Curling - what's the deal with kettles and brushes?

[dropcap] In [/ dropcap] how many strange sports in the world. Some do not seem to make sense, some have difficult rules, some are simply extremely boring. However, there is one sport that everyone reacts to in the same way: a smile. Here is a curling before you, a sport in which guests with brooms run on the ice to clear the road, the spinning kettle.

Here I am, I'm kneeling on the ice. Behind me, a crowd of thousands of supporters cheers me and people who will start to brush the route in front of my granite saucepan. I also hold a broom in my hand - mainly so as not to fall over. Teflon foot makes me speed like bobsleighs from Jamaica. The more I look at it, the more I do not know where it makes sense. On the other hand, at a time when people in the gym pay for waving other kettles, nothing can be sure. I do not know why I smile, but on that day, a happy face remained until the evening. Curling is so abstract that the fact of holding the brush is already pleasing. Not what in life ...

People are divided into two groups. Those who curling give as an example of boredom, meaninglessness and misunderstanding, and those who willingly include it during the winter Olympics. I belong to the other one, although I can not explain why.

On Saturday Panda had birthday. We wanted to come up with something original and at the same time comfortable for her ... no, I'm sorry, but I can not. This joke is too simple and trite. Playing with a kettle and brushing with a broom as a hobby is too simple a topic for jokes. In any case, when we heard that there are two curling tracks at the National Stadium and an instructor from the Polish Curling Association, we agreed that we can not miss us there.

The Curlingtons (I have no idea what they call themselves playing curling)

Price per person is PLN 25 for 75 minutes (but if you pay with Masterpasse, that's only half of that). There should be 4 people in the team, or they will also pass 3. The plus is that by signing up, we see how many vacancies have been left and if enough people will gather. 2 tracks is a capacity of 16 people, if we see that there are 10 vacancies, it means there will be at least 6 people, that is, you should go. This is important because you know - it's hard to find people who have time in their lives. Especially if you call someone and ask if he is going to play curling. It takes some time before it can be explained that it is not a juvenile slang.

That it would not be too easy and too nice, the National welcomes us with a surprise. The car park around the stadium is closed, just because you have to park near the property - of course, payable. The perfect solution - even parking Park and Drive at the train station is strategically closed. Thanks to this solution, people are divided into two groups: parking 100 meters away, in the mud and on the lawns and those who pay. We, of course, belong to the first group.

The National Stadium website is very pretty and completely impractical. That means you can buy a ticket without problems, but you will not learn anything about it about it. So I explain here.

What to take on curling?

It is not easy to prepare for the first exit, if we do not embrace English. Polish internet is quite limited when it comes to the amount of curling fans:

It's interesting, but apart from friends (of whom it's hard to take it), we do not need anything at all. Well, maybe shoes that are dark, because they get dirty and pants that we can lightly help.

16 are waiting for us kettles stones - each has two throws, a broom, a rubber boot cover and an extremely patient instructor. I have the impression that making jokes about throwing a kettle does not make him laugh ... but we can not restrain ourselves. In this game, everything is so abstract that we spend the first 15 minutes laughing at everything. If every group starts this way, I feel very sorry for this person.

What to use for curling?

Well, yes. If the sport looks simple on television ... it's how life experience taught - it just looks like it. This is one of those disciplines easy to learn, hard to master. With the difference that the first throw is some kind of massacre. The same as the first step. It turns out I will say that the rubber sole on which the Teflon surface is placed is not at all good for holding onto the ground. It is quite the opposite, as we find out by taking the first step on the ice. Surely if we were listening to the man who was translating, we would be spared a bit of shame.

Well, the ice is completely slippery - it is worse on any winter, Warsaw sidewalk. You can run quietly after it ... unless you have this pad - then you can easily go on forever on one leg.

Kettle the stone weighs almost 20kg and it is really a lot. Especially if it sticks to the ice. It causes that if we stand in the starting block, and the same stone will lie ahead of us for too long, then after pushing off we will go and our hand with the stone will be behind us. As you can imagine, the first two pushes consist in making the stone move and the man does not turn over. Because mastering this, it's almost like mastering movements during fitness classes. One leg is riding, the other leg is bouncing, then the leg that reflects on us follows the ice. One hand holds a brush, which all the time acts like a ballast and prop, the other hand directs the stone, gives it rotation and pushes it slightly if we are too weak. Word too weak however, it does not appear in the first parts of the game. We are all firing a distance ... at least those who managed to get rid of the stone.

Crossing the bow, skating, quiddich, chess ...

And there are brushes. To make it more fun, it used to look like a broom, now more like a mop to draw water. The sooner the ice is getting ready for the stone, the more it goes. By the end, we do not know if it changes something during the game, but brushing is so great that it does not matter.

Oh, there's still screaming. This is the best element of the game and anyone who has ever seen a broadcast should know about it. This is so great that players often wear microphones and hear all their conversations and shouts in their accounts. You know how it works - when you scream long enough to stone to turn left, the greater the chance that it will actually turn there. You can also yell at brushing people to make it faster or slower either yourself-not-know-what. This is super-great, serious. It sounds something like this: fly too slowly, brush ... but no ... and no, but yes, brush hard ... muzzle, askew!

Lord, where do I get 7 friends from you?

The team should have 4 people: one throws and yells, two brushes and yells, one stands at the end and can brush, but it does not have to, and he screams. Teams throw each other, each person has 2 tries. It would seem a bit boring and that you have to wait a long time, but it is not. Every job is cool, and with the players in the game, everything happens very quickly.

But, dear?

It does not make sense to give here the exact rules of the game, you will find them after all on Wikipedia and many youtub style tutorials Curling in 2 minutes. Generally it is very simple, with a few nuances. The only thing you need to remember is where to release the stone and when, who can brush (because, for example, competition can also do so that our stone flew too far) - everything is marked with lines. The winner is the one who scores more points - as in most games. The point is gained for placing the kettle in a circle and their number is counted only when all 16 throws are made. The nearest stone gets the point, the next nearest, if it is from the same team adds another point, if the opposite, ends the summation.

The situation at home is complicated

Well, is not it beautiful? Watching the relationship and listening to the difficult situation in the home of the Americans (that is the wheel you have to hit) that will be solved with the help of a hammer (the last stone) is perfect.

I do not know what's going on. I do not know why the curling looks so good, and it grows even better. This game has something of these simple applications in the Candy Crush Saga style, in which the sequence of events is satisfying. Granite stones running smoothly across the ice sheet. The sound of impact, transferring energy - like a billiard table, it's much better. Officially, I am a fan of this game and it seems to me that everyone who was with me that day was also with me.

What does curling have to do with cycling?

Seemingly nothing. Maybe that's why I see an argument from time to time: only boring is more boring than cycling. But curling is the perfect sport to spend time with friends with whom you travel every day or fight in weekend cucumbers. Because FTP and anaerobic capacity are important, but in local races, I think that good relations with competitors are much more important than changing FTP by a few percent ... but soon.