Registered: May 2018
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Posts: 407

It's been said here there that there are things that you just can't understand about curling untli you get out on the ice and experience it for yourself.

To that end, during a vacation to Karuizawa last week, I availed myself of the opportunity to participate in the "Curling Experience" program offered at the Karuizawa Ice Park for people with absolutely no experience whatsoever to get a taste of what the sport is about. I thought I would detail my experience here, and would be interested to see how this compares with others first experience on a curling sheet.

I arrived at the venue with my daughter 30 minutes ahead of time as recommended, but this turned out to be way too much lead time, so we ended up killing some time upstairs in the small museum upstairs, seeing some artifacts from the 1998 Nagano Games, and some "stones" created by ancient Japanese to try and curl in lieu of having actual curling stones. Eventually we went back downstairs to meet the rest of our group. We were told to bring a jacket, gloves, and a wool cap to protect our head (although rentals were available if necessary), and rental of the special curling shoes was also included. Apparently there is a maximum of 30 people per session, but including us there were eight total, which seemed to be just the right size.

We were led out to the near side of the ice, the first of six sheets. On the third sheet a solitary man in a wheelchair was practicing, and on the far side was Japan's team from the most recent World Women's championships (minus Chiaki Matsumura, now competing in the World Mixed Doubles championships), who all seem to have recovered from COVID just fine. Just a sample of how people of all levels have to share the same precious ice in Japan, the only public curling venue for many hundreds of kilometers.

A lady introduced herself as our instructor that would spend the next hour giving us a brief taste of curling. After a short period of calisthenics, we were invited to step onto the ice. The very first thing we did there was practice how to fall, rolling backward while protecting the back of our heads, then collapsing forward while protecting the front of our heads. The message being above all else, protect your head!. We were then invited to crouch down, take off our gloves, and touch the surface, confirming that this was indeed ice, and so we could feel the pebbled surface, which was necessary for curling stones to slide. We were also asked to get on our knees and push off from one side to the other and back again to get used to sliding.

After this, as we were all right-handed, we were all introduced to the magic power that our left shoe had, to pull off the cover and uncover the slippery surface. We then repeated the same sliding, but standing up with the shoe instead. After putting the cover back on, we were introduced to the brooms. The lady introduced us to the calls of curling like "Yap!", "Whoa!", etc., then arranged for all of us to sweep the stone she threw. This was much harder than expected, and made even harder by the fact that we were all required to wear masks (which constantly fogged my glasses up)

At this point, we were ready to split off into groups to throw rocks. This is the part where I must mention that we only had half of a sheet, with a block of wood separating the half way point. I guess makes the experience more accessible for children and the like, but this seemed like a big roadblock to getting the true curling experience. We didn't get to use the hack either, just kicking off the edge of the ice. I got to throw two practice shots, which all ended up flying to the other end despite my intention to throw it very lightly.

Finally, we moved to the center of the ice and split into groups of four to play a "game" of sorts, where we each got to throw one rock apiece at the rings from the halfway point. I was the "skip" on the team without the hammer, and none of the first five throws stopped in the rings, though my kid's rock almost stopped near the back but got swept out. Fortunately the guy before me somehow got his rock in the four foot, which thankfully meant that I didn't have to throw a draw shot. I kicked off wood, screamed "HARD!" whilst nobody swept, and performed a perfect hit and stay. Then I got to sweep the last guy's stone past mine, and thus I am now undefeated as a skip. And just like that, our 60 minutes on the ice were over, and for everybody else, that seemed to be just about right.

But I wanted more of a taste of the real thing. So the next day I came back alone (my daughter enjoyed the Curling Experience, but I don't think she'll ever end up being my mixed doubles partner...) and rented out a sheet for myself for an hour. At last, I had my own ice with my own rocks and an actual hack. And I didn't have to wear that stupid kneepad no matter how bad my form sucked or how wet my right pant leg got.

Over an hour I got to throw about sixty rocks. I ran after my own stones to sweep. I experience the thrill of somehow performing a perfect hit and roll behind a guard, then somehow failing to get the next stone past the hogline. I threw two shots that I thought were pretty similar yet behaved completely differently. By the end I was sweating buckets, because this is indeed a sport.

So, what did I learn by actually doing this? I learned that curling is hard! Sweeping is hard! Not falling over during delivery is hard! And the fact that anybody that can actually make these stones go where they want on a consistent basis is absofreakinglutely amazing. I also learned that the hack is sneaky...I only fell down twice during this session, and both times were the result of tripping over the hack. At least I got noticed by one of the Chubu Electric ladies as a result.

I would have liked to have scheduled a private lesson with the house pro (yet another Matsumura), but the timing just didn't work out, as the next day was the start of the Chubu Regional tournament to determine the team to advance to Japan Nationals next month. But I did get to go back on three other occasions to watch some of the games. And while two of the teams had a guy that participated in the 2018 Olympics, some of the teams had players that were, quite honestly, only slightly better than I were, and I saw several teams that failed to get an LSD into the house. It was kind of exciting to think that even I might be able to compete at a regional level, if only I could work around living over 200 kilometers away from the nearest curling rink.

If I could, I wonder how I could go about finding a mixed doubles partner...

Last edited by hailstone on 04-26-22 at 07:42PM

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Registered: Mar 2013
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Posts: 1875

Fantastic post. Really paints the picture of how hard it is to play well but fairly easy to learn.

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