, the caber is pressing on your shoulder and you finally feel your little fingers touch the grass. (Later, and with longer cabers, you won't go as far down the shaft.) Now comes the first tricky part.

Most people with no instruction try to get their fingers under the rounded end of the caber. It seems to me that I once placed the end on a clump of grass just so I had some purchase. You can also imagine praying for a gopher hole. Well, how the hell do you get it up off the ground? First of all, we cheat! We have this goopy brown paste we call stickem (or some such spelling) which is pitch and some other stuff to keep it from drying - probably another carcengen! You put enough on your fingers and palms to be able to grasp the stick. Interlace your fingers almost to the palms, get as much palm surface spread around the base as you can (a big reason to get as close to the bottom as possible), dig the heels of your hands in as hard as you can and stand up. Use your legs! You do not want to muscle the caber off the ground with your arms: standing up simply brings the caber up with you.

Up to now it was tricky, now it gets complicated. Using the upward moment imparted by your legs, drop your palms under the base of the caber. This is trickier than it sounds: you keep your fingers laced. (Look at the "wallpaper" of this page and you'll see how Ryan has grasped the base of his caber.) At the same time you begin what the late West Coast Youth Caber Director / Athletic Director / Judge / Announcer / Amateur Athlete Cletus Abbott called: the Spider Dance. 80 to 90% of the caber's weight is above the fulcrum point and you have just done a bunch of moves that almost guarantee the stick to be out of balance. So you step left to compensate and then it's going the other way and also forward and you start forward but not fast enuf and so you start running after the caber, trying not to lose it. It can look pretty funny at times, but eventually you do learn the spider dance with some degree of finesse and once this balance is established you can start your run.

Why run? Another Local Hero / Judge / Athlete Mike Qutermous, would pick up my caber and turn it without taking a step. Or picked the caber with one hand, took a few steps at a fast walk and turned it single-handed. Obviously the need to run is related to the athlete and the physical parameters of the caber.

I think cabers should be thought of as wheels with two spokes: there has to be a center of rotation. The run gives the forward motion to get the wheel spinning. The heavy upper end will assure that the wheel goes forward and starts the spin when you stop. The long and heavy cabers require the field experience, the technique and the strength to make this wheel simile work. With your little 2 x 4 you can easily see the spinning wheel concept when you toss it hard enough to spin twice before hitting the ground. What you want to simulate with the caber is a wheel turning only 270 degrees.

But you don't just stop, you "plant". Feet spread a bit, you squat quickly, then use those powerful quads to shoot you and the caber up off the ground and give the long spoke of wheel the push it needs to make a revolution or turn. If it falls back toward you it is a "6 o'clock" and it makes a funny, hollow "whomping", or even a "doinnnkk!" sound which is somehow different from what you hear when it falls in the other direction - a full (270 degree) turn or "12 o'clock" ... or maybe it's the roar of the crowd that drowns out the sound then!

The Sequence (all competition photos were shot by the author at the 2002 Dunsmuir and Pleasanton Games)


The author almost ready to pick	Great example of working your way down	Pulling it in after the pick	Picked and ready to run	The spider dance: will the judge catch up?	Starting the run, caber balanced


The run, with the caber leading.	Plant and throw	Halfway to contact	On the ground and falling

First off all if the Scottish Athletic links above have some links to athletes who manufacture implements or parts. When you contact these people for pricing keep in mind the distance: the 56# Weight for Distance shipped UPS will cost...?? Instead, you may want to drive over to Centerville, get to know another person in the circuit and pick up a few tips while you're at it.

Because manufacturers of Scottish Athletic implements are quite distant from many of us, we have made our own. But is it really the distance and shipping costs or truly a Scottish attitude: why buy if I can make my own? Below are some suggestions for the do-it-yourselfer.

Stones - 16-18# for open, 23-27# for Braemar. The closer to round, the better, but don't count on truly round stones at the Games: find a river, go to a landscaping supply house. Do not raid your neighbor's garden!

Weights - cut off ~2' dia CRS round or square stock, drill and tap for a 3/8" eye bolt and add a handle. Or get a bunch of lead (I got used wheel weights from the local garage) and melt it in coffee cans (a 2# can will weigh out at ~10-12# per inch of depth) then drill a 3/8" hole in the center. If you make these little wheels in different thicknesses you can run a long piece of threaded rod thru the middle and use the same set up to practice for light and heavy weights for distance as well as over the bar.

Hammers - when the lead in the coffee can is still molten shove a 48" piece of 1/2" galvanized pipe into in it. Click here to see one in action: John Ross, 1972.

and if you just don't want to bother, you might try these guys, athletes all, who make equipment for sale:

Most of the groups linked above have details of throws including the rules for each event.

At many Games you will see a Youth or Kiddie Caber toss. If we have it for kids, why not adults?

Three simple reasons: kids listen to and believe the adults in charge, they are always in good shape, and their parents sign a waiver.

My caber was close enough to a Master's class size and weight that about eight years ago I got an actual recorded turn in one competition, so the practice was worth it. In 1997 we moved to a condo and the caber was hidden under a hedge outside my window. But in 2000 I donated the caber the the SAAA in honor of Cletus Abbot, who did so much to encourage beginning athletes. When the Caledonian Club moved the Santa Rosa Games to Pleasanton in 1994 we used it in several demos, both to show and to toss. The local ABC TV station ran a lot of spots for us in 1997 and I took my caber and kilt over to San Francisco for the shots. So if you live in the Bay Area and have seen our ads on Channel 7, you've seen possibly the caber with the most TV time on earth ... well, would you believe Northern California?