Montreal DragonFly

Another great practice!  Though, we lost Winnie due to nausea, Ramy to fever and Mikael who needed to catch a bus for NYC towards the end of practice.  Marc-Daniel gave us a great practice…  Thanks Melissa for finding us a great sub coach! 

• We’ve determined that our starts will be 5-15-5.  Since 7-15-5 wasn’t good for us…  the start was too slow to reach race pace.  We’re better off with 5-15-5.
• Note that the first 5 strokes have to be long (reach-it out) and DEEP to be able to LIFT the boat.
• Note that the following 15 strokes, you don’t need to bend your back…  it’s more rotation and increasing pace to reach race pace.
• I don’t know about the rest of you…  but, I really enjoyed the pressure of being pushed or feeling the rush from the 8 pack in the back…  which helped us in the front to focus and increase pace without losing control.  I hope that we’ll get to keep this!
• The last two 250m pieces were eye openners for the most of us where the pacers (first 3 rows) went to the back while the back 3 rows went to the front.  I hope that with this experience, we now have a better understanding of the different water resistence flowing through out the boat and the different roles in the boat.
• Like MD mentionned during practice, if you’re starting to feel aching pain/muscle, it’s time to focus on proper technique then strenght/power.  Do the SUPERMAN posture!  Keep that in mind!
• When the coach calls for a pick-up, it doesn’t mean to bundle-up and lose your reach.  It’s the total opposite!  Reach-it out and do the Superman!

Well, I have to say that it’s starting to look a lot better!  We might actually kick some ass at the upcoming festival!  Remember that we have practice on Monday, 22JUN2009 and Friday, 26JUN2009.  Every practice counts!  Don’t be late!

 Have a good weekend!

 Nancy

Ciao!

 The team’s next fundraiser event is two nights at the Comedy Works (02JUL2009 and 09JUL2009).  All team members will be selling tickets for this events!  Most of the proceits goes to the team and enrollements to dragonboat festivals.  Show support by atttending to this event!  Hope to see-you there!  Here are the details:

Event: Fundraiser at Comedy Works

Dates: 02JUL2009 & 09Jul2009

Time: 8:30pm-10:10pm

Address: 1238 Bishop, Montreal (corner of Ste-Catherines)

Cost: 12$/per/night

For tickets: contact any member of the Montreal DragonFly team.

Ciao!

 Vicky’s company are going to LaRonde on 04JUL2009 and wants to know if you’re interested in joinning her.  If so, contact her.  Check below for details:

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Hi All,

I’m going to LaRonde July 4th and planning to attend the fireworks as well.  It’ll be Australia that night.

If you’d like to go for the whole day(11am-10pm) and have silver seats fireworks I can get the tix from work for $48 for adults or $30 for kids.  All prices includes tax.

The $25 deal for after 5pm is sold out for that day=(  Sorry about that.

If you want to just goto Laronde and just watch in there w/o seats I can get tickets at CAA for $33 for adults and $22 for kids all tax in.  Regular prices are $44 and $29 respectively.

Let me know if you want to come and which tix you want^_^

Cheers,

Vicky

Dragonflyers,

Yes, it was another intense practice with Melissa…  and lets also welcome Linda & Leslie onto the boat!  Cheers!  Tonight, we definitely had a great turn-out!  Most excellent!  We must keep the number of attendance high for the summer… every practice counts NOW!!!   We need to be ready for our races this summer….  and for those that attended practice tonight…  though, we did manage to beat the same team twice at a 250m race…  we still NEED TONS of improvement!

 Things to work-out:

• Our start is still weak.  I don’t know if any of you on the boat even felt the boat “LIFT” but, I didn’t.  That’s not a good sign.  The boat initial state is still and heavy in the water.  The goal of the first 5 strong power strokes in the beginning is to LIFT the boat.  That’s why the deeper that you paddle…  the more water that you’re pulling with all of your strength.  Also, Melissa enphasized on the REACH.  Obviously, if you reach-out more, you’re pulling more water…  and get the boat the move a LOT more.
• We’re getting better with the 15 strokes & 5 transition strokes.  We must keep in mind that the 5 transition strokes is for us to get from really fast pace to actual race pace…  during the transition phase, we slowly start reaching-out, focus on pushing into the water…  pulling more water…  but, we can’t let the boat slow down too much…  This is still a race for obvious reasons!
• Now for the race pace…  after speaking to Melissa…  we’re still far from reaching our race pace.  Hard to believe but, we’ll have to paddle faster…  with control & power if we want to make the cut.  So, this is a warning…  next practices, we’ll be expecting to be paddling even at a much higher pace!
• The boat is technically separated in three parts: the pacers (the first three rolls), the engine room and the rockets (the last three rolls).  The job of the pacers is to set the pace for the rest of the boat.  The engine room is where the most of the POWER is coming from and they work even harder to lift the boat.  The rockets…  why that name???  Well, if you haven’t noticed, for the pacers, the water that they’re paddling is dead…  more resistence to paddle…  then, that same water goes through the engine room….  slightly easier to paddle since their water was already moving…  by the time that it gets to the back of the boat…  the water is even FASTER…  less resistence then it went through the engine room…  they have to paddle even more faster just to keep-up to pace with the rest of the boat because of it…  ROCKETS!  In other words, if you have less resistence, you should be able to pull even more water…  meaning “reaching out more” but, you’ll have to make quick exits to keep-up with the pace of the rest of the boat.  You know what I mean?
• The caterpillar effect…  As Steven and maybe some of you might have felt it on the boat during practice….  Obviously, this is not good since we want the boat to go on the water as smoothly as possible…  or like Melissa said…  she only wants to hear ONE UNIFORM sound of paddles hitting the water all at the same time.  This caterpillar effect has more of a negative effect…  slowing us down mostly and also wasting our efforts in getting the boat moving.  To lose this effect, we must focus…  meaning, we must LOOK-UP…  look at the person in front of us…  look at the pacers…  we must imitate the person in front of us!!!  At the end, we must be ONE.  This means that if their paddle is in the water, your paddle is in the water…  if their paddle is coming out of the water, yours too….  if they do a pause, you too…  See where I’m getting at with this?  You become the person in front’s shadow!

To finish-off, I know that the 10km run for the most of us is done….  but, this doesn’t mean that we should slack off now.  You guys know that one practice is just not enough to cut it…  Most competative teams have 2-3 practice a week plus gym trainning….  It might not be another dragonboat practice, but you must do some other exercises to stay in shape…  As for me, I go to the gym 3 times/week….  plus, I went for 2.5km jog before practice as well.  Stay in shape!!!

That’s it for now…  looking forward to the next practice!  Have a good weekend!

 Nancy

Ciao! As most of you know, being part of the Montreal DragonFly team, you all know that you must run a 10km before the Montreal DB Festival…  this tradition was started by one of our former coaches, Winston Eng, which we have kept.  Most of us partipated at last Saturday’s 10km at Les Iles De Bouchervilles.  You should all give yourselves a tap on the shoulder!  Well done!!!  It seems that next year, we’ll be doing it in May instead of June…  I wonder if it’s because of the heat???  LOL  Here’s photos of the event.

Here’s the race time for those who attended:

Lin Wang - 48:38
Steven Lam - 53:47
Mikael Tournier - 54:22
Shu Ngok Lee - 55:55
Jerry Jao - 57:40
Jialf Maf (assuming this is our beloved Gloria...)- 59:52
Victoria Louie - 1:02:20
ANGELA CHOI - 1:02:21
CHI ZHANG - 1:03:04
Hanting Por - 1:03:34
Lei Fang - 1:10:28
Nancy Wong - 1:17:03
Benedicta Chan - 1:17:16
Patrick Kent Lau - 1:17:17
Rami Panossian - 1:19:15