Curling

My family, friends, teachers, movies and music have all had a big influence on me and who I am today.  But instead of talking about them I would like to talk about something that has influenced me in many different aspects.  This something would be the sport of Curling!

I was introduced to curling during 8th grade gym class.  For a couple of weeks we took a bus down to the local curling club and were taught how to play.  It sparked a major interest for me and I decided to take curling in high school, which happened to be one of the winter sports at my school (along with, about 9 other schools in the state).  I was a natural.  As a freshman I was chosen to play on our Junior Varsity team and from sophomore year through senior year I was on the Varsity team.  During high school I met some of my best friends (still to this day), not only from my school but from some of the other schools that we played against during the season.

Curling has helped my deal with problem solving such as looking at situations from different perspectives.  Some have called the sport of curling "Chess on ice", since its a lot of strategy and mind work.  The object of the game is to have one or more of your rocks closer to the center (button) of the target ( the house).  There are many ways to accomplish this task, but the other team is also trying to do the same. You must be able to try and see all of the options in order to choose the best shot to try to score.

Other than high school curling I also curled in two leagues each season which is where some of the shaping of my self occurred.  As most boys are, I was super competitive, and when things didn't go my way I would get really pissed off.  I would throw or slam my broom on the ice or swear and just get extremely down on my self which affected not only how I played the rest of the game but also my team.  One of the adults who I had played in league with pulled me off to the side one night after league (we had lost and I was pissed).  He told me that when I do things, like throw my broom or slam it, or swear, I makes me look childish and people loose respect for players who do things like that.  And that it affects my team mates and that I need to start controlling my anger and how deal with it and not to let things bother me while playing.  Since that night I have learned to control my anger and deal with things that go wrong in the game, not let them bother me and just move on.  I have applied this to my everyday life as well.  Things won't always go your way so you have to deal with it and continue on your journey of life.

Curling has also allowed me to set my biggest goal in life... to curl in the Olympics.  I feel if I work hard enough at it and practice as much as I can, I can achieve this goal.