The Things I learned from Dragon Boat Racing
It was my third year participating the dragon boat racing- year of 2014, 2016, and 2018. I would have to admit that I am not a fan of dragon boat, however, this year I decided to give it the ‘third’ chance. At the very beginning, I knew nothing about dragon boat, until this year I found that a dragon boat is quite applicable to our lives.
1. #Synchronicity
Dragon boat racing is a teamwork- each team has 23 people in a boat — 20 paddlers, a drummer, a steersperson, plus a flag catcher. I learned always stay focused, breathe, and keep up with the stroke rate of those in front of me. The most important thing that could push the boat forward is synchronicity. A boat which is in synchronicity is more powerful than a group of individuals who having their own agendas.
2. #Discipline
Dragon boat is a highly committed sport, where training 3 times a week for practice. Sometimes I don’t understand why people wake up so early for the practice session. Like my team, we practice at 6 am. I have hundred excuses to skip the practice, to have more sleep, or hit the snooze button then staying on my bed. For the sake of the team, we kept frequent attendance over the past two months.
3. #Communication
It’s essential to communicate the entire boat, to make sure that everyone is on the same page. It may sounds like a cliche, but every one is important — each teammate is a piece to a puzzle. My previous racing experiences, our team all won the second place during the competitions. This year I switched to another team, and we didn’t make it to the next round. One teammate would affect the performance of whole team. What we could do better next time is to make the communication more effectively.
I like one expression: “It is good to have an end to journey toward; but it is the journey that matters in the end.” Everyone wants to make the race a success, but not everyone can be a winner. There was a period of time, a group of people working together to accomplish the same goal, working very hard, and leading to a successful and fulfilling experience.
