It’s always nice to have these on the wall. It’s always nicer to help others hang them on their walls.
Beyond Medals
In competition, it is easy for the lack of medals to overshadow a great performance. After all, when one puts everything on the line and performs his best, one rightfully would like some recognition for the endeavour.
Unfortunately, heros are plenty but medals are few and I think the Carps are the unsung heros of the day. Read the rest of this entry »
Carpe Diem Dragonboat 2008
Carpe Diem Rock Climbing day
The Carpe Diem Dragonboat team is getting our wake up call! Winter is almost over (not) and we are now ready to wake up from hibernation!
This year, most, if not all our members are returning once again and over the fall/winter have suggested that they are bringing friends so we will most likely not be recruiting new members for this season. If you would like to be considered though, feel free to leave me a comment on this post and we will contact you in the unlikely event we should need extra paddlers.
What might happen, is we *could* end up having two boats. Last year, we had almost two boats worth of people sign up to begin with. However, by the time season started, we had dropped to 20 comitted members.
The first season, we did really well, coming in only 1 division behind some premier teams at Stratford. This was with a crew of almost all first year paddlers and a few subs.
Last season, our second, we equalled our performance at London, but had a shorter season so we did not end up at Stratford. This time, most of the guys were second year paddlers and most of the girls were first year paddlers. We did it all on our own with no subs so great job Carps!
This year, the hive is already buzzing with ideas of improvement as well as all the fun stuff that comes with dragonboating. So I’m looking forward to a great season.
Let’s do it Carps!
Carpe Diem 2007
If I had to pick one word for the team this year, it’s “togetherness”. We trained hard, partied hard and the best part of it all, is within the first two weeks of practice, I see massive wall post traffic on Facebook between members who had just met. That is always a great sign of being together.
Despite tough practices, we managed at least 16 people for most practices, having a crew of only 20. That’s a pretty decent attendance record. Unfortunately, that number of 20 was the remnants of an original crew of 24 to start the season. While it is unfortunate that four members found out that the commitment was more than they could handle, I have to give extra props to the other 20 people for showing great commitment.
I guess we can still say we’re a ‘young’ team in that we had 10 members in their 1st year with us and most of us have only paddled for our second season. The greatest show of our strength, is that no matter what division we are placed in, we overcome the odds to win. We learnt really fast from Hamilton, had some help in St. Catherines, but yet, in the first race in London, managed to show that St. Catherines was not all about the lane.
Going on to win B-cons in our final race definitely shows spirit on our part as we fought off teams that rode our wash to end up defending our ‘B-cons title’. :)
We only lost 4 people from last year due to vacations, jobs and school but I hope everyone comes back for another Carp season in 2008 this time around. We will be a much stronger team!
Winning and performance was not the only thing the Carps are about. Dining together seems to be a big part of what we do. Like Diana said, “I know you guys like to eat! I see lots of food pictures on your facebook!”
Special thanks goes out to Bonny, for helping to manage our finances and for being on top of the little details here and there that could otherwise be missed. Debby, Ros, Mickie, Lianna and Edwin for their food shopping that kept us well fed throughout the races and also for our Ashbridges BBQ. Debby for Summerlicious, being fed with awesome food!
Logistics is one part of dragonboat that is often overlooked. While I am thankful we never have to purchase, store and transport our own boats, getting 20 paddlers to and from various random venues is not an easy task, not to mention the BBQ, tent and everything else. Thanks goes out to everyone who offered a ride to our paddlers.
Mel, Melvin, Ryan, Diana and Anne also deserve our thanks for helping us out during our races
Last but not least, every paddler deserves a thanks too. It would not have been a wonderful season if not for each and every one of you.
I hope to see you lots during the off season, in person and on the forum and back for 2008! Thanks and have a great year Carps!
More pictures here.
Carpe Diem Medals
Medal *cough*keychain*cough* awarded to the Carpe Diem Dragonboat team on Saturday, July 28, 2007 for finishing 1st in the B division and 4th overall at the St. Catherine’s dragonboat festival.
Magic Carps take 1st in B in St. Catherines
The Carpe Diem Dragonboat team had yet another great race in St. Catherines. This time, they managed to pull together as a team and captured 4th place overall, with medals awarded for being first in their B-division!
As their coach, I am really proud of their achievements! Being only a young team with mostly second and first year paddlers, I can see only excellent progress in their future. Congratulations on a job well done carps!
Dragonboat, Night Market & Random Chillage
This week was pretty tame and relaxing following an exhausting weekend. Tame that is, until this weekend when I went to dragonboat on no sleep. This meant I missed the second night of the Asian Night Market, but still managed to get some good photos in on the first day.
Dragonboat was great! The Carps put in a great effort and finished in C division, 9th out of 16 teams this year. We fell one place compared to last year (8th overall in 2006), but the team learnt a few very important lessons. Considering it was the first race ever for half the team, they did fairly well. Looking forward to improving for the next two races.
There were some pictures in my point and shoot in the past week that did not get posted, so here they are along with the Night Market, chillage and dragonboat pictures.
Eddy coxing the Titans as they begin their second lap in the 2000m race at the Hamilton Dragonboat Festival at Bayfront Park on July 7, 2007.
Carpe Diem: Seize the Day at Stratford
Now that our first season is over, we can’t consider ourselves “rookie” anymore, but what a rookie season we had!
8/20 for top 40% in Hamilton
13/40 for top 32% in London
Finally, 20/66 for top 30% in Stratford
When we organized this team as “recreational with no expectations”, those numbers were exactly the kinds we were NOT expecting. Yet through sheer determination, teamwork and commitment of our members, we managed to pull through a remarkable first season.
But this story is about our Stratford race, so our wonderful last festival begins right after the first race, when we jumped off the boat. As the volunteer jumped into the boat to bail it, I looked back and realized we had almost no water to bail! In fact, the subsequent races we had, they left more water in the boat than we had taken on after bailing!
After race #1, we realized that we were seeded in C division. More importantly, we were the second seed in C division, behind only the fearsome Stratford Juniors, who were in the Platinum (highest) division in Waterloo festival as well as representing our country in the Club Crew World Championships!
A good race and coming in only 1 second behind the Stratford Juniors put us in the C championships. That was how tough the competition was this year at Stratford.
As luck would have it, we ended up drawing Lane 1 for the finals. Unfortunately, having the currents switch on us (the last few teams had been winning out of Lane 3) and having two sandbanks to overcome was a little too much to handle, as we missed out on a bronze finish by only 0.5 seconds.
Still, that was a most awesome season. With that great season behind us, we look forward to improve next season! Congratulations Carps on a job well done. Thank you to everyone who supported us this season!
Last, I would like to thank Clem Lee, Jason Au, Frankie Tsang, Edison Wai and Scott Ford. Your leadership and coaching over the years really helped me develop both as a paddler and as a coach, the result of which was a great Carp season!
If you would like to be a Carp for 2007, do join our forum! We are looking mostly for girls but a few guys might still make it.
Carpe Diem Dragonboat: London Festival
13th out of 40. By any standard, that’s a pretty decent finish, almost in the top 25%, definitely in the top 35%.
Now throw in the fact, they finished 13th out of 40, on the SECOND RACE EVER! and you are looking at the makings of one KICK ASS TEAM!
I am SO proud of Carpe Diem! We raced our B-cons final with 1 random sub and 3 empty seats (so kinda like racing with only 16 people) against full crews. Add to that, one of our paddlers was dead weight as he injured his back playing friesbie an hour earlier so at the start line, he could barely paddle. That brings us down to 15.5 paddlers.
Yet, in what is a reflection of the heart of a team, when he saw that we were close to the team beside us, he contributed what he could despite his back injury! So with 15.5 paddlers, in their second race ever, Carpe Diem fought and held back the team riding on their wash and won their B-consolation final, taking 13th out of 40 in the London Dragonboat Festival!
Adam, is a TROOPER! His commitment to teamwork, self sacrifice and all, is an example for many to follow! Let’s not take away from a team however, that also believed in togetherness! I did not hear anyone say “Adam, you can’t paddle, you should go back to dock”. We took everyone with us, injury and all and STILL kicked ass!
Congratulations to the entire crew of Carpe Diem! I am so proud to be your coach!
Thanks go out to Onami drummer Andrea for drumming for us, and a job well done too for Onami for whom I coxed in their final! They too won their E-cons final!
Special thanks goes out to Kristen!
Carpe Diem Uniform
Not only are we a pretty good team, we look pretty too in our uniforms! ;) Thanks to Mel for helping me design this!
