Over the weekend of 23-24 January, the CYSM Sea Dragons ran a two-day extensive training camp out of the Boat Hub and Library at the Dock.

Well attended by our members, the camp provided a great opportunity for the team to have fun, bond and work on our paddling technique, individually and as a team.

Built into the days were extended warm up and stretch exercise sessions (led by Jing) that allowed us to ready ourselves for the water sessions (three in total). These were particularly instructive as our coaches and video crew were out on the speed boat recording our actions. We were able to view these videos shortly thereafter and the immediacy of the analysis enabled each paddler to understand and make any adjustments in the following water sessions. 

Close of day one also saw an animated dragon pong tournament, fully equipped with miniature dragon boat paddles! 

Ting Cheng-Haines, a former club captain and current member, gave us an insightful talk about the history of the Sea Dragons, the strong connection that we hold with our parent society (CYSM), as well as her own with both. It was interesting to find out that Uncle Bill was in fact one of the club’s first sweeps back when it started out in the mid-80s. 

Coach Joe and assistant coach Phil spent a session on addressing the importance of mental preparation and mental readiness, for training and for competition. The major points that they covered included:

• having confidence in one’s own skills
• being prepared to cope when things go wrong
• fully entering the role of the athlete paddler
• focusing on execution and the present and not dwelling on what has been or is to come
• committing to the team plan/strategy. 

The camp came to a close with a presentation from the committee, convened by Captain Crispy, who presented a refresher on the club’s vision, mission and values, on how these inform the committee’s decisions and processes, and how these flows onto members and ultimately impact on the fabric and culture of our club.

We were provided a review of our calendar to date (two more regattas to year’s end) and informed of how we have positively progressed towards achieving our goals as set up at our last annual general meeting.

We also had a look at our club website (cysm.org/dragonboat) – the world’s view of us – and how each member should be encouraged to interface with it, noting that future training session RSVPs will be driven via this portal. 

A number of good questions were raised during the final open forum and the committee and coaches will be working to address these. Of course, all members are encouraged to bring comments or concerns to the attention of the committee, coaches or member's representative (Trish) at any time.    

Thank you to the Committee, coaches and to all who attended for making this training camp so successful. Remember, we are all custodians of our club and so our future is in all our own hands.

The committee's presentation and on-water training session videos are now available to members to view.