The universal beginner's frustration in axe throwing is rotation. The axe hits the target but bounces off, because it arrived at the wrong angle — handle first, or having spun too far, the blade glancing rather than sticking. The instinct is to fix this by changing the throw: grip harder, throw harder, snap the wrist, add spin, remove spin. Almost all of that is the wrong lever, and chasing it is why beginners stay stuck. The variable that actually controls rotation is the one they keep holding constant: distance.
Why distance is the real control
An axe rotates a roughly fixed amount per throw for a given technique — it makes about so many turns over a given flight. Whether it arrives blade-first depends on how that fixed rotation lines up with how far it has to travel. Stand too close and it has not finished rotating, or has rotated past, when it arrives; stand at the right distance and it completes its rotation to arrive blade-first. So the cure for bad rotation is usually not a different throw — it is taking a step forward or back until the rotation and the distance agree.
Why the instinct misleads
Because the throw feels like the thing you are doing, so it feels like the thing to fix, while distance feels like a fixed rule of the game rather than a knob you can turn. But the throw is hard to change consistently and easy to make worse; distance is trivial to change and easy to measure. Fixing the easy, decisive variable first is simply better engineering.
The takeaway
When the axe will not stick, freeze your throw and move your feet. Find the distance where your repeatable throw arrives blade-first, and lock it in. Only once your distance is dialled and your throw is consistent should you start refining technique. Rotation problems are distance problems wearing a disguise — solve the distance and most of them vanish.