1. This week has got to be dedicated to Dragon Boating! As most of you know, from my previous suitcase entries, I have been waiting to assimilate myself into this sport for a while now, ever since we've moved to Singapore! On account of sporadic travel plans it has been impossible to dedicate time from my schedule to this sport this far, but with our more or less static phase for the next month, I thought it was about time to start training.
It all started, one fine evening at a friend's house party here in Singapore, when I first heard of this sport - Dragon Boating - supposedly a big craze here in Singapore. The person I met, had been part of her local dragon-boating team for a while now and could not stop telling me about how much she enjoyed the activity. Me being my usual 'When-in-Rome-BE-a-Roman' self, immediately jumped at the idea of adopting this sport into my daily life, while I live here. On two counts it highly appealed to me -
- The first one being that it was a "Sport" - which has been a very important aspect of my life for the longest time ever. Ever since I took up long-distance running in 2006, I've had atleast one sport seriously stick in my daily routine. It keeps me honest, lets me be the voracious eater that I am and keeps me fit. What's not to love?
- Secondly, there is no better way than to mingle with locals than to participate in what they love doing. Since I do not have a professional communal 'office set up' in this country to make my 'local' friends in, I decided this would be my chance to meet some sons & daughters of the land! Besides I've always believed in contextual assimilation when in a new place and usually dive right in at the smallest opportunity!
2. A sport that originated in China, Dragon Boating (DB) is hard-core! Being a long-distance runner or a devoted fast-paced spinner in the past, has not only made me a 'lonely' sportswoman but also trained my mind to believe that I can set and control my own pace, as I like. Rule No.1 of Dragon Boating is - Synchronization - since this one is a team sport. Hence Teamwork and co-ordination with fellow paddlers is everything! To be able to keep the first paddler on the right or the left (opposite side of where you are rowing on the boat) within your cone of vision every time, as you paddle to his/ her set rhythm, is key!
3. I went all out in my choice of team to train with and picked the SAFRA location in Toa Payoh (a few stops from our place on the train) which stands for Singapore Armed Forces Recreation Association. Yes, it is what you think it is - Singapore's recreational facility for it's military men (known as NS Men, i.e National Service Men) and their families. Naturally this means, every workout session I have with my DB team leaves me half-dead at the end of it, going by pure endurance and tolerance levels of these Army men and women. Think one continuous set of 30 crunches + 30 push-ups + 30 burpees and then multiply it by five! That was us on the first day that I joined the group! Thankfully my marathon training of the past years hasn't completely waned away, but to endure five sets of the above, sure did take the air out of me.
4. Our DB team is called the SAFRA Dragons and we meet thrice a week to train together as a group!
a) On Tuesdays' we meet at SAFRA Toa Payoh where we do weight training and pool paddling from 7 pm to 9 pm each week. Pool Paddling is a rowing exercise, conducted at one of the gym's swimming pools, which is completely reserved for our team's training exercises. Here, we remove the side grates from the edge of the pool and sit between the pool and the grate, with one leg in the 'water gutter' and the other in the swimming pool. This position is decided based on which is your stronger rowing side, i.e whether you are a left or a right hand rower. The instructor stands in the pool, conducting 3 to 5 minute drills at intervals of 1 minute each time, of continuous rowing practice. If you're thinking this 'rowing' is anything like "Row Row Row your boat, gently down the stream..." then think again! There is tremendous amount of energy and rhythm involved in the rowing process and one needs to learn to use one's body weight, posture and the correct 'A' position at the start of the exercise. If done correctly, one can keep rowing continuously for long stretches of time - say 3 to 5 minutes! Interestingly I've learnt that it takes just 3 to 5 minutes of continuous rowing in a 500m long race! Those 3 - 5 minutes though are the slowest yet highly-spirited minutes ever, as one learns in the process!
b) On Thursdays' we meet at the Toa Payoh Stadium across the street from the Toa Payoh SAFRA where we train on Tuesdays. In the stadium, we begin the training session with a run around the football field. Right up my alley this one, so score!!! The running distances can vary anywhere from 6 to 12 loops of the football field - totally 2.4 km to 5 km tops (Yes, it is taking some getting used to, to go back to running in kilometres, here in Asia). I would rank the runs an 'Easy' on my chart in terms of distance, but 'Challenging' in terms of outdoor weather endurance. Having trained for all my long runs in relatively pleasant climates before, running in 34 deg C or 93 deg F, is not what I am used to (The last time I ran in 92 deg weather, the race was called off and one runner died of a heat stroke in the race! That was the Chicago Marathon of 2009). So yeah, outdoor training runs in Singapore, on hot summer evenings are going to take some more endurance, practice and a gallons of hydration, for sure!
c) On Sunday mornings we meet at the Singapore Dragon Boating Club at the Kallang Water Sports Centre at 7:30 am. This is the day we take our boats out to the sea for two hours of hard-core paddle practice and then return to the shore, for a quick exercise regimen followed by some much needed stretching. Dragon boating in the river/ sea water is actually not as challenging as paddle-practicing in the swimming pool is. This is because the water in the pool is static, hence rowing takes more effort. Boating in the river/ sea is comparatively easier, yet strenuous on account of exposure to the heat and the elements. Still, Sunday remains the most exciting of the three-days that we meet to train together.
I am having so much fun Dragon-boating that on so many levels I wish I'd joined earlier on, so I could pursue it longer. Anyhow, my learning process has just started and with a lot of guidance and training, I seem to be doing pretty well. I am hoping to do a few races before we leave Singapore as part of the SAFRA Dragons Ladies Team, coming up in August/ September.
5. In a revelation of sorts, the women in our team, are all (Gulp) literally half my age! No wonder then, on our walk to the MRT stop one day after practice, when I posed the question "Do you live alone?" to my new friend in the team, she looked at me like I had grown horns on my head, mid-sentence! It was only a little later that I understood her reaction to my query - She was only 17 years old and naturally lived with her parents! Living alone was still an unexplored option in her life! Besides, she was Asian so culturally speaking - the chances that she would end up living with parents for a very long time, at least until she got married, were high. Some more 'asking around' later revealed that while I was perhaps the oldest girl/ woman & the only Mom in the team, I wasn't necessarily the oldest member - Whew, some relief there!
6. The week ended with a fun drink's evening at our friend's place, who has recently had a beautiful baby girl. For our little one Zoe, this is the first baby she gets to closely interact with, so Tara is the epitome of all things "baby" and "cute" as far as Zoe is concerned. Although these two have just met twice yet, plans are underway for more play dates, mainly on Zoe's demands to go see her fave little friend and sample the yummy snacks that get laid out on these playdates.
Next week Hubster leaves for Hyderabad yet again, this time for a little longer than a week, including the weekend, so it's back to being the Single Mommy-in-charge for me! To top that, Zoe's school break starts next week too, so time to scout around finding fun activities to keep her busy with for the rest of the month!
See you on the other side!
Love,
Shweyta
It all started, one fine evening at a friend's house party here in Singapore, when I first heard of this sport - Dragon Boating - supposedly a big craze here in Singapore. The person I met, had been part of her local dragon-boating team for a while now and could not stop telling me about how much she enjoyed the activity. Me being my usual 'When-in-Rome-BE-a-Roman' self, immediately jumped at the idea of adopting this sport into my daily life, while I live here. On two counts it highly appealed to me -
- The first one being that it was a "Sport" - which has been a very important aspect of my life for the longest time ever. Ever since I took up long-distance running in 2006, I've had atleast one sport seriously stick in my daily routine. It keeps me honest, lets me be the voracious eater that I am and keeps me fit. What's not to love?
- Secondly, there is no better way than to mingle with locals than to participate in what they love doing. Since I do not have a professional communal 'office set up' in this country to make my 'local' friends in, I decided this would be my chance to meet some sons & daughters of the land! Besides I've always believed in contextual assimilation when in a new place and usually dive right in at the smallest opportunity!
2. A sport that originated in China, Dragon Boating (DB) is hard-core! Being a long-distance runner or a devoted fast-paced spinner in the past, has not only made me a 'lonely' sportswoman but also trained my mind to believe that I can set and control my own pace, as I like. Rule No.1 of Dragon Boating is - Synchronization - since this one is a team sport. Hence Teamwork and co-ordination with fellow paddlers is everything! To be able to keep the first paddler on the right or the left (opposite side of where you are rowing on the boat) within your cone of vision every time, as you paddle to his/ her set rhythm, is key!
3. I went all out in my choice of team to train with and picked the SAFRA location in Toa Payoh (a few stops from our place on the train) which stands for Singapore Armed Forces Recreation Association. Yes, it is what you think it is - Singapore's recreational facility for it's military men (known as NS Men, i.e National Service Men) and their families. Naturally this means, every workout session I have with my DB team leaves me half-dead at the end of it, going by pure endurance and tolerance levels of these Army men and women. Think one continuous set of 30 crunches + 30 push-ups + 30 burpees and then multiply it by five! That was us on the first day that I joined the group! Thankfully my marathon training of the past years hasn't completely waned away, but to endure five sets of the above, sure did take the air out of me.
4. Our DB team is called the SAFRA Dragons and we meet thrice a week to train together as a group!
a) On Tuesdays' we meet at SAFRA Toa Payoh where we do weight training and pool paddling from 7 pm to 9 pm each week. Pool Paddling is a rowing exercise, conducted at one of the gym's swimming pools, which is completely reserved for our team's training exercises. Here, we remove the side grates from the edge of the pool and sit between the pool and the grate, with one leg in the 'water gutter' and the other in the swimming pool. This position is decided based on which is your stronger rowing side, i.e whether you are a left or a right hand rower. The instructor stands in the pool, conducting 3 to 5 minute drills at intervals of 1 minute each time, of continuous rowing practice. If you're thinking this 'rowing' is anything like "Row Row Row your boat, gently down the stream..." then think again! There is tremendous amount of energy and rhythm involved in the rowing process and one needs to learn to use one's body weight, posture and the correct 'A' position at the start of the exercise. If done correctly, one can keep rowing continuously for long stretches of time - say 3 to 5 minutes! Interestingly I've learnt that it takes just 3 to 5 minutes of continuous rowing in a 500m long race! Those 3 - 5 minutes though are the slowest yet highly-spirited minutes ever, as one learns in the process!
b) On Thursdays' we meet at the Toa Payoh Stadium across the street from the Toa Payoh SAFRA where we train on Tuesdays. In the stadium, we begin the training session with a run around the football field. Right up my alley this one, so score!!! The running distances can vary anywhere from 6 to 12 loops of the football field - totally 2.4 km to 5 km tops (Yes, it is taking some getting used to, to go back to running in kilometres, here in Asia). I would rank the runs an 'Easy' on my chart in terms of distance, but 'Challenging' in terms of outdoor weather endurance. Having trained for all my long runs in relatively pleasant climates before, running in 34 deg C or 93 deg F, is not what I am used to (The last time I ran in 92 deg weather, the race was called off and one runner died of a heat stroke in the race! That was the Chicago Marathon of 2009). So yeah, outdoor training runs in Singapore, on hot summer evenings are going to take some more endurance, practice and a gallons of hydration, for sure!
c) On Sunday mornings we meet at the Singapore Dragon Boating Club at the Kallang Water Sports Centre at 7:30 am. This is the day we take our boats out to the sea for two hours of hard-core paddle practice and then return to the shore, for a quick exercise regimen followed by some much needed stretching. Dragon boating in the river/ sea water is actually not as challenging as paddle-practicing in the swimming pool is. This is because the water in the pool is static, hence rowing takes more effort. Boating in the river/ sea is comparatively easier, yet strenuous on account of exposure to the heat and the elements. Still, Sunday remains the most exciting of the three-days that we meet to train together.
I am having so much fun Dragon-boating that on so many levels I wish I'd joined earlier on, so I could pursue it longer. Anyhow, my learning process has just started and with a lot of guidance and training, I seem to be doing pretty well. I am hoping to do a few races before we leave Singapore as part of the SAFRA Dragons Ladies Team, coming up in August/ September.
5. In a revelation of sorts, the women in our team, are all (Gulp) literally half my age! No wonder then, on our walk to the MRT stop one day after practice, when I posed the question "Do you live alone?" to my new friend in the team, she looked at me like I had grown horns on my head, mid-sentence! It was only a little later that I understood her reaction to my query - She was only 17 years old and naturally lived with her parents! Living alone was still an unexplored option in her life! Besides, she was Asian so culturally speaking - the chances that she would end up living with parents for a very long time, at least until she got married, were high. Some more 'asking around' later revealed that while I was perhaps the oldest girl/ woman & the only Mom in the team, I wasn't necessarily the oldest member - Whew, some relief there!
6. The week ended with a fun drink's evening at our friend's place, who has recently had a beautiful baby girl. For our little one Zoe, this is the first baby she gets to closely interact with, so Tara is the epitome of all things "baby" and "cute" as far as Zoe is concerned. Although these two have just met twice yet, plans are underway for more play dates, mainly on Zoe's demands to go see her fave little friend and sample the yummy snacks that get laid out on these playdates.
Next week Hubster leaves for Hyderabad yet again, this time for a little longer than a week, including the weekend, so it's back to being the Single Mommy-in-charge for me! To top that, Zoe's school break starts next week too, so time to scout around finding fun activities to keep her busy with for the rest of the month!
See you on the other side!
Love,
Shweyta
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