IDBF - Thoughts From the Last Day

[Minister's note: DieselFish members Joyce Lee, Dennis Chen and Colin Morneau recently returned from the International Dragon Boat Federation World Championships with silver medals hanging from their necks. Joyce served as the manager for Team USA’s Under 23 (u23) Squad. On the last day of the race, she collected her thoughts and posted them to Facebook. Here is her first-hand account of this life-changing experience.]

IDBF - thoughts from the last day
by Joyce Lee on Sunday, August 7, 2011 at 7:42am

Today marks the last day of the International Dragon Boat Federation World Championships and the experience has been fulfilling, affirming as well as humbling.

The ‘dream’ of a USA u23 squad started when then USDBF President visited the San Francisco International Dragon Boat Festival almost one year ago. As one of the board members who help organize this event, I had the pleasure of meeting Ginny and introducing her to the large contingent of active high school and college crews in the SF-Bay Area. This was when she said the u23 team has not been formed and would like the west coast to take a stab at this project, and select from those with the desire and ability to represent from across the country.

This experience was fulfilling because despite a rough and disorganized start, we did gather a committed u23 squad to race in Tampa. We would not have fulfilled this without a group of people who genuinely cared, as well as a lot of forgiveness from paddlers and their families – and for that, I thank every single one of you.

This experience has been affirming because many things I know from club dragon boating still speak true. The importance of working as a team, both on and off water, is even more vital with the extra pressures of being away, five straight days of racing and the increased level of competition.

To be perfectly frank the Worlds is like going to a really, really big away festival. Except a zillion times bigger.

Off the water, there are race officials to keep happy, rules to abide by and be gracious enough to not get tied up in the cattiness that happens when you get a group of hyper-competitive people together. We overcame this by working as a team.

On the water, it is hard to not get carried away. I had the chance to meet a number of very experienced coaches during my time here and each has different techniques to bring out the strength of paddlers from all backgrounds. The mantra of ‘race your own race’ still applies and for that, I feel affirmed.

This has been a humbling experience because there was indeed very much we didn’t know. Having now experienced this event first hand, I know what to do better next time. I recognize our team’s results have been mixed, but can assure you everyone on the team – on and off water - tried to do what they felt was right. Humbling yes, but the truth is we wrote a new chapter in history and many in history didn’t get it right the first time either. We can and will only get better if we go out and re-write history once again.

But before we do that, let’s leave it on the water for our last showing in this regatta. Let’s go out with a bang – go USA U23!!!