First off, I thought curling would be super easy and my ticket to future Olympic stardom. And at the same time, I thought it would be impossible and we'd be falling all over the place. Fortunately I was wrong on both accounts.
It didn't take long to figure out the technique but it was really difficult to make a good shot. As for walking on ice, it wasn't that difficult. We had special grippers on our shoes that really helped.
The hardest part was launching the "rock" (which weighs 44lbs). This is called 'delivery'. It is hard to push off, balance, and launch the rock at the right speed with the right curve at the right spot. Here is a picture of our friend Josh taking his shot.
On the other end the Skip (Liz) helps tell the curler where to aim by pointing her broom and uses hand signals to indicate what kind of rotation to use.
Between them are the two sweepers who sweep the ice in front of the rock. Why do they sweep? Honestly, while we were curling, I didn't know. Roger, our instructor just told us when to sweep but we were having a hard enough time making shots that it didn't seem to matter. I looked up on wikipedia which said that sweeping makes the stone go further and decreases the amount of curl. We'll know for next time. Here are our two friends Carine and Esther sweeping.
Finally, here's a video of us in action. First you'll see Jenny and then me delivering our stones.
My shot, was the closest shot of the whole match within 3 feet of the button (dead center). I wish I had taken a picture as proof.
It was a ton of fun. Oh and here's a funny series of liz who slipped after one of her shots.
