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On Quitting...

I can not begin to count the number of times I have said that I'm going to quit curling. "Curling is stupid and I'm quitting." I've said it after losses that should have been wins, after tough emotional losses, when I have to sacrifice time with friends and family, and sometimes just when I'm tired. Of course, I never really mean it, but there have been a handful of times when I have seriously considered retiring my broom for good. 

The first time I even suggested the idea of quitting curling happened when I was in little rocks. Similar to the time when I announced my dislike for gymnastics, I waited until I got home with my parents after the last game of the season and casually said, "I don't think I want to curl next year". My dad just looked at me as if I had told him that I didn't think the Earth was round. When September came around that year I found myself back on the ice. 

The second time I wanted to quit the sport I love happened when I was a young bantam player. I was having a particularly challenging season playing for a coach who I did not have very much respect for. He had stopped showing up to the club for a while and didn't seem too interested in coaching us, so I was surprised one day when he met us for practice. For some reason he decided that he wanted to pick apart my delivery that day. He was trying to get me to make big changes a couple of weeks before zones after having zero input all season. It didn't make any sense to me. Every time I would throw a rock he would tell me that everything I was doing was wrong. I thought he was full of crap so I wasn't really listening to him or taking his advice. I guess at some point he got frustrated because he chose to tell me something that I will never in my life forget. He said, "You know, Julia, your delivery has some major flaws and when you get under pressure you're going to crack". I stared at him for a moment, then I walked off the ice, changed into my street clothes, and went home. I think I probably spent the next 6 hours or so crying my eyes out. I mentioned in an earlier post that one of the rules in our house is that you're not allowed to quit something once you've made a commitment. The only exception to this rule is if continuing would be harmful or damaging. My parents asked me if I wanted to quit the team. My confidence was shattered. It would have been easy to quit, but I couldn't let it end like that. Instead, we fired the coach and finished out the season as best we could. I think we made it through zones, but lost out in regions that year. I was crushed, and it took a long time to build myself back up, but I'm glad I didn't let him break me. 

The third time I wanted to quit happened in my first year of women's curling after I had accepted an offer to play lead. Before I get into this one, let me first just say that I have a tremendous amount of respect for leads. It is not a very glamorous position. You will never see a TSN highlight of a lead who placed two perfect guards to set up a steal for the win in an extra end, but everyone knows how important those shots are. The lead position throws the two most crucial rocks of the end. Personally, I can't do it. I mean, I can, but I know I'm a hitter. Nothing brings me more joy than making double peels and angle runbacks. I once had a coach who told me that when I'm asked to throw firm peel weight he could see me smiling from ear to ear even when my back was to him. I was a small kid with a really big competitive streak. I don't like being bad at stuff and I used to be terrible at throwing hits. I could not figure out how to generate enough power out of my 100lbs frame to throw big weight accurately behind a 42lbs stone until 2006 when I watched Mark Nichols play in the Olympics. All of the commentators kept talking about how big of a weapon Mark was with his accurate peel weight. I studied his delivery and saw that he didn't "park". I was taught that when you bring the stone back to your toe, you're supposed to bring your hips up and then "park" them back - essentially you just drop your butt before you stick it back up in the air and drive out of the hack. Mark brought his hips straight back and pushed straight out into his slide. I tried imitating his throw and found out that I didn't lose any energy or muscle tension like I did when I "parked". After a lot of practice I eventually made hitting the strongest part of my game. 

I went on a bit of a tangent there... So anyway, I had agreed to play lead my first year on the competitive women's Ontario tour even though I knew that it wasn't the right position for me. After two tournaments I was miserable and it was obvious to everyone that this team was not a good fit. We had a meeting to address the issue and ultimately I decided that it would be in everyone's best interests for me to apologize for wasting everyone's time and withdraw myself from the team. While I still played club leagues and University/College curling, that decision marked the beginning of my 5-year hiatus from the competitive curling tour. 

Every season there are multiple times when I feel like giving up. I ask myself if all the time, money, and effort is really worth it. I think about all of the times I've missed Thanksgiving dinners, friends birthdays, holiday staff parties etc... because I was on the ice. But then I remember that I can't quit. I love this stupid game too much. 

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