The BC Highland Games
is Saturday June 25th,  Jim Bain is one of the organizers and he
showed me around back in 2003.  It was a great little festival –
very friendly.  Not as splashy (no pun intended) as the Alcan
Dragon Boat Festival – just very community oriented.

Jim and I inquired about the dancers and bagpipers, looking for any
participants with any Chinese and Scottish blended heritage, as Moyra
Rodgers was then  preparing for the CBC Television special “Gung
Haggis Fat Choy.”  Surprisingly, it was not an uncommon request,
Jim's own daughters are half Chinese and Scottish.  But alas Jim's
daughters have now long since graduated university and moved to
Toronto.  Apparently there is a young bagpiper who is half
Malyasian Chinese, and there are some dancers who are “hapa” – but
somehow I missed them that day.

Hi everybody...

just to let you know...
my body is real sore today, after practice 
My left thigh is charley horsed - this is most likely to 
1) paddling on the right side and pushing off the
inside left leg and/or
2) paddling on the left side and pushing off the left leg to initiate my power
stroke.

cure: eat bananas for potassium to avoid muscle spasms
/ cramps - drink more water... lots more water

Tough practice today.
Bob was working us hard to:
1) build strength
2) provide interval training to develop lactic acid
release efficiency
3) show us what we are capable of

We started off the practice with a fun exercise...
sorry we didn't get to the one-finger lift.  We will
do this Saturday morning of the race.

The race visualization will be part of our race
preparation that we will do before every race.  Bob is
telling us that we are not producing our potential
until 30 to 40 minutes of practice on the water.  But
we don't have that luxury.  But we can visualize what
we do on the water to get to that level of
performance.  We can visualize and imagine how we feel
in the middle of our practice.  

Sports Psychology works.  I studied at SFU, and I used the same
techniques for mental training during my recovery from
cancer, 16 years ago.  Please read the visualization
exercise that I sent out yesterday.

GEMINI BOATS
Very good for us to be in the Gemini for practice
today.  It gave us the experience we need for our
races next week, and allowed us to try different
seating and leg positions.
Gemini boats are the developing standard for Dragon
Boat Sport Racing, and are recognized by the
International Dragon Boat Federation.  The boats were
brought to Vancouver last year, a few weeks before
ADBF, and provide the least amount of variables
between boats.  

I found the following worked for me.

1) Brace your inside leg under your seat with your
outside leg forward - braced under the wooden gunwale
of the boat.  Push against your inside leg to "almost"
raise your bum off your seat - this initiates your hip
movement to provide the power in your stroke.

2) Really lean outside the boat... Make sure your top
hand is outside the boat so you can keep your paddle
vertical and pull the boat up to your solidly planted
paddle.  

3) Drop your outside shoulder, and lean slightly
forward.  You will get 3 more inches reach.

4) for timing... you should be able to look right
upside the outside of the boat - because you are
leaning so far out the boat.

The Gemini Boat is very sensitive to movement.  Make
sure you brace yourself before the start of the race. 
If you shift around during a race, it can upset the
balance of the boat, causing everybody else in the
boat to shift in reaction.

We have to really emphasize every aspect of proper
paddling technique training that Bob and I have given
you.
It will really make the difference in a Gemini.  The
6-16 boats have 2 1/2 more inches between the seats
and are much more forgiving than the Geminis.

STARTS:
1) Remember to push off your inside leg, so you can
get your bum off your seat.... 
2) Get your paddle deep... I can still see some
paddles that are not buried to the shaft. 
3) GRUNT!  You will feel the sound resonate in your
body and inspire you!  Consider this to be "Sound
Therapy"  It also helps if you are visualizing your
"power animal"

FEEDBACK EXERCISE
Great exercise with alternate "zig-zag" seats. 
Very good to give your seat buddy encouragement and
constructive feedback.  I was working with Carl, and
he made great improvement with the feedback that gave
him more awareness of what he does with his paddle. 
Pretty tough for Carl then to critique me... but I
asked him what he liked, and he said I was very smooth
and efficient.  He could see how I dropped my outside
shoulder and rotated - "very subtle and smooth" he
said.   12 years of paddling experience, and we are
trying to give it to all of you in 2 months.  You are
all better paddlers than I was when I first started
paddling, over my first 3 years!

Good practice all around - Thanks to Bob for leading
us.
He is giving us good feedback on our performance and
improvement.

The hamburgers and drinks were a good treat.  Remember
to eat right away after any intense workout.

Wednesday's practice will be focussed on race
strategies and technique foundations.  We will not be
doing an intense workout as we are now in the tapering
phase to allow the body to rest and recover and be
ready for lots of racing on Saturday and Sunday!

Good work everybody!
Remember dinner at 7pm on Friday - details to follow.
Come and recieve your team shirt, and your race pass,
if I did not give it to you today.

Todd

Today I had lunch with Andrew Winstanley of the Canadian Club.  We first met back in 2003, at a Laurier Institution reception following an event for Asian Heritage Month at the Vancouver Museum. Last month in May, we met again, at the COPE fundraiser Encouraging Women in Politics, where I was one of the featured guest performers.  It turned out that Andrew's daughter had been the lead organizer of the event.

Anyways…
we made our way past all the crowds of people attending the Aga Khan's
visit to Vancouver today (June 10, 2005).  We were amazed to see
so many Ismali people in downtown Vancouver.  Interestingly
enough, Andrew said that the Aga Khan is an honourary companion to the Order of Canada for his philanthropy, given early in 2005.  Wow!

Surprisingly, the Imperial restaurant
on Burrard was not that crowded.  We were quickly seated upstairs
and ordered a variety of dim sum staples such as har-gau and sui-mai.
   Andrew also really enjoyed my favorite lo-bak goh (turnip
cake) and he enjoyed the story of how I presented lo-bak-go and haggis
won-ton to Shelagh Rogers at a CBC Reception welcoming her and the
Sounds Like Canada crew to Vancouver in Septemeber 2003.

We had
a wonderful talk about our experiences of being Canadian.  Andrew
shared that he had lived in Quebec during the rise of the Bloc
Quebecois, and had been in the middle of things hired as a token
anglophile to help write political speeches amongst other things. I
shared with him that I had visited Montreal and Quebec City as part of
a college exchange program, that had me speaking french until I spoke
english with a very bad Quebecker accent.

Recently the Canadian
Club hosted its annual luncheon for Order of Canada recipients and he
showed me pictures, where 11 of the 17 Vancouver area recipients
attended including Vancouver city councillor Sam Sullivan. 
Another former recipient Bing Thom gave the address.

Down to
business… Andrew told me about the Canadian Club and how he has been
involved as a president, and past president. And invited me to become a
member…  He likes what I have done in Vancouver,
event-wise.  And he would like me to help the club with some
programming.

Do I have the stuff to be a member of the one of
Canada's oldest associations, begun in 1893?  hmm… what would my
Great Great Grandfather Rev. Chan Yu Tan, who arrived in 1896, think?