Dragon Boat Paddling For Me

People close to me knows that I don't play any ballgames, I can't bike, and I can't swim. For short, sports is definitely not for me. But I'm not saying that my doors will be forever closed to learning these cool stuff. More than three months ago, I tried  mountaineering and I surely fell in love with it - outdoor sports truly fits my liking. 

Then just last Tuesday, I was again introduced to another fun sports (thanks Mam Matet) which is dragon boat paddling. I've been training for two days with the Rowers Club Philippines (RCP), and I'm telling you, it's a lot harder than what I first thought.

Rowing is a fun sports

Our training starts with a physically demanding exercises that includes arduous stretching, jogging, push-ups, jumping-jacks, and a lot more that I never did before. The beginners were also lectured with the terms and basics in rowing.  

our boat.

This Dragon Boat Rowing sports has recently gained popularity among the Filipinos after our very own Philippine Dragon Boat Team has snatched the gold medal on an international race held on Tampa, Florida. And some of our trainers are members of that champion team.

with my fellow trainees, at the center is our Team Captain, sir Lordan.

On our actual rowing exercise (at the waters of Manila bay), my position on the boat is at the port side (left side of the boat), we were receiving several commands from the signal man (the one with the drum during competitions). He's instructing the whole team when to paddle (fast or slow) and when to stop. It was a painful but fun experience, I felt the stress on my shoulders, specially on the rowing arm, when I tried paddling 100 times nonstop. Endurance is the key to this sport, if you lack it, you'll die (just kiddin), it can be developed through training so I'm gonna train more.

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Join the training, be a paddler

If you're interested to try out this sports, train with RCP! They have training schedules every Tue-Thu-Sat at 4:30 AM and on Sundays at 5:30 AM. They are located within the compound of Manila Ocean Park. Just bring yourself there and wear yellow shirt/sando plus shorts as a uniform. Don't forget to pay them a very cheap training fee of only P25.

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Obviously, my body loved this new activity. I've trained twice with RCP already and I will continue my training with them until I become good with this sports. Yes, it's painful (hanggang ngayon na sinusulat ko ito), but I like that feeling :)