Timing the Take Outs in Curling : Why Not?
In the previous Sweep Mag Issue, I wrote an article on timing for draws. In this article, I am writing on timing for take outs.
Timing the take outs allows the team to standardise the weights and makes every member of the team throw the same weights. That’s easy to do : during an on ice practice, time the take outs from a line to an other ; it could be from the back line to the 2nd T line for example. Once we have found the lenght of time for our nice take out weight for our team, we plan the number of different weights we want to use during games and we establish the time for these weights.
A team preparing for competition should control at least three take out weights : normal, heavy, light (or what ever you want ot call them) Most of teams throw their normal take out weight at 14 to 15 seconds and sometimes at 16 sec.(time require for the stone to slide from the back line to the 2nd T line). If we extablish our normal take out weight at 15 sec., we should have 12 to 13 sec. for our heavy weight and 17 to 18 sec. for the light weight.
A heavy weight at 12 or 13 sec. may be difficult to throw for some members of the team. One should train to progressively improve the weight up to the target one and temporarily throw weights which the curler is comfortable with during games. Allow me to remind you that it is very important to be comfortable with the weight a curler is throwing and never over do it. It is by training that gradually one becomes comfortable with big weights.
Timing methods used for take outs are the sameones proposed in the previous Sweep Mag Issue on Timing the Draws :
- From de back line to T line
- From the 1st hog line to T line
- From the 1st hog line to the 2nd hog line
- From the back line to the 2nd hog line
- From the back line to the 1st hog line
For a description of these Timing Methods, see the article on the previous Sweep Mag Issue. However, with method 1 and 2 it may be difficult to find the time for a take out when hitting a stone in front of the house since we stop the timer at the T line. That’s why many teams choose method 4 (from the back line to the 2nd hog line). Using that method 4 a normal weight should approximately be 12 sec., a heavy weight about 9 to 11 sec. and a light weight 14 to 15 sec.
As suggested in the previous Sweep Mag Issue, a team should combine method 5 (from the back line to the 1st hog line) with the method they are using. During on ice training, the team practices the chosen take out weights and we stop the stopwatch at the first hog line using the « LAP » button and we set back the stopwatch by pressing the « LAP » button again to finallystop the timer at the chosen line acording to the method used.
Doing so, we establish the corresponding time for our take out weights at the first hog line. This interval timing of the take outs aloow the sweepers to communicate the weight to the skip improving the communication process within the team. For example : if our normal take out weight usually is 2.80 sec., the brushers will know that the weight is heavier than expected if the time is smaller than 2.80 sec. and lighter if the time is bigger.
Once again, each method of timing is good. Chose one, combine it with method 5 and improve the team cohesion and steadyness.