The Hizzle of T-Fizzle

This latest curling lesson was basically more of the same.  After all, the game is not remarkably complicated in terms of the different activities.  You throw stones, you sweep.  We had another coach working with us in addition to the people helping us out the last two weeks.  He was able to offer some additional advice, and it was useful, as he would stand behind the thrower and provide advice while the other instructor stood at the hogline to watch from a different perspective.

I am trying to work on extending my right leg farther behind me as I throw.  The comparisons to a golf swing continue - if you try to execute the delivery routine too quickly or too forcibly, something always goes awry.  You’ve got to keep your head steady and your eyes on the broom.  As soon as you start to concentrate too much on one aspect of the routine, you inevitably screw up other parts of the delivery routine.  I think what would do me a world of good at this point is to dispense with stones and simply practice sliding a bit, which I will probably do next week.

After drilling, we started “playing.”  We were able to divide into three teams and each team played two ends.  We won the first end, but got clobbered in the second end.  The other team in the second end was not playing all that fairly in terms of calling burnt stones, but considering the goal is just to get the basics down, the score and the winner is really meaningless.  We each threw 4 more stones than we had when we started, which is the most important part.

Mike and I traded positions, so this time I was skip and he was vice.  I rather enjoy being the skip since you get to be the team strategist.  The strategy is one of the most appealing parts of curling - trying to position stones so that they block access to the house, or so that your stones in the house cannot easily be knocked out.  Of course, for beginners, the strategy is not all that useful since there is a very slim chance that a stone will actually go where the skip indicates :-)  The only thing I don’t like about skipping is the lack of sweeping.  Sweeping is the physical part of the game, and it’s also the part where you can sort of make a difference.  It’s sort of the unsung make-or-break aspect.

Otherwise, Mary lead and X was second.  We discussed the fact that it probably makes most sense for X to be the lead since she has the lightest hand, but it also could make sense to keep them playing in their “off” positions so that they can improve the skills that come less naturally to them.

After the next end finished, we threw a few more stones and then gave up for the night.  There was a social event going on and we were able to hit up the leftovers.  The social scene at the club actually seems pretty lively.  I sort of figured the average curling club member was probably in his 50s, but it looks like there are quite a few younger members, and the bar is well-used.

We were disappointed to learn that our favorite instructors may be away this weekend at a bonspiel in Washington DC.  Too bad

Again, sorry for the lack of pics, but I wisely opted to leave my phone on solid ground again.

This week’s lesson began roughly as it did last week, just at a faster pace.  We reviewed first sliding with a broom laying flat on the ice and no stone, then began throwing stones short distances and then longer distances and finally we broke into our 3-person teams for throwing/sweeping drills.

The reason leaving my phone in the warm room was a wise decision is because the possibility of falling became a reality this week!  My kayaking climbing certainly came in handy.  Surfing on a kayak is an interesting business.  The boat is constantly moving underneath you in a variety of ways.  After doing it awhile, you develop a keen sense of balance.  Your upper body learns to keep doing what it needs to do, even when your lower body does something unexpected.  This has always been handy in climbing for hanging on when the feet slip off and swing wildly, and tonight it came in handy on the ice.

In the first incident, I was delivering a stone, and as I was sliding out of the hack, something happened and my legs went out from under me, causing me to slide on my hip (instead of my foot).  There wasn’t even any conscious thought behind it - as soon as my hip hit the ice, I instinctively just popped myself back onto my sliding foot and finished the delivery.  The line was still relatively accurate, but the fall put added drag on the rock.

Second incident was a sweeping incident.  When sweeping, I have found that the gripper is SO grippy, that it makes the ”normal” gripper foot feel slippery.  As it happens, when I’m sweeping, I can dig the gripper in almost as if I was on dry ground, but when I dig my “normal” gripper foot into the ice with the same force, it slips.  It the heat of hard sweeping, this catches me by surprise occasionally.  My feet flew right out from under me.  But my upper body, still “aware” of what it should be doing was able to steer the broom clear of the rock as I feel and I was able to spring back to my feet and continue sweeping.  Thanks, kayaking!

After doing the 3-man drills, we were finally given our “wings,” so to speak.  It was time to actually “play a game” of curling (play a game in quotes because we only had time to play a single end).  We broke into teams of 4 (our team obviously consisting of X, Mike, Mary and me), chose positions (Mary - lead, X - second, me - third/vice skip, Mike - skip) and began playing.  Heavy shots plagued us pretty much the entire game.  One or two shots did not go far enough, but most cleared the house.  Mary did get one shot to stick, just biting the 12-foot ring.  Mike had a miraculous take-out shot.  He had previously thrown a very weak draw that did not even make it past the hog line, so my “mentor” and I were a bit sceptical about getting enough weight behind the stone.  But he delivered.  The shot was off the broom and also turning the wrong direction, but the combination managed to blow the opposing rock right out of the house.  Very exciting.  Unfortunately, they had the “hammer” and were able to knock Mike’s stone out to pick up a point.

At some point, I may have quipped that curling is one of precious few Olympic sports in which overweight 30-somethings could become competitive.  I don’t exactly rescind this statement, as I intend to become competitive in it, and I am overweight and almost a 30-something (I will be by the time the next Olympics roll around).  But the game is quite physical when it comes to sweeping.  In our faux game, the non-skips had to sweep 6 stones, which is avtually a lot of work.  I don’t think I’ll be sore the way I’ll be after a long climbing or paddling session, but I think I am definitely going to be feeling it in the morning.

Next week, it looks like we’ll be continuing “playing.”  We’ll probably get through 4 or 5 ends.  It’s going to be a pretty good workout!

I apologize for not having pics, but I decided that since were going to actually be working on the ice, I left my phone in my bag so as not to fall on it and break it. Fortunately, I did not fall at all.

We arrived at the lesson about 10 minutes late. The class was watching an instructional video wherein the rules and basic techniques were demonstrated. While watching the video, we checked in and got our glide feet taped up.

Here is an aside: Curling has a great sort of sideshow atmosphere to it. From Fred Roggin’s humorous coverage of the Olympic events to this instructional video, there is always this Bill Geist-esque blend of genuine interest and enjoyment coupled with an insipid self awareness that this is also rather bizarre and somewhat comical. Some might find the latter part offensive, but I don’t particularly mind it.  We should not take ourselves too seriously.

Once the video ended we went around the room announcing our name and how long we had been curling. The open house last week was clearly a success, as of the ~40 people in attendance, maybe two did not go to the open house. After quickly dispatching this formality, we split into groups of 8 - 10 people and took to the ice.

Our instructor claimed to be a native of Canada (aren’t they all?) with 20 years of curling experience. She must have started out at about 8 years of age. She was partnered with another mid-20s looking guy with the same last name. Husband and wife? He claimed just one year of experience.  Our instructors were great. The woman seemed to be in charge of the entire thing, and she was well-qualified to run such a program.

We began as the we did in the Open House, praticing sliding using a broom laying flat for stability. We were given some instruction on how to use our hips to get a harder push going out of the hack. After getting the hang of that, we learned the different options for stability during delivery.

Traditionally (for a right-hander), you hold a broom in your left hand, tucked under your left shoulder, with the bristles pointed towards the ceiling. The point being that if you lose your balance during the delivery, you can lean on the broom instead of leaning on the rock and slowing it down. Other people prefer to lay the broom flat on the ice, parallel to the center line, head pointed down the ice. Still a third method exists which is a device called a stabilizer which is basically a PVC handle with sliders on the bottom. Our instructor was careful to point out that the stabilizer is not a crutch and is considered perfectly acceptable at all levels of competition. Observant readers may recall that some Olympic competitors use stabilizers, including Pal Trulsen who skipped the gold medal winning Norwegian team in 2002.

I opted for the traditional delivery method. The stabilizer is probably the most consistent method, but it seems inconvenient to have an extra piece of equipment to carry and keep track of. The traditional method also has, in my opinion, an elegant look to it. I did not find it too hard to execute, although it is sometimes hard to remember to lean on the broom and not the stone when you lose your balance.

Next up we learned about turns. If you do not put some spin on a stone, it will start to spin on its own. Of course if this happens you will not be able to choose the direction of the spin and the stone may go off target. Therefore the thrower always turns the stone on the release.  This is a very subtle motion…it’s easy to do, but its hard to do
correctly.

To practice this we did two drills. In one drill an instructor stood by the hog line signalling where to aim by pointing to a spot on the ice with his broom. He also pointed left or right to indicate the direction of turn. A lot of people had trouble with the turn signal, as its opposite what you would expect. That is, if the skip is pointing to your left, he is calling for an in turn, which is clockwise for a right-hander - the rock will curl to the right. I’m not sure if these are standard signals. In any case here’s one reason our instructors were so good. To avoid confusion over the signals, our group was simply told to point the closed end of the handle (i.e. the front of the rock) towards the skip’s hand. If he points to your left, point the handle at 10 o’clock, if he points to your right, point the handle at 2 o’clock. That makes it a lot easier.

The other drill involved squating with a partner, each on opposite sides of the narrow side of the sheet. The players slide a stone back and forth to each other trying not to put too much or too little turn.  After this drill, we tried aiming for a target about 3/4 down the ice.

Next up came sweeping. A lot of people have misconceptions about what sweeping does, so here is a brief explanation: the surface of the ice is “pebbled.” It has a rough texture, not the smooth surface you see on a skating rink. The additional friction caused by the pebble slows the stone and causes the stone to curl as it travels. Solid debris on the ice can also slow a stone or cause it to go wild. Sweeping, therefore, has three purposes.  First, it melts the surface of the ice a little. This is not unlike the mechanism that makes ice skates work. That little bit of water reduces the friction from the pebble and causes the rock to hold its speed and go farther. You can sweep an underthrown rock to help compensate. The same reduction of friction causes the rock to follow a straighter course.  Finally, sweeping helps keep the rock’s path clear of cruft that will send it spinning out of control. Contrary to a belief I’ve heard often, sweeping is not useful for slowing a rock.

At the Open House we were taught how to sweep with a slider foot, probably because it would be too hard to keep track of the rubber grippers that you can slip over your slider foot. I liked sweeping this way because the motion of pushing with one foot and skating on the other comes easily to me. However, you are limited to only being able to approach the rock with your slider foot in the lead since if your slider is trailing, you can’t push yourself forward easily.

In this lesson we were also given the opportunity to sweep with grippers, which I found gives you a better ability to really lay into the ice since your feet will not slide out from under you as you push down. It also allows you to sweep from any side. I found that I’m no less comfortable sweeping on either side, which is a useful trait since it means you can easily accomodate partners regardless of their handedness or sweeping style. While its possible for two sweepers to be on the same side of the stone, it gets crowded.

To practice sweeping, we again partnered up. One partner would push a stone down the ice with a broom while the other partner would sweep, trying all the different options to find a comfortable one.

Finally, the time came to put it all together. We joined forces with the class on the other end of the sheet and assembled into groups of 3.  With an instructor serving as Skip, now standing all the way down the ice in the house, indicating ice and turn, one team member threw while the others swept.

A few observations:

1. Sweeping is pretty good work. You are trying to push hard onto the ice and keep pace with the stone and keep an eye down the ice for the target and other stones. It definitely requires breath control and some strength and coordination.

2. A 42-pound granite stone moves in an odd way. I threw a stone down the ice which an instructor declared “way too heavy.” I felt like I barely gave it enough weight to clear the hog line. I thought maybe he meant it was way too heavy to need sweeping since sweeping was still the goal of the exercise, but X and her partner walked idly behind it not sweeping at all and it ran out of ice. It was right on target, though

MikeFitz, on the other hand thought the stones were surprisingly HARD to move. Perhaps it is his experience as a hockey player, but he was surprised to push a stone with what he believed to be way too much weight, only to have it not make it to the hog line!

Obviously we’ve got a lot of practice ahead of us

Our Olympic journey has begun! Today X and I and The Fitzes joined
around 1000 gawkers and honest-to-god interested folks at the Philadelphia Curling
Club, which just happens to be fairly close to our homes.

There was a line around the corner, but despite rumors that it would
take over an hour and people would be turned away, we were on the ice
within about a half hour.

Our brief lesson began with a tutorial on pushing off, which takes some
getting used to, but is relatively easy to pick up.

After that we went over sweeping, which has the potential to be a heck
of a workout…not a bad thing. Climbing is great strength training,
but I need some cardio!
Then it was on to actual throwing, which I can only say is somewhat akin
to swinging a golf club - a process that requires you to internalize a
number of somewhat complex motions.
Here Mary lines up in the hack:

And Mike takes off down the ice:

I’m not sure what your idea of fun is, but I found that curling is every
bit as fun as it looks on TV!
While I was the only one with an actual interest in curling, the others
had so much fun that everyone signed up for the end of season classes!
We start in 2 weeks.
See you in Vancouver - 2010!