My Brother's Learning to Curl #4

First, a correction.  In my last post on this, I quoted my brother as saying, "You should see how ghetto it is."  He wants to clarify that he thinks that where he curls is just fine.  The quote was taken out of context a little bit and the line was said in reference to the fact that I would think the place is ghetto.  And relative to the St. Paul Curling Club, it kinda sounds like it.  But to reiterate, my brother likes the place where he curls. 

My brother was the skip for the first time at this last lesson, mainly because his other teammates didn't want to do it.  To sum up how it went, his Facebook status update that night was, "Didn't like being the skip."  Also, he skipped the first end and then made someone else skip the second end.  I guess it was just the constant pressure of coming up with a new shot like every minute. 

He also learned about calling for sweeping.  There was a takeout and the rock started to curl.  He didn't see it until it was too late.  I've been there.  And then sometimes he wasn't loud enough. 

And then he texted later asking about where the broom should go depending on where he wanted the shot to end up.  I'm kind of surprised by the text because isn't this something that should've been covered in the class?  There have been four classes already.  Maybe I'll write more on this in a later post. 

He'll have his last class coming up soon and they're going to play a 6 end game.  Ooh.

My Brother's Learning to Curl

My brother, who lives in the bay area, started a 5 week learn to curl class last week.  I had taken him to the curling club last year and I think it's kinda cool that he's now taking this class and may play in a league afterward. 

After I asked how it went, his first words were "I'm really sore."  I think that's a good thing.  It means that they must've been able to fit in a lot of throwing and sweeping.  They even played a mini game, which my brother's team won and it was his rock that was the winning point.

A few things to note:

• My brother realized how much nicer the St. Paul Curling Club is compared to arena ice.  Apparently, he could tell how uneven the ice was.
• Some of the instructors were overheard discussing how many of the students in the class (of 30+) would come back with curling shoes and a broom.  Last year for this class, around a third of the students came back with all the gear.  That's very surprising to me.  There are a few teams at the SPCC that have matching outfits, but still use sliders and house brooms. 
• He didn't really get the free guard zone rule and didn't think it was explained all that well.  (But I and/or other opposing skips have forgotten about it from time to time, so maybe not that big of a deal.  This even came up during game 11.)
• He said it was fun.