I'll open the bidding:

It puts your back/spine at a considerably greater risk of injury.

It adds another level of inaccuracy into your delivery (OK I know several blokes that have been doing it since Wallace was watching spiders, but they are stuck in a time~warp)

and finally ~ It chips the ice when your rock crashes down. Those chips may be the cause of a pick-up later on in the game.

In the days when the backswing was more common, the constant thumping of the stone's leading edge caused the running band to wear more in the area to where the handle points. This meant that the handles had to be rotated by a third turn every few months to spread the wear and hopefully even it out. Add to this the fact that ice is generally much keener now, not to mention the scattered ice fragments that Eddie mentions, there really is no longer any need to lift the stone off the ice during delivery.

Keep your backswing only for shots where really big weight is required if you like, but you can't play the brush effectively if your stone starts off to one side of you in the hack, not to mention what it does to your balance.  You will see that most elite players don't use a back lift, and many have now stopped the pull back delivery now as well. There is less to go wrong if you just start in the "push through" delivery style. Perhaps you should try some other styles of delivery for a while and see how you get on.

Many of us practise for years to gain a degree of accuracy, however I do believe that ones definition of Accuracy changes with time.

After a while it's not just the hitting of the Target Stone that matters, but the 'where you hit it' that counts. Ones Skip may ask for your shot to hit the Target Stone on the Nose, a couple of inches to the left, or right, of Centre (in order to roll to another position in the Head or behind a Guard) or perhaps just a glancing contact so that another Stone may also be moved. After all, if you just hit it you are leaving the same shot as an option to the Opposition.

The power shot requires a considerably greater degree of accuracy, than a Draw for example, as there are fewer real chances of altering its flight once it has left your hand. As you are asking, I would say that it is sensible to move to a 'no lift delivery' as soon as possible.

For some of us, just getting the sliding delivery is hard enough, never mind swinging it! (I'll need to get some practice ice some time soon, seeing as I need all the help I can get!)


By the way, can 16 year old be doctors?

I have been practicing with a swing, and the accuracy seems to be alright most of the time, as with any delivery technique there is room for error, although I have had more practice recently and it doesn't seem to be a problem, the only problem now is that I am becoming the old man of the club. Soon I will be tucking my T-shirt into my trousers....

Eddie,
As you are an expert on the the playing of the game perhaps you could advise the boy on the number of the Canadian Brier teams currently using a stop watch. I believe that none of the 12 top earning Canadian men's teams use stop watches, is this correct?