To achieve sufficient skill as a competitive student-athlete, coaches will often recommend or insist that athletes spend a certain amount of time practicing on their own. Sometimes this practice will be done with a partner, perhaps even with the entire team, or sometimes the student-athlete may prefer to work on their own. The point here is that the practice is self-directed – it’s not undertaken with the supervision of a coach. So what should this practice look like?
I think that many student-athletes have actually little idea about what a self-directed practice should entail. When I’m at my local club I frequently see the following:
- If the practice involves multiple teammates there is often far too much unproductive chit-chat. Sometimes those conversations can be helpful, say to address a team dynamics issue, but far too often I will overhear conversations that would better be held off the ice, rather than use expensive ice-time. If you feel somewhat guilty reading this, you’re not alone – I see it all the time.
- All too often, student-athletes practice what they’re good at, rather than tackle their weaknesses. It’s satisfying to correctly execute shots at practice; it feeds one’s ego. But unless a player’s weaknesses are addressed in practice, nothing will change in games. What you water, grows. For example, I am aware of teams on the Tour that do not practice brushing. At all. Players will all say that brushing is an important aspect of the game, but like any other skill brushing needs deliberate practice to improve, or simply to maintain, one’s performance.
- Similarly, often I will bear witness to a “practice” that will involve a short, 15 minute “warm-up” of practice throws followed by some sort of “scrimmage”, either against another team or splitting the team in two. Don’t get me wrong; working through game situations is a valuable thing to practice. However, one is not going to improve their delivery or their brushing without more skill-based, dedicated and repetitive practice that addresses an athlete’s weaknesses.
- Student-athletes will practice a flawed execution to perfection because change is hard. Practice is about improvement, and improvement requires both feedback and change. Some honest self-reflection is required on the part of the athlete.
- Student-athletes will spend far too much time either practicing (1) a single skill, such as drawing the pin, or (2) shots they will rarely, if ever, attempt during a competitive game. For example, how often do you throw six-second peels in a competitive game? A bit more on this later.
Doing two things will help mitigate many of the issues listed above. The first is planning. Before one steps onto the ice one should have a very good idea of how the practice should be structured, how long each series of practice elements should be performed, what breaks should be taken, and what equipment (eg. pylons, lasers, or Rock Hawk timers) may be required. The second, which I’ve already stated, is self-reflection on the part of the student-athlete. What skills should be practiced? And how should they be practiced?
I am a big believer in making sure my student-athletes understand why they won a game, or why they lost. Sometimes a team will play extremely well and the game was decided by an outstanding shot by the opposition, or a “pick”, or something else, but these occurrences are uncommon. Rather, games are more frequently decided by sub-par strategy, tactics, or execution, or a combination of all three. For example, the team may have:
- struggled with weight control on draws
- over-brushed several shots, missing tolerance and placing the stone behind the tee-line
- found it difficult to make accurate shots on different paths due to variable times
- had difficulty placing corner guards in the optimal spots
- had one of the players “dump” their in-turn release on hit-weight shots
- had one of the players consistently narrow when the target brush was placed wide right on the sheet
- been consistently light when throwing a Zone 1 guard – the team hogged 5 stones in their last two games
- thrown with inconsistent rotations, either for a single player or across the team.
There are a multitude of potential issues that one could add to this list, with perhaps several root causes. For an individual student-athlete, even a well-honed skill may degrade through subtle changes in their delivery from either injury or the adoption of a “habit”: a change to their slide foot position, grip on a stone, their balance in the hack, their foot placement when brushing. These various issues are what national coach Bill Tschirhart collectively calls “competitive breakdown” and they happen to all athletes, even the athletes that play on the Tour. Student-athletes are not machines, they are human beings, and subtle, unintended changes to their delivery – or to their brushing – that they adopt in games are precisely why deliberate practice, with appropriate feedback, is so important.
Some of the elements above, such as sub-par rock management, requires practice as a team and there are a number of well-known, team-based drills that a coach can utilize to improve the team’s performance as a unit. These drills include “line dancing”, crazy-8’s, draw process drills, and an abundance of other drills that emphasize different aspects of rock management on a team basis, whether they be brushing guards, brushing hits, precision doubles, and so on. The drills chosen should suit the team’s style of play, that is to concentrate on the shots the team would execute more frequently in a game.
However, for delivery improvement or individual practice the emphasis is, usually, on shot-making. In my practices I frequently utilize the “gauntlet” drill [1] that can be used to both diagnose and improve line-of-delivery (LOD) and release issues. The gauntlet drill is easiest to do with a laser but a laser isn’t essential – lining up a target pylon through a “gauntlet” of soccer cones is a fairly straightforward process. What is essential, however, are two things: one, that the athlete gets the necessary feedback for each throw, which is provided by the cones, and two, the athlete gets accurate feedback on their delivery to explain WHY they missing the target. If a coach is unavailable, a skilled teammate can provide that feedback. Another possibility is to mount the athlete’s smart phone on a tripod resting on the intended LOD to record each throw. The gauntlet drill can be used in a variety of ways, for example to repetitively practice a specific shot on a specific LOD, or to vary the velocity of each throw to stress an athlete’s timing.
In any case, what any productive practice requires is planning: how will the skill be practiced, for how long, and with what variations, if any. For example, when practicing weight control it will likely be more productive to vary the weights thrown rather than throw every stone to the tee-line. Ideas regarding this variability are presented in [2], also available on the Ontario Curling Council website. Gary’s short article, drafted while he was the Director of the Golden Hawks High Performance Centre in Waterloo, is recommended reading for any coach and any student-athlete in the sport. Gary’s ideas reinforce the notion that any given practice must not only be suitable for the development level of the athlete, but also that the structure of practice may well differ through a curling season.
To sum up: if practicing on your own or with a teammate, refrain from simply “throwing rocks”. Think ahead and decide in advance what skills you will practice, how you will practice them, how you might measure your progress, and how long will you do it. Thinking ahead will result in much more efficient use of your ice-time. Finally, don’t be afraid to ask your coach for a practice plan. Every certified coach knows how to draft one.
[1] Paulley, Glenn and John Newhook (May 2019). The Gauntlet Drill. Technical Coach Series #10, with Appendix. Available from the author. An online version is available from the Ontario Curling Council website.
[2] Crossley, Gary (February 2012). Blocked, distributed, and random practice as it relates to skill acquisition in curling. Available from the Ontario Curling Council website.