I recently went curling. For those of you not in the “know”, it’s an Olympic sport that involves sliding a heavy rock thing to an end zone and scoring points by getting into progressively smaller, more precise areas. It’s sort of like shuffleboard on ice. It involves more abdominal work than you would expect. It also is a strangely cardiovascular activity when you have the “broom” and you’re “sweeping” (pressing down hard and sweeping in front of the rock to help smooth the way for a straight shot).
Like everything in life that looks effortless and easy, it turns out that curling takes a lot of practice and practice. This is one of my practice rounds (yes, I bruised):
I fell so many times! And it wasn’t the fault of the ice. I am mildly proud of where I ended up – which was upright and scoring a point (video proof below). There really was strategy. For example, sweeping the ice helped to take away friction so that the “rock” slides faster and helps to guide the rock to its final destination. Depending on how fast the rock was coming, you made a judgement call: to sweep or not to sweep. The game has been called “Chess on Ice” because there are so many strategic moves that you make to ensure your rock gets into scoring position. My husband’s team took the “Gold Medal” of the just-for-fun tournament. I was proud of him! It turns out that he’s a pretty decent natural curler. Who would have guessed?
Curling was a super fun team building activity. If you ever get the chance to try it, definitely take advantage of it. It was exhilarating and mentally challenging.
Curling is so much fun, but pretty hard at first.
I live in Eau Claire, WI, which is like the Curling capitol of USA 🙂
Ha! You must have abs of steel now =)
Actually…that looks VERY hard. 🙂 Looks like you need good knees and a strong back. Much cooler than bowling for sure!
Oh, the bruise I got? Right below my knee. When you fall, you fall HARD. And I saw big guys go down solidly. But on the plus side, lots of laughing when you do go down =)
I was wondering when I read the title of this blog if you meant soap curls or curling (rock pushing). Looks like fun 😀
He he. You never know with this blog =) Soap would have been the natural thing to think of…
That’s pretty cool! I like to make fun of curling (I’m Canadian), but I know that it’s not as easy as it looks since bowling isn’t either. 🙂
Congrats to your hubby!
Bowling. Now there’s a sport that consternates and drives me crazy =)
Curling is so much fun! At our local curling club they host an annual charity curl where anyone can form a team of 6 people and raise money for a local charity. You get a 2 hour lesson and than play a game and prizes are given out! We had so much fun doing it this year and raised $300 for our local animal shelter!
Oh man, that is awesome! We don’t have a local curling club around here or else I’d actually do it again! =)
The Hubs and I have an obsession with curling, I want to learn so badly. Looks like you had fun.
It was super fun! You should try it. It would be a great date night.