The raise is a draw that bumps a stationary stone forward: dose the weight, pick the contact point, rules on sweeping and the free guard zone, with milestones.
The honest answer: a raise is a draw that pushes another stone forward. That is what the world federation's glossary says: raise, a type of draw that bumps another stone forward [1]. A media glossary adds that it is about pushing toward the house [2]. So it isn't a hard hit like a takeout but a dosed contact.
How hard is it? You need a good feel for draw weight and a clean line, because two errors multiply: hit the stone wrong and you push it in the wrong direction; push too hard and it slides through the house. There is no timeline.
A short note from competition research: in an analysis of 34 men's games at the 2022 Olympics, success at so-called promotion takeouts was a significant predictor of the game outcome [3]. That is an observational study of elite men; it shows an association, not a cause. And I only read the abstract; I didn't verify its definition of "promotion".
Competition plays are rarely chance: the national coaches stress that consistency in line, weight and rotation is the measure of every delivery [4]. For the raise that means: practise the draw until it is right, and only then add the contact.
Define the result before you throw. Should the stationary stone go into the house or to a particular spot? One raise variant, the raise take-out, is described in the rulebook: your thrown stone hits a stationary stone, which then starts to move and knocks a third stone out of play [1].
The national coaches describe the deceleration of stone and body as a curve you need to know to find the weight [4]. You keep the value you found by extending the arm in a controlled way instead of pushing [4]. For the raise you need a bit more speed than for a draw to the same spot, because energy goes into the struck stone (practice).
Milestone: Three of five draws stay in the previously marked zone (practice measure).
With the target stone ahead, practise hitting it centrally. A central hit pushes it straight, a sideways hit pushes it sideways. How strongly a stone is "dragged along" also depends on how close the stones are and the shape of their striking bands [5]. That is a coach's essay, not research.
A stone set in motion by a played stone may be swept by its team anywhere in front of the tee line at the playing end [1]. So your team can still influence the pushed stone. Agree on that beforehand.
Milestone: With sweeping support, the pushed stone stays in the house in three of five attempts.
Before the delivery of the sixth stone of an end, a delivered stone may not remove an opposition stone in the free guard zone from play. Otherwise your stone is removed and everything replaced [1]. As a raise player you mostly push your own stones, but check the situation.
For the raise, hack-weight throws are a good calibration: hack weight is the speed at which the stone just reaches the hack at the far end [1]. Once you know that speed, you can feel raise speed as "a bit more than draw weight". That is an exercise, not a rule; talk it through with your coach.
A raise is a type of draw in which the played stone bumps another stone forward [1]. It differs from the takeout in that the stone is not removed but pushed into the house or forward [2].
A played stone hits a stationary stone, which starts to move and knocks a third stone out of play [1]. So it is a combination of pushing and clearing.
Yes. A stone set in motion by a played stone may be swept by its team in front of the tee line at the playing end [1].
US federation material assigns raises and finesse shots to an offensive style with many stones in play and fewer takeouts [6]. Whoever is ahead tends to keep play clean, with no stones to hide behind [6]. The skip decides.
The Come Around in Curling: Curling Around the Guard into the House