Teaching Sweeping To Kids (Adapting Thriving 2021)

Teaching kids how to sweep (and making it FUN) is one of the biggest challenges for any youth curling coach. In this episode, I speak with brushing specialist Glenn Paulley about the principles of good sweeping and how we can teach kids to value this skill. Glenn will be presenting a session alongside Craig Savill titled "Sweeping Technical Skills" at the upcoming "Adapting Thriving" Curling Coaches Conference in March 2021 .

Some of the topics we discuss include:

Glenn's experience running a junior program for 16 years and what he learned from Mort Cooper (4:53)How he ended up becoming a "sweeping specialist" and his experience working with John Newhook of Dalhousie University to measure athletes with an instrumented broom (11:58)Why physical fitness is key for good sweeping (16:20)What to tell young kids when they ask why they're sweeping (18:48)The difficulty for kids to understand the subtle effect of sweeping (23:49)One sweeping game that Glenn used in his junior program (25:21)A trick he learned from Eugene Hritzuk about teaching where to sweep in front of a rock (26:48)What attendees can expect at his session on March 21st at the "Adapting Thriving" Conference (31:40)Three great sweepers to watch at the 2021 Brier (34:44)

Links to the resources mentioned in this episode:
Adapting Thriving 2021 Conference Web page
"Pebbles To Boulders" Blog (2010) by Mort Cooper (Curling Canada Web site)
Glenn's e-mail address: [email protected]

Glenn Gabriel is an NCCP-certified curling coach who lives in Pickering, Ontario, Canada. He has been the coordinator of the Little Rocks (U12) program at East York Curling Club in Toronto since 2011. If you have a question or feedback on the podcast, send us an e-mail at [email protected]

The intro and outro music is "Golden Sunrise (Instrumental Version)" by Josh Woodward. Licensed under CC BY 3.0