How Not to Slide

In the beginning, I asked the question of how women curl in this attire of long skirts and heeled boots. When it comes to answering the question about long skirts the answer is quite easy. When curling first started there was no such thing as the modern side used today. If ever you turn on your TV to a curling match today, you will see that when someone goes to throw their rock, they get really low to the ground in a lunge position. Now everyone's slide is a little bit different from your toe sliders to your stabilizer user. Then certain areas of Canada teach kids how to slide differently. Some people do not always use a modern broom to help balance themselves when they slide. They prefer what is known as a stabilizer or a corn broom. Even the best of the best the curling all slides a little bit differently. Take the example of picking up your rock to gather more momentum when sliding. This technique is regarded as out of date because I was told that when you pick up your rock it changes your line and is a dangerous practice. The thing is one of the world's best curlers Kevin Koe picks up his rock every time he throws and still manages to make his shot. It is this that makes studying this slide a very hard thing to do because if everyone does a little differently and is taught differently, it is hard to know exactly what an overall history of a slide would look like.

When I say there was no slide in the early days of curling, I mean the players would stand in the hack and throw their rocks from the hack. In the very few action shots, we have available many of the curlers are almost in an upright position. You notice that the Notman photo from earlier shows the woman only bent at her waist. When this is compared to some other later men's photos you notice that some do bend at the knees, but their backs remain up straight. With this technique there might have been a few steps that followed rock was released but that was it. There is very little movement involved and when women only had to bend at the waist there was no need for the stretchy yoga pants we wear today. It would take many years before the game would adapt any version of the slide seen today. Eventually, those two steps after led to a small slide that as time went on slowly went farther and farther until the long slide began to be common practice.