http://www.dragonboatvideosonline.com/view_video.php?viewkey=eb8f757ae6439e879bb2

See Scott for details!

 

 

Here’s the direct link to the evite:

http://www.evite.com/pages/invite/viewInvite.jsp?inviteId=NANCNCYPMTZPELVZXJQE

Here’s the Skinny:

LARD Nationals Squad (tentative name). LARD will send One (1) Mixed Team. Training begins January 26th. Training will be intense and will likely put you in the best shape of your life, if you make the commitment.

Making the Team: (Please mark your calendars)

The National Roster will start with 30 paddlers. Over the course of the season, the roster will be reduced after the tests outlined below. Paddlers who wish to make the team after having been released from the roster or having not been part of the original selection process may stretch [1] the roster for an additional seat by breaking top 5 (men) or top 4 (women) in both categories at any testing date.

- Primary Selection: Jan 20th, ERG only - top 17 men, top 13 women. Roster size 30 paddlers

- Secondary Selection: Mar 9th (tentative), ERG and OC2 - top 15 men, top 11 women. Roster size 26 paddlers

- Final Selection: May 24^th (tentative) ERG and OC2 – top 13 men, top 9 women. Roster size: 22 paddlers

- Optional Test: July 5 ^th (tentative) ERG and OC2 – 22 paddlers from Final Selection cannot lose their spots, last opportunity for new paddlers to stretch the team.

Video Sessions: (Please mark your calendars)

The coaches plan for video review of stroke and technique.

- March 1^st (tentative)

- May 17^th (tentative)

- June 7^th (tentative)

- July 12^th (tentative)

Attendance:

Excessive absences at practice, regardless of reason, will be considered by the coaching staff in the final roster/seating of boats during races

Extra Training:

Individual Training outside of practice is strongly encouraged.

Regional training groups to be established to encourage training.

Pre Practice Boat time will be offered and strongly encouraged beginning February

Pre Practice Lactic Acid Tolerance training will be offered and strongly encouraged beginning February

Wednesday Practice begins with daylight savings

Racing:

Gaining race experience together as a team is crucial to the teams development. Attendance at the races leading up to Nationals is strongly encouraged. These races include: Tempe, Local Long Beach, Las Vegas (tentative), Alcan (Vancouver).

Gender Racing:

To optimize effectiveness and focus of LARD Nationals Squad, technique training on a separate gender squad is discouraged. The coaches are currently working on combining with other teams to open up the opportunity to paddle gender races at Nationals to optimize commitment vs. potential.

Training Plan to follow for those interested.

Questions and Concerns are welcome. Please contact either Scott or Me.

I can smell it in the air! Our last few emails have really gotten things moving even before the season has officially started!  We had a great turn out last weekend.  Seems like people are pretty excited about this upcoming season!

For those not so competitive, skip down to the last section of this email.  Everyone else, read on!

WE HAVE NEW COACHES TO INTRODUCE!

Due to our explosive growth the last few years, we have added two very capable coaches - Chuck Chang and Otto Jan.  Gary Wang will be stepping back from coaching duties this season to focus strictly on whipping-ass as a paddler (you guys better watch out!).

Next time you see Chuck, Otto and Gary, please thank them for volunteering their time.  I’m absolutely convinced that they will all be a huge part of LARD’s future success.  Extra special props to Gary for being the primary coach for our beloved Pink (LAPD) paddlers last year after Courtney had to unexpectedly leave us and introducing a lot of us to FARTLEKS.

Along the lines of coaching, many of you have commented that in the past there has been some inconsistency among the coaches when teaching technique.  We have taken your comments to heart and to reduce any confusion with paddling technique this season, I have been designated the primary technique coach for the National team.

2008 NATIONALS PRACTICE SCHEDULE

If you intend to paddle in the USDBF Nationals this July, we are requiring those paddlers that are interested to not only test, but to train, practice and race together.

As such, beginning Feb 2nd, and every Saturday thereafter, the National team’s practice schedule will be as follows:

Saturday:

Our on land conditioning from 8:10 to 8:40 will be open to any LARD member.  There should be more than enough room for the on land workouts to accommodate anyone that wants to participate.

As usual, we encourage you to bring out any potential recruits; however, we encourage you to bring them during regular practice time (9am-11am) only.

As we get closer to Vancouver, we will bump the extra practice to every Saturday and Sunday through Nationals in late July.  In addition, the coaches are working on “encouraged” regional mid-week workouts throughout Southern California. More details to follow once the plans are solidified.

HPC will be assisting in putting together the on land workouts with the input of the LARD coaching staff (fyi - Dallas Robinson, an HPC athlete, has the fastest 60m time in winter track season and he’s dangerously close to going sub-10 seconds in the 100m.  He is considered a solid Olympic hopeful).

I’m sure there are many questions that need to be answered so start asking!

This season, I promise you that I will do everything I can to better myself as a paddler and coach.  If I can do that, I will accept the consequences that result - whatever they may be.  I owe this to every last one of you.

USUAL DISCLAIMER

As you all know, as a whole, LARD is more of a recreational team than a competitive team.  Although a majority of the emails thrown out this season by the coaching staff have been geared towards the competitive paddler, LARD still remains a recreational team.  Bottom line is we are all out to have fun and hang out with good people.  Where we place in a race doesn’t matter.  What matters is whether we performed the best we could.  Nothing has changed.  We have not forgotten our roots.

Every one of you is just as much a part of LARD as any other LARD paddler regardless of what the stupid-ass erg says. 

Together we are greater than the sum of our parts.  We value every last one of you.

Thanks so much to you all.

–
~Scott

www.scottwu.com

californiabusinesslitigation.blogspot.com
californiafamilylaw.blogspot.com

OH MY GOODNESS.

LARD has surpassed ALL of the coaches’ expectations.  Coming out of the Long Beach Tournament, we realized that our starts and finishes were incredibly strong when executed properly and that we needed to work on the settle portion of our race.  LARD went back to the drawing board and came out in SF firing on all cylinders like never before competing (and beating) some of the best competition ever assembled in California.

Regardless if you were able to come up to SF with us, YOU are part of our success.  YOU are responsible for what happened this weekend.  Your hard work and teamwork were realized this past weekend.

To LARD White, you are LARD’s future and we are grateful and fortunate to have you on board with us.  I hope you had a great time this weekend and got a taste of some good dragon boat racing.  You showed pure guts in winning your final race on Sunday.  Excellent work.  Thank you to Matt and K2 for guiding White.  Thank you to the veterans who paddled for White showing LARD the true meaning of teamwork and that dragon boating is a team sport - not an individual one.  Perhaps more importantly, all of our new paddlers were able to feel like part of the LARD family (well, actually you ARE a part of the LARD family) and were able to meet some new friends.

To LARD Red, you ran some SOLID race pieces competing against some of the fastest teams in North America.  Keep in mind you were racing against the best other teams have to offer.  You made LARD proud.  Many Red paddlers have paddled for Black in the past and noted that the Red team’s boat felt very similar to a LARD Black boat.  Tiffany (the Cutter) and Gary did an excellent job calling and steering putting LARD in optimal position at the start of every race.

As for LARD Black, you beat every single team except for one - an all star team from Vancouver.  You beat a German team that stood a foot taller than some of us, you beat every single team SF had to offer - Dragon Warriors, without a doubt, the fastest of the SF teams and possibly the fastest on the West Coast and BAD with their years of experience and excellence.  We did not match up physically with some of these teams, but it didn’t matter.  Nothing stopped you. 

Every single team built on their races throughout the weekend made each successive race even better than prior races.  There was no mental let down for any teams at any time.  There was nothing more the coaches could have asked for.

Again, regardless of what team you paddled for, or even if you weren’t able to make it up to SF with us, YOU are responsible for LARD’s success.  YOU represented LARD and the Los Angeles paddling community.  You should be proud of all you accomplished.

Going into the training season, keep in mind that we ARE going to out-do ourselves next year with 2008 Dragon Boat Nationals as a possible target race.  We’ll be paddling in the training season, but make sure you get the R&R you need to come on strong next season.  Now is the time to do that marathon, triathlon, or outrigger race you’ve been eyeing.  It’s time to sleep in guilt-free for awhile.  Enjoy!  LARD traditionally plans some non-paddling events in the training season including bike rides, paint balling and camping trips.  Stay tuned to see what is on tap the next few months.  I hope to see you all at the end of the year banquet celebrating our 10th and most successful season to date.

Thank you for giving LARD a race weekend (and season) I will never forget.

Scott

Just wanted to echo the coaches’ sentiments by extending a huge thanks to
everyone for your tremendous support in preparing the Vancouver crews to
represent LARD at the Alcan Races this past weekend.  It was encouraging to
read all the well-wishes from previous members and all of you who were
unable to make the trek (Thank you, Betty, for the Good Luck notecards and
DumDums!), and I’d like to emphasize how much our performance and
accomplishments reflected everyone’s efforts and commitment at both weekend
and, for the first time EVER, mid-week (Wed) practices the past few months.
As any coach will attest to, it’s always hard to travel competitively, and
it’s staggering how large a crew we were able to bring up to Vancouver this
year (45)!

As everyone has read, the Vancouver crews represented LARD very well.
Defending a Comp C title, having the Red crew break into the Competitive
bracket (!), and having the LARD and KG Women’s team competing in the
Women’s Comp A Division, however, were by no means accomplished without a
fair share of challenges throughout the weekend….

To provide some context, LARD registered 2 mixed crews, 2 combined Men’s
crews w/ the Guppies, and an additional combined Women’s crew.  What was
unique about the Women’s Division races this year is that each crew would be
racing twice a day, whereas each Men’s crew would only be racing once (each
day); there were a total of 4 races (2/day) for each Mixed crew.

Because the Women’s Division races were scheduled first both Saturday and
Sunday, 8am and 8:22am, respectively, our entire team (imagine a mob
outfitted in red attire) would head out to the race site between 6:30-7 each
morning to allow adequate time for warming up, conducting mental drills, and
mashalling, despite having Mixed Division races much later in the morning
(9:50, 11:40).  I’m quite certain there were plenty of other mixed teams who
were not there to cheer on their women crews for these earlier races, and I
think it speaks volumes about how strongly we support one another as
teammates and friends that all the guys, and girls who weren’t seated for
that particular AM race, showed their support by heading over together.

As little practice as our combined Women’s team had in Long Beach, they
performed like a single unit throughout the weekend, regardless of which
paddlers were rostered.  Each successive heat resulted in a stronger finish,
and to be honest, I watched in horror/disbelief/excitement in Sunday’s
semi-final race when the Women firmly held, and even extended, their 3rd
place position towards the finish to qualify them for the Comp A Division!
That transient sense of horror–due to my conviction that they would
certainly have medaled in Comp B–quickly subsided as I realized what a huge
accomplishment they had just made.

Similarly, our Mixed Red crew’s performance throughout the weekend was
nothing short of amazing.  Mike and Margie (first-time stroke!) led a very
dynamic crew of both core/new paddlers and Anteaters to a level of
competition that no one had foreseen, as both of our Mixed crews headed into
Sunday’s Comp Division Semi-Finals in back-to-back heats!  Their strong
performances on the final race of each day–one that qualified them for the
Comp bracket, and the latter being the final race that Scott called b/c Huay
needed to catch her flight–really demonstrated how well they were able to
make the adjustments needed to improve as a crew following each post-race
discussion.  Their second race on Saturday was particularly impressive, and
thanks to Scott and Vi, we actually have video of both crews’ races from
that day.  Hopefully the entire team will be able to view these clips after
our next scheduled on-water video session.

As for our Black crew’s performance, led by strokes Karen and Megan,
defending our Comp C title was especially gratifying for various reasons.
The most immediate of these, for me, was simply that our crew did not run a
solid semifinals race earlier, falling to 4 of the 8 teams who moved on to
Comp B…teams that we had beaten in Saturday’s races.  That we were able to
collect ourselves, identify what went wrong, and come back in the Comp C
finals to execute a great piece (where we took off from the start and never
looked back) felt great.  And well, qualifying for Guts and Glory with a
Mixed crew, along with our combined Women’s crew, was just icing on the
cake…bittersweet, but icing nonetheless   Additionally, this was a
different crew from last year, composed of several paddlers who had only
joined the team at the start of this season, so repeating our success on
this stage of competition seemed unbelievable.

An additional logistical challenge facing us for this tournament came in the
form of a herneated disc, Scott’s to be exact   The coaches had planned
for 2 designated steerspersons for Alcan (Leon and Gary), but the unexpected
back injury left us with only Leon to steer for both of LARD’s Mixed crews,
as Gary filled in for Scott.  Thankfully, our sister team DieselFish also
made the trek to Alcan, and one of their coaches, Chris, happily steered a
few of our crucial races on Sunday; we would return the favor as Leon also
steered for a couple of their heats.  On a related note, we were able to
lend DF our carbon paddles on Saturday, as their equipment (20 carbon fiber
paddles, vests, and banner) never made it up to YVR from SFO for the races.
It was great having their tent right next to ours, and when the opportunity
arises again in Long Beach, I encourage the rest of the team to meet DF.
They truly are my ‘LARD’ away from LARD…

From the strong core of UCI paddlers who joined our mixed crews, to the
Guppies with whom we joined forces with in the Men’s and Women’s Division
Races, and to our sister team DieselFish, whose coach steered for several of
our crews, it was a wet Vancouver weekend defined by a lot of great
teamwork, both on and off the water.  As everyone begins to post their pics
from this past weekend, and from the novel I’ve just written (my next
volume, someday, will talk about LARD’s inaugural Guts and Glory 2000m race
:-), I hope all of you can relive the excitement and continue adding to the
momentum of our 10th season, one that began in Tempe!  Keep paddling, and I
look forward to seeing all of you again soon.

Best,
Jason

It wasn’t a typical Long Beach day, but we all made the best of it. The tide was low, the sky was overcast, and there was a crew regatta eating up our beach space.

The day started off on time, we had a few stragglers, but we always have a few stragglers, so it’s ok. The clinic began with a description of the sport, the history, our team’s history, and a general schpiel about what to expect from the team. Gilda played the role of Penny to my Inspector Gadget. She had all the right comments at all the right times (when I forgot). Thanks Gilda! After the introduction we all went on a quick warm up jog and prep’ed for the boat. The group was split in half. Coach Gary took one boat and I took the other.

 The first day’s objective was to learn the set position and settle the boat into a solid timing rhythm, both boats achieved just that. Both boats only went around for one lap, but a lot was achieved in that short distance, I’m happy to report that I’ve recieved a lot of positive comments for both boats from the paddlers on shore. Both boats were moving very well by the end of practice. There were reports that Gary’s boat almost flipped (would have been the first flipped practice boat. almost made into the history books, but not quite). I think I was a little scary serious on my boat. Too much veteran training, my bad. Next week, I’ll tone it down, and Gary will try to keep his boat dry.

We have two more days of the clinic to go. We’ll be building on the skills learned from the first day of practice. I’m going to try to secure one more practice 20 man boat for us to use, that way we can up the on board vet to newbie ratio.

 I hope to see everyone back out this weekend. We’ve got a race in two weekends. It’ll be everyone’s opportunity to show off what they’ve learned.

 Have a good week folks! See you this weekend!

 The weather was perfect for paddling. The sun was bright, clouds were high and the water was calm. The Tempe tournament this year was run by Water’s Edge, a Canadian Dragon Boat company with tons of racing experience. Similar to last year, boats were advanced based on their overall times relative to each other. This isn’t the most ideal way to run a race, but given the conditions few people complained.

 LARD sent one mixed team and joined with the Space Dragons for gender races. Saturday started off with a bang. The Space LARD ladies surprised a few people and themselves by taking first in their heat. The second seeding heat went just as well. They were poised to medal in Sunday’s final round.

 LARD mixed also took first in its opening heat. After the first mixed race, we had a few kinks to work out, so we fixed them. Each Mixed race was progressively better. At the end of the day, this culminated in the second fastest 250m sprint time of the day, 1:02.something small, a full two seconds faster than Space LARD Men’s time.

 The Space LARD men began the day with a minor set back. We steered into shore. The boats were extra light, and the steering oars were even lighter. With all that man meat in the boat compounded by the increased hull speed, an already difficult steering job quickly became nearly impossible. The BAD boat did the same thing, and steered off course in the next heat. A more experienced steerer was brought in, and we put those worries behind us.

Day 2 featured more winning, as it was a day of finals. The men’s proved they belonged in the championship race by winning the consolation final by more than 5 seconds. The women came in 2nd to a very competitive Wasabi women’s team, and our LARD Mixed team came in fourth overall. 

We finished the day with a 1000 m exhibition race. And in the true spirit of exhibition, LARD did what LARD does best. We gave the crowd a show. At about the 700m mark, infront of the spectators, we implemented the ”point and wave drill.” The whole team pulled out of the water, the crowd gasped, LARD pointed, then waved, the crowed cheered. We got our paddles back in the water and finished the race strong. The plan was to make sure this 1000m meters was fun. I think we did just that.  

Now a few words as a coach…. I was most pleased with the way LARD handled itself this weekend. When I asked paddlers to focus they did, when I asked for things to change the team responded, when the pace picked up it was corrected. This has been the most responsive race team I’ve coached for some time now, and it just goes to show how much improvement we can make when we were all in it together. We all commmited to the team, and we all believed in the program.

I will not lie. We built ourselves up huge for the finals mixed race. And maybe fourth wasn’t exactly what everyone had in mind, but fourth is nothing to be ashamed of. It took a lot of poise and composure to get there. And the experience earned is invaluable. All you paddlers that participated should be proud of yourselves for getting as far was we did. I know the rest of the team is proud of you all. Success isn’t always measured by how many medals a team may come home with, but also by how stong a team can come back after suffering a defeat. Let’s use this as fuel to supercharge the rest of our season.

Yet another tournament is in the books. I had a great time. Thanks to all the paddlers and helpers that made this event happen.  I’m looking forward to an AWESOME year of paddling.

All can be found at LARD’s 3 Day Dragon Boat Clinic  <– Click for more info