It was a busy Thanksgiving weekend at the Whitehorse Curling Club as both teams and individuals concluded a series of workshops taught by a world renowned, high performance coach.

Former national development coach, Bill Tschirhart covered everything from on-ice delivery to strategy and dynamics to the benefit of both the Whitehorse Curling Club and the Yukon Curling Association.

"I believe that it went really well," said Suzanne Bertrand, organizer of the curling workshops and the junior curling coordinator at the Whitehorse Curling Club. "What is good about having Bill, who is a world traveler in the curling world, he always has the latest information regarding skill development, mental training and delivery analysis."

Tschirhart is no stranger to Whitehorse and has visited the territory on a number of occasions to put on these types of workshops. Tschirhart, who is also the president of True North Curling Inc., has also been a huge help to some of the territory's most elite curling squads, including Team Chad Cowan, which he coached at the 2008 Tim Horton's Brier in Winnipeg. The Cowan Rink finished with two wins at the competition.

Workshop sessions for the Yukon Curling Association began Wednesday and were open to both teams and individuals. The topics that were addressed included delivery analysis, brushing, strategy and tactics, team dynamics and mental preparation.

Sessions for the Yukon Curling Association were held Wednesday through Sunday, with Friday being reserved for the junior teams, as a result of school being out.

The Whitehorse Curling Club had a clinic of its own, which ran from Friday through Sunday. The Club Coach Clinic was offered free of charge and attracted more individual curlers that play in one or more of the weekly leagues at the curling club.

Bertrand said the Whitehorse Curling Club was to hoping to attract new curlers as well as curlers who wanted to learn instructing techniques and strategies.

The club clinic began with a strategy off-ice session Friday night and then progressed to re-teaching some of the basics first thing Saturday morning. Some of the basics included basic balance and sliding in a pre-determined straight line towards the skip's brush.

Once a curler was comfortable with balance and sliding, he or she was given a rock, which involved working on proper gripping, rotations and release.

Tschirhart said it is important for a curler to get comfortable with sliding on the ice before they are given a rock, so that don't become overly dependent using the stone to help with balance.

Another aspect of the club clinic included a video critique for shot delivery. Tschirhart said there was for two purposes having the video session.

"One was more important than the other; it was so that the athlete could look at his or her delivery," he said. "I asked them to simply ask a question, 'Are you surprised with what you do see, are you surprised with what you don't see?' It's to make sure that the perception of an athlete's delivery matches the reality."

Saturday also featured a couple of games to test the skills the curlers were taught at the clinic.

One of the games included a scotch twosomes activity, which gave each participant the opportunity to work on his or her delivery by throwing four rocks in each end, while their teammate waited down behind the hog line to help sweep the stone into the house.

Another game on Saturday was the cash bonspiel, which featured Tschirhart setting up a shot that all of the participating teams tried to make. Each set up was worth a certain amount of money and if no one was able to make it then the total was carried over for the next shot.

Tschirhart said the shots were kept fairly basic, including draws to the button, take outs and raises.

Sunday featured more of a review as both teams and individuals had the option of practicing the different techniques that were taught in an individual session.

Tschirhart said the clinics went very well this year.

"I was very pleased with the progress of everybody," he said. "I love to come to Whitehorse. I sound like a broken record, but the ice surface at this club is very likely, if it's not, the best club ice surface in the country it's right at the top. It's a wonderful facility."

Cynthia Friedrich was one of the participants at the club curling workshop. Friedrich, who curled in her teens, said before this year she hadn't curled in about 20 years. This year she is on a team in the Friday Night Fun League and said that so far it is going pretty well.

"Our team is all newbies, but we won our first game," she said.

The team is currently 1-1, but Friedrich said she is more confident heading into the rest of the season after taking part in the three-day workshop.

"It will be more fun because I will be able to apply what I have learned," Friedrich said. "Bill geared the instruction towards the people, which was really helpful and I learned a ton (Saturday), especially the delivery."

Friedrich said she thought it was great that the curling club had Tschirhart teach the workshops.

"I don't follow curling, so I didn't know him or his skills, but when you realize what the skills that he has and what he was sharing with the club, it's almost too bad that more people didn't take advantage of it," she said. "It was nice for me because (Saturday) there was four or five us getting this amazing instruction."