The Fearless Femmes: January 2015

After an unintentionally prolonged hiatus, we are officially back in the adventuring saddle! Between having babies (Lisa), getting pregnant (Brandi), and engaged (Meagan), we all had a very busy 2014 and our Femmes outings were pushed to the back burner. Now that we've started a new year, there seems to be no better time to revitalize our beloved club... and what better way than TWO adventures in ONE month?!?!

Last weekend we had our first adventure of 2015, hosted by Meghan and myself. This was an idea I've been sitting on since last winter, when I became surprisingly intrigued by one particular Olympic event. Then, while talking to Meghan this past Fall about getting our club up and running, we realized we both had the same idea. As the aptly designated "Boss" of the Femmes, I did the planning and organizing, while Meg was enlisted to come up with a clue for the rest of the girls to try to guess the activity; her creative mind came up with a riddle in a matter of seconds!

Are you strong enough to hurl a stone?

If not, the sweeping with get you toned.

Follow the rules, do what you're told,

you could be next to win the gold!

If you guessed CURLING, you'd be right! Yep, curling. Once the girls figured out the riddle, their responses were pretty universal... "You can do that in Kansas City?"..."We're curling? I don't know what to wear to such a thing!"... "Curling?" Turns out, Kansas City has its very own Curling Club and League, you wear warm layers of athletic clothing, and yes, we didn't stutter. Curling.

We had another exciting drive (ok, so I'm not the best caravan leader) north of "the river," to Line Creek Community Center. Upon arrival, we signed waivers and then sat down to watch a brief instructional video. The video started out with a young man speaking about how curling is a sport for anyone, even someone like himself who has battled kidney failure. Interesting point to make, but ok, whatever. The video then proceeded to provide a detailed description of how the kidneys function, what happens when they fail and treatment for the disease. We were all looking at each other like, "What is going on? Someone obviously pulled the wrong video... Why does the curling league even have a video about kidney failure?" Alli jokingly asked, "Did I just sign a waiver for dialysis?"

Shortly there after, it was revealed that the U.S. Curling Association supports the National Kidney Foundation... or vice versa... the relationship was lost on me, but once it got past all the kidney talk, the video explained the history of and equipment used in curling, and reviewed game play and scoring. As the video progressed, my mind grew increasingly skeptical that any of us would be any good at this. Who knew there was so much technique, precision and skill required to slide a stone down an ice track? As the video wrapped, I was questioning why I ever thought this would be fun. Our instructor, Jeff, then went over a few safety guidelines: "No walking backwards, no running. No kicking or jumping over stones. You will be walking on ice. If you fall, tuck (protect) your head. The goal is no one bleeds." Cue visions of skull fractures, bloody scalps and concussions.

We then headed into the ice rink area. It was a typical hockey rink, but was divided lengthwise into four or five lanes. Our "Learn to Curl" group had one lane, while League members played on the other lanes. Our group consisted of a middle-aged couple, a preteen girl, and the seven of us. We delicately stepped onto the ice in our tennis shoes and were surprised to find how stable we felt. That's because the ice receives a special treatment for curling, where water droplets are sprayed on the surface, creating a pebble effect. Somehow, this pebbling helps the 40 lb. stones glide across the ice.

We gathered at one end of our lane for our first lesson... balance. Jeff showed us how to launch ourselves off the "hack" (foothold) using two stones, one in each hand, for better balance. The jist of it is this, you place your right foot on the anchored hack and your left foot on a super slippery "slider" that allows you to glide forward once you push yourself off the hack. While trying to coordinate all of this, you also have to shift your body weight from your right foot (for launching) to your left foot (while gliding).

After his demonstration, Jeff asked who wanted to go first. Meagan enthusiastically jumped up, positioned herself properly on the hack, supported her body weight on the two stones, and finally pushed off... SPLAT! She made it about six inches and then face-planted into a spread eagle position on the ice. We all had to laugh (it was ok because Meagan was laughing too), and felt grateful we weren't the first to wipe out. Then Meagan just got right on up and with a little limp walked back to the hack and immediately tried again. What a good sport and a truly fearless femme!

Undoubtedly, Meagan was not the only one to incite laughter or to wipe out, though none were quite as drastic or comedic as hers. Lisa tried time after time and continued to lose her footing and land on her butt just inches from the hack. I offered, "Maybe sweeping will be your thing??" Alli found it quite humorous that Jessi and I looked like hunchbacks, fumbling to get into a semi-proper position. Our defense, "We're too tall, we can't get that low!"

Amy receiving some pointers from Jeff and launching

After we ~~felt sufficiently inept and humiliated with~~ mastered balancing and push off, we moved on to aiming and sliding the stone and practiced shooting it back and forth to one another. Then we practiced sweeping, which is pretty straight-forward and done in order to help the stone glide further. After learning all the components, it was time to put it all together and play a game!

These girls are ready to play!

A visual aid might help

Teams are typically comprised of four players, but since there were ten of us, we divided into two teams of five. Meagan and I joined the three non-Femmes to form the red team, while Amy, Alli, Lisa, Jessi and Meghan made up the blue team. Meghan was designated the "skip" for her team, which meant she stood at the opposite end of the lane and signaled where in "the house"(the scoring portion of the lane) her teammates should aim for their stones to stop. Yeahhhh, like we knew what that meant or how to make that happen! I don't think anyone really paid any mind to precision or even cared about scoring. Our only hope was that we were strong enough to get our stone allllllll the way to the other end of the lane. Shockingly, almost all of our stones made it, with the help of our sweeping teammates.

Meghan serving as skip

Lisa and Alli sweeping... I'm sure they thank you for your help, Jessi ;)

Meagan and her teammate sweeping their way to victory!

Here are the very basics of game play: play alternates back and forth between teams and only the team with the best stone placement scores at the end of each round, called an "end." Typically eight to ten ends are played, but we only had time for one... which was plenty. Sweeping really takes it out of you! Meagan went first, then Alli, then me, and then Jessi, who was the first to score when her stone stopped in the blue portion of the house! Somewhere in there, our male teammate slipped on the ice while sweeping and hit his head on the stone during his fall! He got a pretty good gash above his eye and the incident rattled all of us a bit. After a quick visit to the First Aid kit, he was back in the game and next to score while simultaneously knocking Jessi's stone out of the house. Play continued with Amy shooting, then our female teammate, then Lisa, then our young teammate, and finally Meghan. No one else scored so the red team won the end, which Jessi conceded, "made it all worth it," for our injured teammate.

When you put it all together, this is what you get

Win or lose... or barely score at all... I think we all had a good time and ultimately were just happy to be back together and adventuring again! Those old familiar feelings quickly came rushing back... excitement turned to uncertainty, anxiety and fear, and then eventually to confidence, accomplishment and enjoyment. There's no better feeling than the satisfaction you get from challenging yourself and succeeding! I just love me some Femme time!