Victorious Secret (2008)

Victoria Festival - Pearl Final

2008-08-19T07:17:00.000-07:00

It was that close. Secrets in Boat 4. Thanks to Trish and Trish's friends for these shots.

We were steady in the heats, and the heats were our first taste of racing as a team outside the relatively calm waters of the Selkirk water and the Gorge. The team handled the boat well on the start line. We didn't have any episodes on the line or during the race as some boats did.

We were strong in the semifinals and the final. We led the final into the finish and through the finish. It was a fast close race. It was just that close.

Race Day - August 9/08

2008-08-10T13:35:00.000-07:00

Victorious paddled in the GO Center's Gorge Fun Fest on August 9, coming home with bronze medals in the Green Event.

The day started sunny, but turned to clouds and rain. The tide was running up the course, which contributed to the fast times. The event is competitive, with the majority of teams, outside the very top flight, turning in teams between 2:10 and 2:20 in their final races.

How did our day go? We have pictures. We warmed up. We marshalled, we paddled out. We raced, with good starts and powerful finishes. We took pictures on the grassy knoll in the traffic circle. Captain Nina collected the bling.

We debriefed in the bar at the GO Center, being too snobbish to sit it the beer garden in the rain with the other teams.

We were satisfied with our races. We placed in the middle of the middle. We could have done better, but we felt like we were working and moving the boat. We knew we had been in a race. We were sweaty, sore, tired and happy.

Our teammate Raymond Patts works for Canada Post, and he organized and coached a team of his co-workers in June, the First Class Dragon Boat team, which won the gold medal in the yellow event. They had some rough spots in their first race - they could have taken medals in higher divisions. It felt like he was abandoning us, but he was working on something important.

Practice Photos, July 3

2008-07-06T10:03:00.001-07:00

Mike took pictures from the stern with Nina's camera.

Starting 2008

2008-03-31T06:22:00.000-07:00

Loco Motion had over a dozen committed paddlers ready for 2008 which is not enough for a team. We decided to join forces with VCKC Vasuki Dragons and carry on under a new name Victorious Secret. The VCKC boats are in the water as of Sunday March 30, 10:20 AM. The practice season begins.

Paddling Clinic

2008-03-10T21:22:00.000-07:00

On Sunday, Marie-Eve, Nina, Kandice and Tony took the 7:00 AM ferry to Vancouver to take a clinic with Kamini Jain at the False Creek Racing Canoe Club. We avoided going east of Oak Street, found Granville Island, found the Club, took the clinic and made it back home before dark.

Kamini Jain is a mature competitve athlete. She went to the Olympics for Canada as a racing kayaker and has paddled and coached the successful dragon boat teams that have raced out of FCRCC. She has been hired by several Vancouver and Fraser Valley teams as a coach, and has held many popular and well attended clinics.

She's intelligent, funny, and engaged. She combines positive criticism with positive feedback - she motivates and she holds attention.

For the False Creek clinics, she starts with a discussion of technique and moves to the water. She fills a boat with paddlers. She has a couple of her False Creek men's team members as lead strokes, caller, stern and in boat coaches. She calls some drills and she takes some video and then goes through the video. She has another team member - basically a physio - talk about warm-up, cool-down, stretches, hydration and nutrition.

This built well on what Stephen and Judy taught the novice Loco's last year. It was neat to see how some motivated and reasonably fit paddlers were able to take the lead, follow direction and get that boat moving. It was also frankly scary to see how well the elite men from False Creek could reach and catch and how well they could move a boat. It was also interesting to see how experienced paddlers from other teams assimilated her approach and compared it to what other coaches had taught them.

Kamini takes the idea of opening your body to the inside or turning to your partner on the set up and develops it into a body memory - pivot the inboard hip as if you are stepping back, catch, and then step forward with the inboard hip. Pivot or rotate from the hips, not the torso. Lots of weight on the outboard hip. Lot of motion in hips. Plant both feet on the seat or foot rail.

She emphasizes a strong lean forward, hinged on the hips, a good reach (but with a strong grip with the lower hand) a positive paddle angle going into the catch, a firm catch, a snap after the catch, straightening up, bringing the inboard hip forward, bracing the feet (to push the boat) keeping the paddle dug in. She wants to move the shoulders and rotate the body. The arms hold the body and the lower arm can bend a little, but don't let the paddle come back to the point the arm bends. When the paddle reachs midthigh and the body is square, lift the paddle with the upper hand and pivot into the next stroke by dropping the inboard hip back while driving the paddle forward, and bending into the next catch.

It all makes sense and I saw what it meant in the video. The video caught paddlers doing good and bad things. Kandice and Nina showed good form and I showed how to get in trouble by letting the blade come back too far. The video showed that experienced and semi-experienced paddlers have bad habits or lapses, and that we don't do what we thing we are doing when we paddle. Even a short period of observation can pinpoint things that can be improved.

She introduced some new drills - the push-pull, the pause, the three and three.

There were a lot of good ideas. I hope we can remember and explain them, and that the Club coaches will be interested and will use these in practice.

Getting Ready for '08

2008-02-16T07:31:00.000-08:00

Earlier this week, Marie-Eve, Tony, Raymond, Muriel and Heather met to see about getting the team ready for spring.

We are looking at some changes. Robin said goodbye last fall. Heather says she and Ron have a busy summer, and they won't be paddling. Heather is not staying on as Treasurer. Harold is going to be paddling to Thunder Bay with Team Shawnigan and the David Thompson Brigade, May to July.

Marie-Eve has some commitments this summer. She won't be in Victoria for the Festivals in August and she doesn't want to take the responsibility of being the captain.

Tony is going to add all of the 2007 Loco's to the Loco Google group. Marie-Eve is going to push out a message and set up a meeting to discuss what the team will do this year, and how we will organize ourselves.

Signs of Spring

2008-02-16T07:02:00.000-08:00

The VCKC Dragon Boat program is looking forward to spring. Mike Fox, the DB representative on Club Executive invited team captains and representatives to a meeting earlier this week. Marie Eve and Tony were there for Loco Motion.

Mike has arranged to have a professional repair the damage at the front of the B boat, which will cost a few hundred. When we get painting weather, he proposes a work party, with sanders and other tools, to clean up the scrapes on the bottom of the boats and to get some new paint on boat boats. The damage to A boat is going to evaluated carefully to see if it is scrape or a crack. The repair costs will be shared among the teams. The goal is to get the boats in the water by the end of March, which will call for another work party.

We had an extensive discussion of launching at low tide, navigation, and responsibility for wear and tear, maintenance and damage repair.

The other Club teams are all planning to stay together and paddle this year. The other teams have all had people dropping out over the winter, or some changes. There is a rumour that Victoria's Secret is being revived. Mike suggests that anyone eligible for, and interested in the Senior Games in Nanaimo in September should organize as a VCKC team and arrange to practice for at least a few weeks before the games.

Mike suggested that the program should adopt last year's practice schedule. This was accepted as a starting point, with some teams negotiating to trade slots.

Mike said that Lloyd has agreed to take enquiries from new paddlers and try to match new paddlers with teams.

Mike was concerned about the load on the club's accredited coaches, and we discussed how to get people to step into coaching roles. The program has funding for coaching courses.

The immediate need is for a steering clinic to share some skills in boat handling and knowledge about the Gorge, and for teams with an experienced stern to put new sterns into the boat and let them practice extensively. Steering is not as easy as it looks, and the Gorge has some hidden hazards.

Mike reported that the paddling skills clinic at False Creek last November was very useful. He asked for someone to step into the role of training officer, to make some calls to check our options to get a clinic at the club. Probably interested paddlers and teams would have to pay for the course, but it would be worth it.

Mike also reported that the Club got the club PFD's and paddles from the medical organization that sponsors Komodo, and that the club PFD's and paddles are intended for the use of the Komodo team and new paddlers, and that club members should be getting their own PFD's and paddles.

Team Statement

2007-11-12T08:00:00.000-08:00

At the end of the 2007 season Marie Eve wrote a team statement and discussed it with Muriel, Heather, Raymond and Tony, to state some principles and ideas for the future of the team.

The statement starts with the assumption that the team will continue as a team at VCKC for 2008 with the goal of participating in some races, and that the team would like to practice with the goals of paddling better and improving our performance.

The statement has been posted to the Loco Motion Google group page for review and discussion by the team. The Google Group is private. Invitations have been sent to the members of the team who were members through the races in August 2007.

Communications

2007-11-11T20:00:00.000-08:00

Over the weekend, Tony set up a Google Group for the team and a Google Calendar.

The Google Group will create a private mailing list to allow private messages about team business and social events to be sent to the whole team. It will provide a forum for publishing team documents and discussion of the team's goals and organization.

The Calendar will publish practice times, race dates, and special events. Special events will include Club events including program related events and full Club events like cleaning up the Gorge and Canada Day.

FCRCC Paddling Clinic

2007-10-14T07:21:00.000-07:00

The VCKC Dragon program circulated information about a clinic to our captain Marie-Eve. The Clinic is being held November 3 and 4, 2007 at the False Creek Community Center. It is being organized by FCRCC (False Creek Racing Canoe Club). Main Details at this link. More details in the Forums at Dragon Boat West under the topic of FCRCC Dragon Boat Paddling Clinic.

This looks like a good opportunity to build on our skills. The clinic itself is a good value - the larger financial questions for individuals are the trip to Vancouver and devoting a weekend to this. We hope there will be similar clinics on the Island before next summer, but we have no details.

Golf & Halloween

2007-10-14T06:39:00.000-07:00

Raymond is organizing a team golf tournament on Sunday October 21, 2007. [Updated after the fact - rained out after all].

It would be at the Juan de Fuca Recreation Centre in Colwood. It's on the Old Island Highway - it's the same location as the Bear Mountain Arena. (Google Map). The golf course is a nine hole course, and it is a good course for beginners. Some of us may have some experience but most of us are beginners. A nine hole round will probably take a couple of hours.

We will be playing at off-season rates, at $8.50 per person - which is a bargain. Club rental and pull cart rental are $6.25 and $4.00 extra. Probably people can double up on a set of clubs.

Putting the Boats up

2007-09-22T20:45:00.000-07:00

Last Saturday, Robin, Muriel, Tony and Walter were part of a dragon boat program work party that hauled out the A boat and scraped and cleaned it. Today Marie-Eve, Nina, Jane, Claude, Art, Chark, Harold and Tony were part of much larger party that carried the A boat to the compound, pulled the B boat, turned it over (it's a heavy brute) washed it and carried it to the compound. The work was well coordinated by program leaders Mike Fox and by the club's go-to guys, Dale and Doug. Everyone walked away dirty and wet, but whole and healthy.

The boats were not in good shape - both showed signs of close encounters with rocks and other damage, which was discussed at a what amounted to an informal meeting of the VCKC Dragon boat program. Mike has some ideas about a committee involving all the teams to discuss care of the boats, training the steer-persons for all boats and promoting and training some coaches.

There are some people in the program who think that in the future novice paddlers should practice and race as a novice team and then be recruited into the established teams. Some established teams lose members every year, but they don't want to take novices into their team.

Loco Motion isn't impressed with this idea on a retroactive basis, and we saw some doubts about whether the bonding of a new team could be prevented or legislated. Our experience was that we fell into the routine of practicing together and discovered our strengths as part of a team.

Some team members had been paddling OC-6 outriggers before joining Loco Motion - Jane, Fiona, Muriel. As the dragon boat season wound up, Raymond, Tony and Marie-Eve seem to have found places on the spare list for some of the Club's OC-6 rosters, and many are becoming more active in the canoe and kayak programs, and positive about taking an active role in the Club's volunteer programs and club governance.

Windup

2007-09-16T21:00:00.000-07:00

Our social director Raymond was the host for our windup Saturday evening (yesterday). He has a large yard, and he had a net for badminton and volleyball, and a fire pit. We had good weather, and were able to eat, socialize and play outside. Most of the team were able to make it, and our coaches and their helpers and spouses. Some of us are talented at other sports, and everyone was enthusiastic.

Everyone on the team was able to make something interesting and tasty - we had a variety of schools of cuisine represented.

We have to give the accolades to Walter for his Tiramisu. Walter comes to the kitchen with an advantage though - he used to be a professional chef.

We have some consensus that we should stay together, make sure we support the Club and paddle as a team next year. This is amazing. We started as strangers, and our personal styles and interests are diverse - but over a couple of weeks we got to know each other and we see the potential in this team and in each other to set new goals, and to paddle together next year.

Victoria Harbour 2007

2007-08-19T21:00:00.000-07:00

Team Loco Motion won silver medals in the Pearl event in the 2007 Victoria Dragon Boat Festival over this weekend (August 18& 19/07).

This was tougher than the races last week. These races were in the harbour. The water is different - the tides have more influence. The races are held up for the Coho, the other ferries, whale-watching and sightseeing boats, and yachts. It is a big festival with 90 teams, which mean 18 races of 5 boats to run the heats. With the traffic delays, it takes about 4 to 5 hours to get through a full set of 18 races. Most of the teams have been practicing and racing for a few years, and there a couple of dozen teams with serious competitive goals.

Saturday was cloudy, with sunny breaks. Sunday morning started overcast, and turned to light rain and showers, and then it became sunny for the afternoon. There was small ebb tide in the morning on Saturday, small floods for the other races. The flood tends to curl from right to left across the race course. As novices, we we seeded in lane 5 along the James Bay shore in the Saturday heats, which was a disadvantage. We finished fifth the first race. We didn't do badly, but in the excitement of the first race, there were cumulative small mistakes. We did better in the second race, pulling out a third place finish, which got us enough points to get into the Pearl event, the best 10 of the bottom 30 teams. We were happy with our silver medal, especially since our times in the Pearl semifinal and final were competitive with times in the Bronze events above us.

Our team worked hard, competed with enthusiasm, overcame adversity, lifted its spirits, supported our friends and mentors in the Club, and applauded our competitors.

Loco Motion had some extroverts and natural clowns, who took the Loco name as a mission statement to have fun and create some entertainment. We had funny hats, songs, pranks:

Loco Motion found wonderful support within VCKC. The Club found volunteer coaches and helped us find some experienced dragon and outrigger paddlers to build our team, including Harold. Our coaches Stephen and Judi paddle with the Vasuki Dragons. The Dragons throw money into a pot to shop for buns, bagels, veggies, fruit and snacks, so that the whole team is properly fed, at a ridiculously low cost, through the festival. They brought us in on these arrangements and took us under their wing.

Gorge Races August 11/07

2007-08-11T21:00:00.000-07:00

After about two months of practice, VCKC Loco Motion made its debut in the Vancouver Island Island Championships, at the Gorge Rowing and Paddling Center.

We sang our team song and put out some team spirit into it.

In the first heat, we were put in against Blu by U, a competitive team that finished 8th overall on the day, came in at 2:14. We were second at 2:33. This got us into the Green event. Our performances improved through the next two races partly through the influence of wind and tide, to 2:17, but the competitive teams ran between 2:01 and 2:05 in their finals. We had a Ribbon for second place in the B Final, which was reasonable for our effort as Novice Team.

Important practice Thursday!!!

2007-07-17T15:46:00.000-07:00

This will be a very special practice, Thanks to our coach Stephen, we will be videoed to be able to work on our individual performance and team performance.

Please confirm your attendance ; Marie-Eve will work out the team positions. See you there!

Paddles Up!

2007-07-06T16:12:00.000-07:00

Dragon Boaters watch out! There's a new dragon on the waters that is going to swallow you up! We're a full team of enthusiastic, motivated, and fierce paddlers who are without a doubt, a bit loco. We have a great diversity of persons of different ages, nationalities, birthplaces, occupations, and skills. - not to mention personalities! We practice two to three times a week at the Victoria Canoe and Kayak Club (www.vckc.ca) under our fearless coach Stephen who is driving us to be the best in our class. And we're going to win! Besides the great paddling, we have a committed and organized executive with Marie-Eve as our Captain, Muriel as our Back-Up Team Captain, Heather as our Treasurer, Kim as our Back-Up Treasurer, Chris as our Communications Director, and Raymond as our Social Director and Festival Director. We are going to have so much fun over the next month and a half. Paddles up!