take a read ....this is from a blog on the Dragonbeast's ( top east coast team) site . 1 of their paddlers is coaching in Dubai .......
http://www.dragonboateast.ca/pages/Tip%20of%20Week/tipofweek.htm Dragon Boat Coaching Half a World Away
Sabrena MacKenzie, who paddles in our Red Crew and coaches the Orange Crew, is currently visiting her brother and coaching dragonboat in Dubai. She has agreed to let her reports, which speak for themselves, be published in the Beast Blog.
Festival Day
There are two main diferences between running a festival in Dubai and Halifax, money and people.
Money they have in abundance, even for the little things. There is no entry fee for teams to participate in this festival. The tents for the teams were furnished with sofas and chairs. There were expensive cut crystal trophys for every category. The food for sale at the venue was high end. The beer tent was air conditioned. The safety boat cost more than most of our homes. Most importantly - to some people anyway - the after party was amazing. It was like something out of a movie. It was at a very fancy golf club. It didn't look like any golf club I've ever seen. It looked like a very expensive night club. You arrived to valet parking and spotlights. It felt like you were arriving at a hollywood awards show. There was delicious food of every kind all over the place, waiters every time you turn around and plenty of alcohol. The venue was huge, there were about 1200 people there and they were having the time of their lives. Best of all it was free, included with your entry in the festival. Amazing. Definately the highlight of the festival.
Qualified people however are in short supply. We take for granted in Halifax that we can easily get a starter or course officials who know how to do the job. And I think many people don't realize how essential this is to running a festival and how much easier it makes things for those working at the festival. To the participants everything seemed to go smoothly, they were perfectly oblivious and quite happy. To those of us used to having help it was frustrating. There were not really any marshalls to organize the crews so the steerspeople had to do it and it resulted in a very slow day. We had to run races only every half hour at best. No volunteers to hold the boats so we had to tie them up every time. No volunteers to bail the boats so the steerspeople and/or the crews had to do it. Once out on the water the difficulties increased. The safety boat was well intentioned but inexperienced and kept washing out crews. The other steerspeople were new to steering and ran their lanes frequently. The starts were the biggest struggle. As luck would have it there was a very strong cross wind. The starter had no real experience and the other coaches had a lot of trouble lining up their boats. One race took 45 minutes, and several tries, to get the boats lined up. It was exhausting. In the end,
I would say that it was both the most work AND the best fun I've ever had working at a dragon boat festival.
April 3rd, 2009
Well the fun continues in Dubai. I have taken quite a few crews through their training now and enjoyed some very interesting experiences. One night, I was standing on the dock waiting for my second crew. Suddenly, the place goes quiet and there are hardly any people around and the ones that are are wearing scarves and masks. A big wind blows in (and I mean big), I can't see the other shore, and my face is being pelted.....yes a genuine sandstorm! I assumed practice would be cancelled, but nope, giant waves apparently are not a problem. That is the closest I have ever come to having the boat flip over.
That was last week. This week it rained a little, which in itself is incredible since it is supposed to be a desert. It normally only rains 4 or 5 times a year. How lucky, I don't really get enough rain living in Halifax. Anyway it rains a little (it is still over 25 degrees outside) and nobody shows up. They are stunned that we would still paddle in the rain!
I recently saw a crew of Indian snake boat paddlers (a snake boat has 100 paddlers, imagine trying to keep in stroke) who sing very unique songs while they paddle, almost hypnotic. In my crews people paddle in any outfit you can imagine. Women in headscarves and traditional dress, lots of people in jeans, a few wearing skirts and jewellery, even a man in a business suit. I've lost count of the number of different languages being spoken, sometimes 3 or 4 in one crew.
There are also the typical things you get at any festival - good and bad; complaining about life jackets, the crew nobody wants to coach, the crew everyone likes, the crews that are intensely serious, the crews that party and have a great time, and my personal favorite - the person who knows everything despite never having been in a boat in their life.
Dubai is like a mini world. There is every language and nationality at this festival. But one thing I've noticed is that despite the differences in the details, the nature of people in dragon boating is universal and for the most part, amazing.
March 21st, 2009
Hi Albert, I haven't written yet because I lost my laptop in the airport (a crushing disappointment to be sure). Well it is interesting and fun here. Warm and sunny everyday but with a nice breeze because you are always near water. It cools off nicely at night and I am walking distance to a beach. I have never seen so many cranes, there is so much construction.
Well I guess I'm the first Beast on the water this year. The dragonboating has been fun and interesting. There are many different teams that practice here. We thought we had it hard having to paddle out and get the boat for practice, well there is one team here that had a special trailer made and they keep the boat at somebody's house and pull it down (like oxen) and lift it into the water each practice!
If there is one thing that I have learned about dragonboaters it is that they are a very keen bunch. The paddlers here might just be more dedicated than even the Bosom Buddies. Jason (editor note - Sabrena's brother who lives in Dubai but grew up paddling flatwater on Lake Banook) is revered here, it is incredible. There are enormous (1 story high) banners of him in the shopping mall. He is on TV and in magazines in GQ style interviews. And because of this I am treated with respect bordering on awe (I hope the Oranges are reading this).
The venue is a marina where you have to steer around million dollar yachts owned by Sheiks. They paddle on open salt water, the Arabian Gulf (it is not called the Persian Gulf here). It is a bit daunting when you are sharing the water with large ships. There is a helicopter pad on the wharf which makes a lot of wash so it can be a bit choppy.
The corporate crews are pretty similar to coaching the Manulife Halifax festival, many people have little experience. The one big difference is that many of the crews do not speak English. This is somewhat of a challenge. My one hour coaching lesson gets pretty basic and the paddling terminology goes out the window. "Let it run" is too hard to get across so I go with the somewhat less technical "Stop!". I pare it down to about four words, go, stop, back, and sit down. It is quite fun because practice ends up being very similar to a game of charades. I act things out and then they try and guess what I'm doing and then do it which is very entertaining because some people are better guessers than others. I am half way around the world and still, the fun never stops.
That's all I have to report for now. I will write more when I get a chance.
e you later, Sabrena
