If you're looking for a mate to come around and help you chop up some winter firewood supplies, Jason Wynyard is your man.
He can sever a log in seconds.
But your chances of catching the world champion wood chopper when he has time in New Zealand is as rare as finding a tree which grows money.
The Auckland-based pro spends much of his time dicing logs in Europe, the United States and Australia.
Like so many competitive wood choppers, Wynyard made his start in the sport at an A and P show.
The 37-year-old first swung an axe when he was 6 and took part in his first chopping competition at the Mamaku A and P Show soon after.
Since turning professional in 1996, he has won many international wood-chopping and sawing competitions, and holds 21 world records.
In 2009 alone, he became the Timbersports World Champion in Brienz, Switzerland; the Timbersports Series Champion (eighth title) in the United States; the Sydney Royal Show Single Saw World Champion; the Timbersports Champion in Columbus, Georgia; and won his 11th consecutive Lumber Jack All Around World Championship in Hayward, Wisconsin and his fifth World Title Single Saw, Standing Block, Springboard, Jack and Jill and Hot Saw titles.
So he's not the kind of bloke you want to get on the wrong side of, if you know what I mean.
At 1.9m, and weighing in at 130kg, Wynyard is no lightweight.
But when it comes to success in woodchopping, he says size isn't everything - technique is.
Smaller choppers can often compete very successfully against men much bigger than themselves by cutting more precisely, with fewer hits and better technique and timing.
"I am a right-hander who chops as a leftie because it lets the right hand guide the axe. I know a lot of people who don't agree with my theory though."
Around competition time, Wynyard says he normally cuts for three days (Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday) for three hours, and then rests for two days before competing, which usually happens on weekends.
He also runs, skips or rows twice a week for aerobic fitness.
"My training advice to young athletes is cut as many logs as you can - it's the only way to become better at this sport."
Although he has been extremely successful, there have been many moments in his career that have been more painful and embarrassing than having a splinter under his finger nail.
One was coming second in a handicap chop where the winner got such a start he had finished before Wynyard was allowed to start.
The other was being interviewed on ventriloquist David Strassman's show in front of a live audience on New Zealand television, where he was harassed and ridiculed by one of the show's main stars - a mischievous and rude wooden puppet called Chucky.
Despite winning so many world championships and breaking so many world records, Wynyard says that his "single most proud" career moment was winning the World Championship Jack and Jill sawing event with his wife Karmyn.
If you want to see Wynyard in action this summer, the Rotorua A&P Show on January 11, is the place to be.
It is one of only a few events the world champion contests in New Zealand.
Cutting-edge sport has origins in medieval wood processing
A man shaking an axe above his sweaty brow while screaming at a crowd of men, women and children may seem like a frightful sight.
But "Men of Death" are a common sight during the summer months - especially in Otago.
And rather than eliciting fear, they invariably rouse cheers from thrilled onlookers.
You only have to look at their missing digits and scars to know that "Men of Death" is an apt and popular name for wood choppers.
Their sport originated in medieval times in the rural wood-cutting and charcoal-burning communities of the Basque Country.
Small groups of men would travel about remote wooded areas, felling trees for the ship-building and charcoal-burning industries.
While the youngest and strongest men usually felled the trees, the older men prepared them and built the mounds for burning charcoal.
So it was inevitable that competitions were held to determine who the strongest and fastest wood choppers were.
Wood chopping sporting events, as we know them today, grew out of these competitions and those in the southern Australian cedar forests in the early 1800s.
The cedar cutters were hard men and hard drinkers, and because of the dangerous nature of their work, they became known as the "Men of Death".
They were either axemen or sawyers.
The axemen felled the trees, while the sawyers cut them up.
As with the wood choppers in the Basque Country, woodcutting competitions sprang up in the cutters' settlements, and it wasn't long before loosely organised events were held in the Illawarra and in the Clarence and Richmond river valleys with prizes like "rum and rations" or "5000 palings".
The first recorded competition was in 1870 at the back of a hotel in Ulverstone, Tasmania, between two men chopping three-foot standing blocks.
The moment the first chopper delivered the final severing blow, an argument erupted and the history books show the event sank into a "free-for-all" brawl.
At the time, most competitions had very vague rules, if any, and by and large they existed predominantly as an avenue for wagering.
But a momentum developed to formalise and organise the rapidly growing sport, and the first set of rules were developed in 1883 by a Captain JA Saunders.
Since then, handicapping rules and divisions have been developed, and woodchopping has grown into a recognised, worldwide professional sport.
The first true World Championship Series was staged in Ulverstone in 1970, with representative teams from Australia, New Zealand, Canada and United States.
The overall champion was George Foster, from Tasmania.
Today, New Zealand is a leading country in the sport of wood chopping, and has two of the top competitors in the world - Jason Wynyard and David Bolstad.Talk the talk
Underhand: The axeman stands on the block with his feet apart and cuts through it with downward blows.
Standing block: The axeman stands beside his block and cuts a scarf (a v-shaped cut) in one side until he reaches the centre, then cuts a back scarf into the other side until the block is cut through.
Jigger boarding/Spring boarding: The axeman uses three iron-tipped jigger boards which are inserted in carefully cut notches in a pole so he can climb the pole, cut halfway through, descend the pole, climb back up the other side and complete the severing of the block.
Stock saw: Identically tuned and sharpened chainsaws are used to cut through a log, once downwards and once upwards.
Hot Saw: This is the loudest event in which a large homemade methanol-run chainsaw with a snowmobile engine is used to make three cuts in a large log.
Single saw or single buck: Competitors make one cut through white pine using a single-man cross-cut saw.
A helper may be used to wedge the log and keep the saw lubricated.
Double saw or double buck: Two people pull and push a saw to cut a log.
Jack and Jill: One man and one woman race to be the first to saw through a log.
