Drills

The Gauntlet Drill

A long-standing line of delivery (LOD) drill used in curling is one where the athlete delivers a stone by sliding between a series of markers (cones, cups, or stones) to practice line of delivery. We term this drill the “gauntlet drill”. When coupled with a point laser and video recording, the gauntlet drill is an […]

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Dryland Training for Open Brushing Footwork

This article is joint work with Dr. John Newhook, Dean of Engineering, Dalhousie University. In a previous article, entitled “Dryland Training for Closed Brushing Footwork”, we described a simple, wheeled apparatus that an athlete could use to practice closed brushing footwork in the off-season. The closed footwork trainer assists an athlete in (1) keeping their

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Brushing footwork in the open stance

This article is joint work, and part of a continuing research project, with Dr. John Newhook, Professor of Engineering at Dalhousie University. We are grateful to Alison Poluck and Monica Graham for their demonstrations of closed technique. Most importantly, we would like to thank Fraser Reid, former Canadian university champion and now a coach at

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Training tips for dryland brushing footwork practice

Several Ontario teams have acquired or built dryland footwork trainers to better develop their closed brushing footwork technique during the summer months, so that they are trained and ready-to-go when ice becomes available in the fall. Note: the Junior curling season will be here before you know it; the first week of the Trillium Curling

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Building a dryland footwork trainer

Since publishing the first article about the footwork trainer in June, a number of people have asked for more detailed specifications and additional photographs so that they can construct their own. The trainer itself is simple to construct. The parts list is as follows: two 30-inch wood pieces of 2×6 glued and screwed together using

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On-ice training for brushing footwork

This past June I wrote an article that described the use of a footwork trainer for brushing in the closed position. The trainer permits competitive athletes to train off-ice, on their own time, and I have been extremely pleased with the results with Team McKenzie over the past three months. Alison Poluck and Jessica Filipcic,

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Bio-mechanics, strength and conditioning in Wheelchair Curling: Part 1

Wheelchair curling made its Paralympic debut at the 2006 Winter Paralympic Games. As of February 2015, there were athletes in 21 countries around the world actively competing in wheelchair curling. Because of the sport’s infancy there has been little bio-mechanical study done to support the development of wheelchair curling athletes. However, Curling Canada is taking

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Dryland training for brushing footwork

In the Curling Canada High Performance Program coaching manual, under “Technical Development: Sweeping”, you will find the following quote attributed to Darryl Horne: Without doubt sweeping is the most under-coached, under-practiced, under-appreciated, and under-rated aspect of the game. I could not agree more. With nearly three years of smart-broom testing of bantam- and junior-aged players

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Blocked, Distributed and Random Practice as it Relates to Skill Acquisition in Curling

An age-old question in sport is what practice structure yields the best results in relation to effective skill acquisition. This article will define three different practice structures that are referred to as Blocked, Distributed and Random. The answer to this question is critical to all coaches, as they need to structure practices appropriately by selecting

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