If some (or all) of these pictures look familiar, it's because my camera battery died so Roo shared her pics with me. I'm generously reposting to offer my readers the CookBook perspective.
The open house was from 10 am-2 pm, and we'd been advised to show up early because of the "growing popularity of curling." I kind of thought this was wishful thinking on the part of the curling folks, but guess what? It wasn't. We showed up at 10:45 and the line was outside around the building. Luckily the weather was nice so time passed quickly. At noon we got to come inside and chill in their clubhouse. Turns out that curlers are pretty into having fun. They have a bar, TV, couches, foozeball, piano, and pool table, all in a room with windows overlooking the sheets. We killed another hour up here before we finally hit the ice.
Before curling begins, we had to put stylish curling booties on our dominant foot. The booty is made out of semi-grippy rubber (to help you stay upright? Dunno).
They teach you how to slide using this little support thingy before they turn you loose with the stone. I call this shot "the baby giraffe" because of the intense concentration and the shaky legs.
My first slide was awesome. I was all, "this is easy!" Then I added the stone. Things went downhill from there.
I spent a good portion of the afternoon in various positions similar to the one above.
I tried lots of things to fix this problem. At one point Ryan told me to try staying more tucked up in my slide. The result:
It ended with me stalled out in the middle of the ice, stone still in hand. Uhhh...
Like pretty much everything else, Ryan showed me up at curling.
...so did Chris.
...and so did Roo.
But see, in this shot, you can see the "rock" in the ice. This is the bumpy surface of the ice necessary for the game of curling--the sweeping melts the rock to allow the stone to slide faster or slower. This will be come vitally important in just a few seconds.
After we "mastered" the stone thing, we learned how to sweep--see! This is where that part above comes in! Sweeping is HARD. You have to press down on the ice to be effective, and coordinate with another person, and move with the stone AND stay upright on the ice.
SWEEEEEP!!!!! SWEEEEEEEEEP!!!
"Butt sweeping" is a major sin in curling, apparently. Or at least that's how our drill sergeant Canadian teacher reacted. It's kind of hard to describe "butt sweeping," except that it's nothing that you're thinking of.
Chris, about to get yelled at for not falling down.
So then we all put it together for a "game." The first end wasn't real entertaining because no one really knew what they were doing. But the second end--things got real all up in here!
Hey, I'm upright and I didn't fall over!
Then it was my last stone of the day. I landed it legitimately house with the assistance of some furious sweeping by Ryan. The other team had a lucky shot and knocked it out. Grrrrrr...
My last shot in action...
Olympic Curling Team 2014!
The couple that curls together stay together!
4 comments:
That Rocks!
What a great activity. I didn't even know we 'curled' around here.
I curl up on the couch regularly--does that count?
Not my fault Team Red was AWE-SOME.
I must say you sure pick some different types of sports. Good for you guys try a bit of eveything well maybe not everything. G&GBook
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