Brushing technique for power brushing

We sometimes nostalgically remember the good old corn broom we used prior to the Eighties. The use of the brushes started to be popular at the beginning of the Eighties. Brushes in Canada were than made with Horse hairs while the Scothish were making and using the hog hair brushes. At the end of the Eighties, a timid effort was made for synthetic fabric brushes with interchangeable heads. Ted Brown, without behing the first to promote the synthetic brush, popularized it with his Brownie Brush. Today we find a wide variety of those synthetic brushes.

Following this brief resumé of the onset of the brush in Curling in Canada, allow me to write about the technique for the optimal use of that brush. The first technique taught was nice but questionable. Many will remember that method that consisted on placing both hands on the lower part of the brush handle and the upper part of the handle was laying on the thigh of the sliding foot. This technique was easy to learn and was economic on the energy system. The very low body position of that technique was causing weight reading problems to the brushers. While we were teaching that first method, high level competitors moved to a much higher position improving the weight reading. Many different methods made their apperances : different grip positions, body positions, with or without slider.

Actually, what we expect from the brushers is to warm up the ice temperature ; because we know that lesser cold is the ice the faster it is. (Allow me to digress for a moment ; a not enough cold ice will be faster, but the pebbles will be too soft and it will flatten out rapidly making the center ice slower as the game progress).

To warm up the ice, the brushers have to develop most friction on the ice surface. This friction is the result of the pressure applied on the brush head combined with the speed of the brushing movement. In other words, the friction relies on weight and speed applied on the brush head. (We also could discuss of the amplitude of the brushing movement).

Finally, we look for maximum weith and speed of the brush head.. I don’t want to start a discussion about the speed of the movement; each one doing their way according to their own speed capacity. It is possible to improove the speed of the brushing movement specially by improving the power of the anaerobic alactif energy system, but this could be the subject of a next issue article. The weight develop on the brush head is the topic I want to bring your attention on.

The majority of the curlers develops wieght on the brush head by mostly using their muscle strenght and a little of the body weight as follow :

We find all kinds of technique : with or without slider, brush handle in front (right side on the drawing) or behind (left side on the drawing) of the body ; feet close or far from the trajectory of the stone…

Whatever the technique used, our concern for this article is the weight developed on the brush head for most efficiency and the curler faces two alternatives to achieve that :

Use of the muscle strenght or

Transfer the body weight on the brush head

The first method :

eventhough the majority of the curlers and even the high competitive curlers use it, this method does not provide the weight of the second method and costs much more energy wise.

The second method

develops more weight on the brush head and demands less energy expense.

The proposed technique (second method) consists in bringing the shoulder as much as possible over the brush head. In this position, the brush handle is almost vertical.

Applying this technique, you will probably find that your brush is not made to suit this method ; your brush head will probably not be flat on the ice surface. Indeed, as a coach, I had to modify the existing brushes to suit this proposed technique. That the reason why I have develop the fully articulated Performance brush allowing a vertical position of the brush handle and consequantly allowing more body weight transfer to the head of the brush.

It is easy to verify this theory : Put your brush head on a bathroom scales, take your usual brushing position and look on the scale the weight you develop. Repeat the same exercise bringing your shoulders over the brush head without straining with your arms ; only grip firmly the brush handle with your hands. Look the result on the scale. If you used a curved or crooked handle, you won’t have to grip firmly the handle since you only have to lay on it.

Doing this last exercise, you will find that this theory is right.