Tag Archives: the olympics

Let’s Ask: You’re in a Curling League?

February 21, 2014 Let's Ask Leave a comment

Liz: So, tell me about curling. What is it? Why does it involve—

Anastasia: —the brooms?

Liz: Yeah, brooms.

Anastasia: Do you not know anything about curling?

Liz: I think there’s a Norwegian team that has weird pants? That’s what I know. And it shows up on the Olympic schedule. Actually I did see a good analogy for it the other day. Someone said something on Facebook about how curling is like bocce with brooms on ice. And I was like, “I wonder if that’s actually an accurate statement because that’s such an easy way to explain it.” So is it like bocce with brooms on ice?

Anastasia: Do you feel like you understand bocce ball better than you understand curling?

Liz: Yeah, I do.

Anastasia: (Laughs) Um, it is actually kind of like bocce ball on ice, I’m not gonna lie. The whole idea is that you have these giant rocks, that are called “stones”, and you—very similar to bocce ball—are trying to roll them down a large sheet of ice, as opposed to a lane of shells. And you’re trying to have your rocks be the closest to the center of the thingy at the end, which is it called—oh I’m the worst person to do an interview on this—um, fuck what is it called…the button. The middle is called “the button.” The rest of it is called something else, um, it’s like the…target. It’s not the target, but it looks like a target! You’re aiming for that space at the end. So each four person team throws eight stones, two stones per player, and at the end of those sixteen stones, whatever team has the closest rock to this little red thing in the middle, the button, that is the team that gets the points for that “end.” And an end is like one round.

Liz: How many points do you get?

Anastasia: You get as many points as you have stones in the house—the house! That’s what it’s called, the end thingy is called “the house.” The number of stones you have in the house until broken by the other team. [Editor’s Note: Here’s a link because this makes no sense.]

Liz: So why–what are the brooms for? Do you like use them to speed up and speed down? I don’t understand the brooms.

Anastasia: Okay, the brooms. So when you throw a stone, it’s super heavy. Like, I can barely pick up one and carry it. So they are like these super heavy rocks with handles, and you have this thing called “the hack,” which is at the end of your lane of ice, and you basically put one foot in the hack, put a “slider” on your other foot (to make it slippery so you can slide on it), and launch you and your rock down the ice.

Liz: Mhm.

Anastasia: So you launch yourself off the hack and then release the stone turned a little bit to the left or right—that’s called an “in turn” or an “out turn”—and that’s what adds the “curl.” I don’t fully understand the physics, but this controls the direction the rock spins, which affects the way your rock will curl down the ice. And so what the sweeping does is that it can increase the speed that the rock is going or it can help keep the line straight. If you have really good sweepers, the friction that the brooms make warms up the ice, making it slicker, so the rock moves faster. A lot of times, you might release a light stone with the intention of “sweeping it in,” which means that you are going to have your sweepers sweep it really hard to get the most distance out of it. This gives you better control over placement because you can call your sweepers on and off. That’s why you hear all that yelling: the “skip” is telling his/her sweepers to sweep.

Liz: Mhm. Who’s the skip?

Anastasia: So there are four people on each team. The skip is basically the captain. He/she is the last person who throws, usually, and they’re also the person at the end of the lane calling the shots. The skip will tell you which way to turn your rock (so which way to curl—in or out), how much weight to put on your rock (aka how hard to throw it), and tell you where to aim. And then they yell at the sweepers and tell them whether to sweep or not. That’s why they’re yelling things like “hard”—hard means sweep faster, sweep harder—or “off”—off means stop. Stuff like that. When you’re skipping, you have to judge the speed and the “line”—the direction—of the rock to gauge what it’s doing and if that’s what you want it to be doing.

Liz: Um, awesome. Okay, uh-

Anastasia: Does any of that make sense

Liz: Yes. I also read a Wikipedia article as you were saying it and discovered it was like shuffleboard. And then I was like, “Oh!”

Anastasia: Why would you cheat and read a Wikipedia article!?

Liz: Well you were talking about the brooms and I was like, “I don’t… I’m confused.” So I looked it up and then I was like, “Oh! I get it. It’s like shuffleboard with brooms.” And then the brooms made sense.

Anastasia: I like how bocce ball and shuffleboard make more sense to you. I barely understand bocce ball and I’ve never played shuffleboard.

Liz: So where do you go to play? Do you play like at a rink somewhere?

Anastasia: So I play in California. When I started playing, I was playing in northern California, now I play in southern, but before I started, I didn’t even realize that there was any curling out here because it’s a big Canadian and northern sport–and by “nothern” I mean places where it’s actually cold.

Liz: It’s a sport that requires ice and snow.

Anastasia: It does require ice. So you have to play on an ice rink. But I discovered that a lot of ice rinks, at least in northern and southern California, have curling. But it’s not “dedicated ice,” meaning that we curl on the same ice you skate on and that hockey players play on, which is why they call it “arena curling.”

Liz: Is there a difference?

Anastasia: Well, the biggest challenge is dealing with the quality of the ice because you’re sharing it with all these other people. So we’re always kind of dealing with these dips and slopes and drops in the ice, which can really affect the way you throw things. I’ve seen rocks start curling one way and then completely switch directions by the time they get to the house, or make giant s-curves, or hit a bump and lose steam or just stop altogether, it can be really interesting to strategize through.

Liz: So you turn an ice rink into a curling rink?

Anastasia: We take an ice rink, first it gets zambonied, and then we go through and we use this thing—the best way I can describe it is to imagine a swinging Catholic incense urn—that we use to pebble the ice with water droplets. You shake water droplets all over the ice and then run a scraper over them, to clip off the top, which creates this sort of gritty surface. You can walk on it with sneakers and you won’t slip. I mean, it’s still ice, you can slip, and I’ve fallen a couple times while playing, but you can walk on it with your shoes with much less chance of falling. I know a lot of people are intimidated by the ice and say “Oh I’m gonna have to wear skates or I’m gonna fall over,” but I always tell them: all you have to do is wear sneakers and warm clothes. And you don’t have to bundle up cause you’re moving the whole time, so you get hot.

Liz: So who is the best curling team in the world? Like who’s gonna win the Olympics, in your opinion? Or do you not even know? You just like playing?

Anastasia: You know, someone asked me the other day if the Norwegian team was gonna win purely based on their pants–

Liz: (Laughs) I mean, it’s distracting.

Anastasia: I think the Canadians are the best curlers, but I don’t actually know. You know, there’s a lot of people in my league who are really invested in it and in all the tournaments and things. We do these things called Bonspiels, which is like a big curling tournament, and a lot of leagues—um I don’t want to call it leagues, they are actually called clubs, “curling clubs”, I’m in a curling club—they will have Bonspiels. Like we have two in southern California and there’s at least one up in northern California. And so, there is this competitive circuit that goes on and there are curlers who are very invested in it and will travel to different competitions and things, but I haven’t really gotten there. I enjoy watching a good curling match but I’m not—I like playing the sport much more than I like to watch it. So I watch highlights, or the Youtube video of a really epic shot rather than sit and watch a full game or really keep up with who is curling. But I did spend a couple hours educating myself on the Canadian trials and I do think the Canadians are gonna be in medal contention this year.

Liz: Ooh medal contention… Okay, well I guess you already talked about how you ended up playing, but if I—I don’t want to start playing, I’m just gonna let you know—but if I did want to play…

Anastasia: Why not?

Liz: I mean, not to be rude, but is it like, physically hard? Is that a weird question to ask?

Anastasia: (Laughs)

Liz: We were talking about bocce ball and shuffleboard and people kind of consider those retirement, like on the beach, type sports. But clearly curlers are athletes, it’s not a game. But watching it, I’m like, this seems like a game, I don’t understand. And you said the stone’s are really heavy, but what makes it–

Anastasia: It doesn’t seem that physical?

Liz: What makes it physical? Or what does it require physically? Or like, is it something I can pick it up later?

Anastasia: Yeah. I mean, people can curl at all ages. There is an agility factor with the whole sliding thing but there’s actually this hand pole that people can use to release the stone if they can’t, or don’t want to, get down on their knees to slide. But the thing that makes the sport really “athletic” is actually the sweeping. It’s very intense—you’re like running down a sheet of ice and sweeping with as much force as you possibly can while doing it. I mean, it’s not the same physical endurance as say basketball or whatever else. But I would say that it’s probably on par with like softball. I think it’s actually a really good intro sport if you’re kind of out of shape and you’re looking for a fun way to start exercising, because I do think it’s a good workout, but I like it more for the fun of the game than the exercise.

Liz: Yeah.

Anastasia: You, for example, would not be able to replace your running routine with curling.

Liz: Okay. That’s what I wanted to know.

Anastasia: But in terms of starting, you can go online and find out if there is a curling club at your local ice rink. I started with a club in northern California, Wine Country Curling, which I had to drive 90 minutes to get too. Now, in LA, I’m in the Hollywood Curling Club but I’ve also gone down and curled with the O.C. club. Most of these clubs, especially right now during Olympic rush, do tons of “Learn to Curls” and drop ins. That’s how I started, by going to a “Learn to Curl.” It’s very low commitment and it’ll probably cost you $15 to $25. But you’re there for a couple hours and they will teach you all the basics. You will throw stones, you will sweep, you will definitely be able to tell if you like it. I enjoyed it so much I decided to sign up for a league after that. But a lot of clubs will also do “drop in” nights where you can just come and play a game or you can “sub” for a league team, which means you come and fill in for someone who is out that week. And curlers are so, so, so nice. They really want people to learn and everyone is more than happy to teach or answer questions from new curlers. Curling is supposed to be this fun, social activity. So while we do take it seriously, but we have a lot of fun too.

Liz: So, what’s your favorite part of the game? And like, what was the part that took you a long time to understand? Was there something you really struggled with?

Anastasia: The best part of curling is, in my opinion, throwing. Because there’s this moment, when you kick off from the hack, where you’re just kind of floating along on the ice. I love that. You’ve done all this preparation: getting into the hack, making sure you’ve got your slider on, that you’ve got your rock, that you’ve figured out what turn your skip wants you to do, you know where to aim, you know how you need to be positioned to aim there, you know how hard you need to kick off to give the stone the right weight—because the kick off is actually where the force comes from, you don’t launch the rock with your hand, that force comes from your legs—and then, in that moment when you kick off, it’s all done. So it’s this kind of this quiet, calm moment where you are just watching yourself execute. And I think that’s really cool. I don’t really like sweeping, probably because it requires the most physical activity. (Laughs) I also really like skipping. But that was a hard thing for me to grasp–the strategy of it all and really understanding the different ways the rocks turn and where they go and how the curl actually works and the physics of where you want to aim a stone. It took me a whole season before I really started to grasp it, but once I did, it made the game so much more fun.

Liz: Cool.

Anastasia: Now I’m gonna get you to go to a learn to curl.

Liz: No.

Anastasia: I can’t convince you?

Liz: (Laughs) Probably not.

Anastasia Heuer is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of the UNDERenlightened. When she’s not writing, you can find her on the road in search of the world’s best hot chocolate, trying not to burn down her kitchen, or in a park somewhere with a good book.

Liz Bohinc is a Staff Writer for the UNDERenlightened. She’s also a Compassionate Human Being. Runner. Reader. Science Fact and Science Fiction Enthusiast. Softball Addict. Animation Connoisseur. Twitter: @littlelyme.

Brainfood, Sports

Olympics: Putin on the Propaganda

February 21, 2014 Stephanie Cangro Leave a comment

Ever since I first saw Anya and her pup Pooka twirling around the ballroom of the Winter Palace in the animated movie Anastasia, I’ve had a fascination with Mother Russia. The fairytale of a long-lost duchess captivated me, and I’ve since spent a lot of time reading about Russian history. (Yeah, I’m a pretty big nerd, but I’ve learned to be ok with that).

With all eyes now on Sochi (and @SochiProblems), the issues concerning these Olympic games themselves—corruption, animal cruelty, environmental damage, hacking, and bathroom misadventures—have all been well documented. While I’m all for some friendly international schadenfreude, the vast majority of the media coverage has been driving me a little bonkers. While it is easy to file reports and express outrage over the jailing of pretty protesters or the passage of anti-LGBT propaganda laws (though we shouldn’t be ones to talk—similar laws exist in Alabama, Arizona, Louisiana, Mississippi, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Texas, and Utah), it is much harder to accurately depict the state of modern Russia—a basic overview of the abuses of power, human rights violations, and economic woes is sorely lacking.

From everything that I have read and studied, the simplest way I can think of to explain the Russia that grew from the fall of the Soviet Union is to call it a “bizzaro world”—a veiled, faux-democratic version of what the U.S. could have become had we lost the Cold War. While each controversy is worthy of its own Tolstoy-length novel, in order to truly understand modern Russia, I believe that it is first essential to understand how and why Vladimir Putin, the former KGB official (and Forbes’ reigning Most Powerful Person) has been in power for the past 14 years. This is what I have come to understand through the looking glass of social media and Lexis Nexis:

Following the resignation of then-president Boris Yeltsin, Putin was named acting president in 1999; he later went on to win an election in his own right in 2000. Since then, as the face and puppet master of modern Russia, Putin has consolidated his power by strong-arming the oligarchy (the roughly 110 Russian citizens who control over one-third of all wealth in Russia) into submission through an exchange of support for political appointments and financial favors, limiting—and eliminating—voices of dissent, and pandering to the leaders of the Russian Orthodox Church.

In 2007, Putin dissolved his own government in order to have a freer hand in controlling upcoming national elections; a year later, in 2008, he unofficially entered into a shared tandemocracy (that’s tandem+democracy) with current Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev. This arrangement allows the pair to simply exchange titles when they have reached the end of their term limits (though, of course, they’ve also extended their own term limits from four to six years). Because of this, Putin has the distinction of being both the second and fourth president of what is officially called the Russian Federation.

As terminology goes, Putin’s approach to politics has been described as a sovereign democracy—that is, he insists on the unquestioned acceptance of his actions as reflective of the will of the Russian people. Of course, that’s not exactly the case; Putin basically does whatever he wants. This appearance-above-fact approach extends to every aspect of his persona and governance. To wit: though Putin’s notorious attempts to cultivate a “he-man” image may seem overtly oafish or appear to be vanity training for Festivus’ Feats of Strength, his tactics actually mirror old Soviet propaganda strategies. This thought mentality extends past Putin’s image into official policy and has clearly been on display at Sochi (the Opening Ceremony was curiously quiet on certain aspects of Russian history). It may seem like a joke, but it actually must have taken extraordinary restraint for this man to not ride horseback or fight a tiger during the Opening Ceremony.

Putin’s promotion of traditional, conservative Russian interests (namely, money and power) are best exemplified through his attempts to influence former Soviet satellite states and silence dissenters, both at home and abroad. In this way, he operates as though the might of the USSR is still the status quo and ferociously objects to what he views as Western influence in the region.

Internationally, his recent $15 billion attempt to bribe the Ukraine into rejecting a trade agreement with the European Union has, much to his dismay, only helped to escalate tensions in the reign. However, the attempt itself is not surprising. Much like the 2008 South Ossetia War against Georgia (a NATO nation), the situation in the Ukraine hinges on the potential democratization of what Putin views to be Russian property. These actions, along with his agitated support of fellow human rights violator Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, are a clear assertion of Putin’s vision of Russia as an equally viable alternative to Western European and American leadership, despite the fact that he cannot provide his citizens with clean drinking water.

Within Russia itself, critics of Putin and his regime are often silenced by way of exile to Siberia—literally. Pussy Riot is, perhaps, the most famous example of this methodology; an individual or group voices criticism, is convicted of trumped up charges (hooliganism, etc) during a show trial, and sent to suffer in one of the state’s prison colonies. Throughout and after this process, the target(s) will also be under constant scrutiny and even physical attack from Putin’s armed forces and the state-controlled media.

And speaking of the media: in late 2012, Putin announced the creation of a new news agency, Rossiya Segodnya, tasked with the sole responsibility of broadcasting coverage to promote the Russian image. This is reminiscent of Soviet-era broadcasting and comes on top of the fact that nearly all Russian media is already controlled by the state (the one independent network, TV Rain, has recently been dropped by most carriers following governmental pressure).

This systematic control system that Putin has established underscores not only the climate under which the Olympics are currently being held, but also the living situation of the more than 143 million Russian people. While it is easy to scoff and dismiss the quirks of Sochi, I believe that there is a very real danger in laughing and falling down that rabbit hole. To not acknowledge the inherent problems and continued rise of Putin’s Soviet-style governance is to ignore the denial of voices and basic human rights to an entire populace; to not acknowledge this, but to acknowledge the double toilets, is to fall into Putin’s propaganda. His values aren’t Olympic values and there is nothing sportsmanlike about his conduct.

Photo by Remi Coin

Sports

Why I Love the Olympics

February 17, 2014 Liz Bohinc Leave a comment

If you have been following my battle with the cable cord, you know there is one thing and one thing only that is the lynchpin with my cable TV attachment. I’ll give you a hint: it’s an international sporting event that takes place every two years and it’s not soccer.

I’ll be the first to admit, I have an Olympics problem. Like, I could tell you down to a five-minute window when Sasha Cohen would skate in the 2006 Free Program on Wednesday. I literally watch Procter & Gamble commercials on my laptop and start to cry. I am planning out which bar I can go to watch the Opening Ceremonies just so I can hear that Olympic fanfare this winter.

But why do I love the Olympics so much? It’s a bit hard to pinpoint one thing that makes them special to me, but I’ll try to break it down into pieces with the help of YouTube links.

Let’s get the easiest ones out of the way. The Olympics are a huge television event where NBC makes a ton of money off millions of eyeballs. As a result, NBC produces a lot of great promos aka “fluff” pieces. These are the little films before each Olympics broadcast or each event that take the Olympic competition and make it super epic with music, great cinematography, and slo-mo. They are extremely well-produced and the best kind of sappy. To be honest, for a very long time, my dream job was to produce the Olympics fluff. (We’ll skip the part about how I actually went to film school with this dream in mind…)

The Olympics also bring a slew of really amazing commercials, brought to you from the likes of Home Depot, McDonald’s, Visa etc. They’re very memorable. Come on—I’m sure a large portion of the world only knows who Morgan Freeman is because of he says “Visa: Proud Sponsor of the Olympic Games” for eleven days straight every two and a half years. Additionally, these sponsors know how to produce commercials that celebrate the hurdles Olympians have to overcome and the people who are right there with them. One of my particular favorites this year is the commercial celebrating the addition of women’s ski-jumping. Seriously, guys, it’s set to a recording of Amelia Earhart talking about being the first woman to fly. It’s awesome.

Of course the moments that really stick with me in the games are the things that aren’t choreographed and produced. It’s pure athleticism and it’s great to see someone succeed in such a big way after hours upon hours of hard work. It’s those wow moments that, thanks to my old DVR, I could watch over and over again, saying to myself, “I can’t believe that just happened.”

Take for example, McKayla Maroney’s vault during the last summer Olympics. Yes, she fell on her butt in the individual finals of what was supposed to be her “best” event. But I am never going to forget watching her stick that insane vault in the team finals. This is a girl who had a broken toe and landed such a perfect vault that a judge literally exclaimed “Oh my god” on camera. You just can’t recreate those moments, that rush everyone in that stadium and watching on television experienced.

Conversely, there are also moments we remember for being—for lack of a better world—bad. Like things went horribly wrong and you suddenly remember how much these athletes risk for their Olympic dreams. The thing about Olympic athletes is that while some of them might be “professional” athletes, many of them can’t live off their Olympic dreams alone and are risking so much every day. Dana Vollmer has a deadly heart condition that could kill her while she’s swimming. If you remember the 2012 Olympic Games, there was a lot of buzz around Sarah Robles, the US’s best shot for a weightlifting medal. Sarah lived off food stamps and could barely pay her rent, while athletes like Michael Phelps were rolling in endorsements. It was a shocking juxtaposition that reminded me how much these athletes have to give up. This isn’t the same as the NFL.

Fourteen years ago, a swimmer from Equatorial Guinea named Eric Moussambani competed in the Olympic Games in the 100M Freestyle. It was a dramatic moment when he won his heat due to the disqualification of his opponents after they had two fault starts. He was soundly defeated in the following semi-finals because Eric’s fastest finish was still one minute slower the world record set at that same Olympic games. So what’s amazing about this? Well, everything. This guy almost didn’t finish his first race, but the crowd of 17,000 people cheered him to the finish. It’s an iconic Olympic moment and something that’s stuck with me for over a decade. (Ignore Moorhouse, the British commentator in the video, because he clearly doesn’t get it). In the same way, Sasha Cohen fell on her two opening jumps in her Long Program in 2006, blew her chances at a Gold Medal, but still got up and skated a final compelling and emotional performance. Watching these athletes stand back up, and watching the world come together to support them, is as an incredible moment as any big win.

I don’t have a perfect answer as to why I love the Olympics—it’s just something about the way the multiple elements evoke an emotional human response for me. What can I say? They mean something to me. I mean I’ve already booked myself for February 14^th, 2016 when Los Angeles will host the 2016 Olympic Trails for the marathon. I’m going to participate in an Olympic Trials weekend! That is so awesome.

“Yeah, I love the Olympics that much.”

Photo by Sara Slattery