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Dragon Boat Canada


IDBF


Canoe Kayak Canada

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[Jing_Du]

http://www.network54.com/Forum/135730

Has some excellent posts which can help you
to improve upon your team's best times.
Highly recommended & informative.

>  Hitting the Catch

>  What are your ideas on STARTING

[Steamrollers Moaner]

wow...  is the "Eastern EXPERT" trying to teach the westerners how to paddle?  

What would be some of your "expertise" Jing??

[Guido]

Hmmmm.....I see a challenge coming up.....
 

I see you've observed the Westcoast start have you Sir Jing Du?

Perhaps you should read this article...Sir Jing Du...one of our founding members of the Westcoast style who many many many people have learned from and respect this individual...

http://www.paddlesup.ca/coaches/HughFisher.html

You may just want to read the last part of this article.

[Photog]

aww, be nicer to Jing guys, don't you remember when you were young, and explored the internet and google for the first time?
 

[Guido]

You're absolutely right Photog.....how rude of us Westerners.

Sir Jing Du.....we apologize for the slams....welcome to the West Coast....( )

Let the games begin......oh yea...one more thing.

The Olympics have never ever nor will they ever be held in Toronto.

[Lethal Weapon]

Maybe Jing's friends should come here to the real DB world and paddle in something other than a bath tub or pond. It would be entertaining to watch them paddle a Gemini (which according to Sir Jing Du should not affect their performance as they have mastered IDBF certified boats)
I'm sure the superior eastern catch and start would make the Gemini glide....
Bring in on !

[Jing_Du]

You guy's are sweet !  Thanks for that awesome welcome !
(How do you know that I am not really Hugh ?)

When I was a pedawan, my jedi masters included, uhhh, let's see
Don, Andrea, and ..... oh yeah, Hugh, before I headed back east that is...

Thanks for making me a Jedi knight like that, addressing me as sir !  :D

(Has anyone figured out what "jing du" means yet ?)

**[Admin note: put PaddlesUp article in Bold Blue to differentiate from Jing Du's comments]**

www.paddlesup.ca wrote:
In a previous Coaches Corner that we did with Andrea Dillon (of the FCRCC), she mentions you and Don Irvine as 2 of the people that influenced the "False Creek style". Could you give us a little history lesson?

HUGH: In my opinion far too much is made of style as though there is some exact technique or style everyone should use or did use. I'm just not sure what exactly the FC Style was or is.

perhaps it is how people who are not really sure of what they do refer to their style ?  There is style but there are also the underlying principles and concepts aren't there ?

HUGH: I had left False Creek by 1988. Trying to paddle with a certain style is like a protocol where if you do all the prescribed steps accurately you don't have to think anymore. All coaches and all paddlers should think. Certainly no 2 high performance crews I've ever seen paddle or ever coached for that matter looked the same whether they were from FC or not. [/b]

So why do so many crews seem to like following the same mantra of 1-2-3-4-5-6-Up-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10-11-12-13-14-15-16 or variations ?

history lesson: that protocol (recipe) was actually developed for moving much heavier teak boats off the start line.  Don Irvine then coined "6-16" when he and Vincent Lo started making DBs in 88/89.  On this forum is posted a photog from the weekend, including a DB that is marked "Sponsored by the Lo Family"

HUGH: History lesson: In 1986 we had flatwater kayakers, white water kayakers, marathoners, outriggerers, salish paddlers, and lots of new guys in our boat and not a lot of time to train. My approach was first and foremost "paddle in time".[/b]

Even back then, timing was an important issue.  We were all attracted by a prize: an all expenses paid trip to Hong Kong to race in the "mother of all DB festivals".  Andrea and the FC women's team got started up the next year as I recall.  Heather Taylor started up FC Mixed.  Yeah, 20 years ago, I know

HUGH: The technique I taught reflected my experiences in kayak racing, marathon canoe racing and outrigger canoe racing. From kayak I borrowed rotation, from outrigger I borrowed the big straight arm catch before the pull, from marathon I borrowed the early upright recovery, from the Salish we borrowed Gene Henry [it's Gene Harry, not Henry] and I cut all the white water paddlers (just kidding Lorne). [as in Marchak].[/b]

The big mystery at first was, you had all these big guys (mostly big; Gene Harry is not that robust - he paddles native canoe and was the drummer hwvr.); this mother of a heavy teak boat; and these short, skinny toothpicks the Chinese called paddles.  The challenge was: how to win the prize by making the boat go the fastest.  The rest, as they say, is history.

More history: Hugh returned from Hong Kong with a souvenir DB paddle and ended up giving it to Brian Dorfman, owner of Grey Owl, saying to him: "you should try making some of these 'cause some day DB is going to be really big around here."  10 years later the pattern for the GO DB paddle was slightly modified by another FC alumni, and this pattern is now what the IDBF endorses as the PS202 standard paddle, in wood, in carbon fibre, etc.

HUGH: many paddlers from that crew went on to coach other teams and perhaps they taught the same thing. I steered a boat a few years ago but not as the coach and I swear I heard word for word the same coaching jibberish I'd uttered 17 years ago. Go figure. [/b]

ditto: it's what people do / say when they aren't really sure of themselves.  What Hugh said back then has stood the test of time really, because he based it on principles not dogma.  The terminology might differ, however, from place to place.

HUGH: All coaches and all paddlers should think, analyse, be innovative, test their ideas against others, against the stop watch, and so on. [/b]

Which is why posting and reading things on forums, comparing forums east and west, north and south, here and on the moon - with an open mind and a grain or more of salt - can often lead to some rather startling insights and innovations.  Everyone just wants their boat to go faster after all and have fun doing it and drinking about afterwards, right ?

HUGH: They should definitely not subscribe to, preach and teach the "False Creek technique" just because FC paddlers once were warriors, nor should they automatically accept and teach the Missisauga technique, or the Banook technique or the Rideau technique. [/b]

The Asian's Style of paddling DB is recognized as being distinctly different from the North American style, and the latter came to be known as the "False Creek" style in the very beginning when nobody was really sure of what was what.  Asians stand or crouch while racing, for example.  So when we use the term "eastern" and "western" paddling style, maybe we are saying Asian and European approaches to paddle racing differ.

HUGH: My favourite piece of paddling advice ever was this. "Just put yer paddle in da water an' pull the Billy Bejeezus outta it" Words to live by.[/b]

Hugh's other famous, tongue-in-cheek observation - which was of his own invention and not borrowed - is: "Dragon boating is the lowest form of paddling known to man".  Don once said: "If it floats and you can paddle it, we'll race it", which became the unofficial motto of the FCRCC when it was the only place on the Creek that you could paddle out of.

>> Hey, how do you insert into these posts the html tag for a URL ?  <<

[Lethal Weapon]

I think I feel a tear in my eye....sniff...Its so beautiful.....
500 meters will never feel the same again.

[Guido]

Kudos to you Sir Jing Du.  You sire are very well informed...more so than I believe any of us here.  I wasn't aware of the GO scenario myself.

My humblest apologies to you.  

And no I don't believe you are Dr. Fisher.  

I would like to know what took you so long to come out here and develop a refined stroke to compete internationally....taking a bit of the west and east and thus making it a superior technique to all?

I'd be more than keen to sit and listen to your version of what this DB stroke should be.  I definitely would love to sit and listen to a seminar you might want to hold.  Would there be an opportunity to listen to what you have to say about your version of this DB stroke?  If so...please let us know when we would be able to discuss all aspect of a race piece.  
What you would do as a start?  What you would do after the star,  what you would do for finishing a race.....I can always use a possible lesson in bettering any team I participate with.

Do let us know Sir Jing Du.  I am being sincere....and no sarcasm is intended within this post.

[Jing_Du]

click on the post

Dear KONRAD D'becker

East is East and West is West

and now apparently ...

We're both paddling the

"Canadian Way"

Pages 10, 11 & 12 of the
current edition of the magazine

DRAGON BOAT WORLD

offers a look at a sensible approach
to technical racing paddling (versus fun
paddling) as seen through the eyes
of one of Canada's national team coaches.

Some previous useful posts which can help
your team's best times go down some more
and are which are highly informative:
(or "reductive" as Hugh Fisher would say)

Hitting the Catch
What are your ideas on STARTING

5 more days left 'til Alcan !