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.
