Seattle Dragon Boat Festival.

4th out of 21 teams. Blechh.

3rd place boat was .07 seconds faster than us. 7/100ths of a second over 500m!

Anyways, it sucks. Especially when it's so close. It feels good to win or at least medal. I know it's obvious.

Uggh. Anyways, it was a decent two days and had sort of fun, but the after-race feeling just sucks.

Into the Night - Last Practice before Seattle Dragon Boat Races.

Last Night was the last practice before this weekend's race... Literally. It was almost dark when we came into the dock. Although the sunset was just majestic giving Mount Rainier a reddish hue during twilight on Lake Washington. It was definitely a Kodak moment.

This weekend's race is here: seattledragonboat.com

So. We practiced 4 x 200m. 3 x 500m and 2 x1000m. It was all fun. I love it because it's just sprints. We'll see how it goes.

I felt great and kept up with the pace. In fact, I really did feel good on my left side. The only problems I had was when I switched to the right side, I did not paddle as well.

One thing I noticed at the faster pace is the recovery. I need to bring the paddle up higher so it does not catch the water. It happened a couple of times.

Other than that it was cool, although I could clearly see the person in front of me tiring out a bit, as she was delaying her exit and not reaching forward enough which cut into my stroke. I really feel a difference between the beginning of the season and now. I really think that weekly practice helps and my overall level of fitness is much better.

Anyways, I love sprints, as I can put it all out there. The 1x1000m is going to be rather rough, but I'd like to really think of it as a golden score overtime in judo. Either way, the races are less than 3 minutes a piece with the 1000m being 7-8 minutes.

Today I could really feel my whole upper body a bit sore. I'm going to take it easy today and paddle like crazy tomorrow.

Oh, and I did stop by the dojo after Dragon Boat practice to check out the practice. It was rather sparse. I think people are still beat up from the Fall Classic. Tracy was there and her knee is all messed up from the tournament. I assume Grant is out with the bruised rib. Kurt still has cauliflower ear and it looks like it's just been drained. He also sustained a toe injury that night. Lynn had an ankle injury. And of course, everyone has the normal bumps and bruises. I saw Jake did an awesome te guruma on Aaron. That was some awesome technique. We almost refer to it as "gorilla judo." I simply sat on the sidelines, even though my gi bag was in the truck. I wanted to practice, but I didn't want to get injured before tomorrow's 2-day race. It's going to suck being injured in a small cramped wet cold boat. So yeah, I just sat out and watched practice.

Lake Washington Rain

It was raining. Thundering. I called Chana to see if practice was canceled. She said, "nope... only cancel it for lightning or white caps..." So... practice was on like Donkey Kong.

We did some race pieces. It rained. It was good we kept on paddling as that kept us warm. Surprisingly, the lake was fairly warm.

I was using more of a leg drive and hip movement and could feel the power in my stroke. At least for my left side, I'm getting better.

It was rather uneventful or uninspired, it was a dreary day and practice was practice. The race will be on in 2 weeks, so we'll see.

Hot Sake!

Saturday was practice with Hot Sake. They have a different start piece and their race rhythm is much faster than ours.

They did 30 penne strokes as their race starts as opposed to our 6 x 16's. It's much faster, although the transition from the penne strokes to full race pace is much different.

Then we did 4 race pieces on the left side and 4 race pieces on the right side. I like the race pieces as they are a nice 3-5 minute sprint.

I was exhausted afterwards. Then I tried one of those Vivanno latte's at Starbucks afterwards. It was tasty and good.

Monday Night Paddle

Hmmmnnn.. Paddling. Yeah. I paddled. We did race pieces. I put into practice all the things I learned from the stroke clinic the day before. I did more of a leg drive and oblique workout, which is cool, means I'm actually using my full body to paddle. My obliques were sore afterwards. Oh, we paddled south past the I-90 bridge. Did 2 race pieces right side. Then 2 race pieces on the way back left side. The paddle back was tiring as we were paddling against the wind. My stroke sucks when I'm tired. There were times when I didn't do the recovery right and splashed everyone in front of me. The cool thing is I have excellent reach. I like the sprints. I do like the race pieces as it's just 3 minutes of pure exertion. I can do 3 minutes. Longer, not so much.

This will be short. I was tired afterwards. Had some pho. Love pho, especially after paddling as it warms you right up. When the sun sets on Lake Washington it gets mighty cold. Fast.

After Pho. I stopped by Seattle Dojo to watch some judo. They did some armbar drills, some light randori. And of course the staple of Seattle Dojo: Ukemi. They just have the most beautiful ukemi. I think it's the hallmark of Seattle Dojo. The Ukemi is just great they practice it all the time. Anyways, they found my Black Hawkeye hat that I forgot at the dojo. I was looking all over the place for that thing. Luckily it was just there and was able to wear it home. I just like the Hawkeyes and they have an awesome wrestling team. If I were to go back to grad school, I'm seriously considering U-Iowa. It's such a great school and the campus was just great. The midwest is just cool to boot.

I've been often enough at Seattle Dojo that they may make me practice the next time I go there. One of the senseis were asking when I'll be at practice and not watch. Anyways, I already practice Tuesdays/Thursdays at Budokan. And will be practicing at Seattle Jujutsu on Sundays and every other Wednesday. Adding a Monday Practice will not be smart as I'm usually exhausted from Dragon Boating. Sometimes, it's just fun to watch and take it in. Besides, I'm usually running late, earliest I'll get there is 9:00 PM which wouldn't make sense missing 1/3 of the practice.

So the Seattle Dragon Boat Festival is only a month away. Can't wait to go to my first race. It's going to be super fun!

Stroke Clinic

A great day in Lake Union. But before that I did some warm-ups by helping my friend Steve and Andrea move. As always, I'm one of the first people to get called for a move. Don't know why. Perhaps I show up? That's the thing about me, I may not be the best athlete, but I do show up. Almost all the time. The more unpleasant the task, the more likely I'll be there.

And so we did a round at Super Buffet. I don't know what it is that makes you hungry at a buffet. And what do they put in the iced tea? I swear I drank a 3/4 of a pitchers worth of iced tea. I felt mighty heavy after the Super Buffet. But it was super fun.

So, onto the Stroke Clinic. I've been dragon boating now for a couple of months and have been given a rudimentary lesson in how to paddle. Seriously, put paddle in water, pull, how hard could it be? Well apparently, there's a lot to technique, and there was something fundamental that they taught me that day, that applies to a lot of sports.

For example when you throw a ball, you don't lead with the upper body right? You lead with the hips. When you throw a punch, it's from the hips that generates the power. And of course in judo, it's all in the hips.

It's the HIPS! I have a fairly strong upper body, but I don't get everything out of it. The whole paddle, is to move your outboard hip forward and push off with it. It's a linear motion. I gotta work on my stroke. I also over-rotate my upper body, which doesn't really help much as I spend the first half of the paddle, counter-rotating. And so it was a good exercise. It was the first time I got a one-on-one instruction on how to paddle. It was lots of fun. To top it off it's a great day on Lake Union. Lots of people and lots of sea-planes taking off and landing.

After an hour break, enough to get home and get my gi-bag. I head over to Seattle-Jujutsu. It was a normal practice of warm-ups, uchikomi, and randori. Elena Zeitsev who was a World Sombo Champ was there. She is very athletic and it was fun to watch her do acrobatics during warmups. I was lucky enough to do some grip fighting with her. She is quick she had some awesome leg picks and same side grip.

Did some more light randori. For the last half hour of practice or so.

It was normal randori. Nothing too bad. Tweaked my left knee a bit, so sat out the last 15 minutes of class and iced my left knee with some frozen corn.

Enter the Dragon...

Yeah, catchy isn't it.

Attention Please.

Now that I've got your attention. Just wanted to let you know about today's practice. It was a great workout today. Usually we do power pyramids, timing techniques, 1-2-3-4 drills or flying race pieces.

Well today was one big grueling endurance workout. It felt great. We almost paddled all the way across Lake Washington. Bellevue was getting bigger, and I'm sure we would've almost have gotten there. On the way out, we worked for a full 10 minutes coupled with frequent Power Pyramids. I think there was a full 4 cycle of 70%, 80%, 90%, 100%, then 10 Power Strokes, then back down again. It was good. I know; for some 10 minutes might not seem a long time, but it is. 10 Minutes is VERY LONG. The usual Dragon Boat Heat is at most a 3 minute match. It's a 500m sprint.

We then did some a quick race piece. We then worked on our first 2 strokes, to get the boat moving. We improved quite a bit after working on it. Practiced a couple of six sixteens, then switched sides. Same thing on the left side. (I practiced right side first) We also added some timing drills. This really improved my reach, as I can set up a nice clean entry. My left side is much stronger, and I can rotate more. I feel that I use my whole body more on the left side. That is, there's actually a leg drive, an oblique crunch and a whole upper body workout. I really think that because I'm right handed, and that my right side is much stronger, that I don't depend on my legs/abs as much on the right side. The left side, being a tad weaker actually forces me to use my whole body; hence the strength in my left side stroke.

I felt good and sore afterwards. My shoulders, back, arms, and a bit on my obliques. A good sore feeling for a great workout.

I like it as it will translate into better conditioning.

To really understand dragon boating, check out this video.



Anyways, there's an event in September that I'm psyched to go to. It's going to be a great race. I really feel that my conditioning has improved greatly. There were times at other Dragon Boat practices where I'll be totally gassed and would have to stop and not paddle. It's really tough to do that, as you increase the work for your team-mates. It's good as my team-mates push me to go harder.

Any day on the water is a better day in the gym. :) I'm never much into treadmills and machines. Sure, I can go to the weight room or do a machine workout, but I push myself harder paddling or a good randori workout.

I still need to see the gaps in my workout and fill those in. Looking forward to tomorrows judo workout. Wednesday, I've got sprints scheduled at the track, and then a nice easy hike later on that afternoon. Thursday I've got more judo. Don't know yet what the weekend will bring. It's Seafair this weekend. Part of me wants to see it; the other part of me wants to get away from the maddening crowd.

Dragon Boating Monday - Sunshiny Day and jumping fish.

So. Monday. I got out to the docks on Leschi for some Dragon Boating. It was a bit windy. It was quite sunny and warm that day so it was good to get out on the water. That afternoon there were 12 of us at practice.

Standard warm-ups and stretches. We did flying race piece and power pyramids. We took the boat out south past the I-90 bridge. Did some paddling on the lee of the I-90 bridge. The water was smooth, warm. There's fish jumping about.

We did flying race pieces. I really felt strong. I wasn't gassed out at all. I was keeping rhythm. Not bad.

We did some drills for timing and rotation. It was the 1-2-3-4 drill. It felt really good.

30 Minutes left side, 30 minutes right side. I was working on my snap forward and the catch. I was doing decent exits. I need to work on my rotation, look forward to follow my lead. I tend to look inboard as I rotate and not keep my head straight forward. I felt like I was driving my paddle more into the water at this practice.


It was a great practice, can't wait for next week. Too bad I can't practice on Thursdays, as Thursday is my judo day. That and I've got a party to go to, then judo on Thursday.

The upcoming race is the weekend of September 6th. So it'll be some good times to go to a race. I think I'm prepping fairly well in Dragon Boat, although just like any other sport, I still need to work at it and practice, practice, practice. Regardless, it's a great upper body, core, timing workout. It's so awesome as well to get back into water sports. I do miss that. Also, it's low impact

Anyways Dragon Boating is fun, and a great workout on Mondays!

Monday's Upper Body Workout and Judo watching...

So... yesterday was a good workout day. It started in the morning meeting Jen and Ericka at 24 hour fitness for some quick cardio (I was a bit late.) and ab work out. The ab work out was good, still gotta focus on it more. Perhaps do more medicine ball workouts with abs. We did oblique rotation with weights on a swiss ball, crunches and the like. I think a bit more to burnouts would be good, for that good and sore feeling, but I think that Jen and Ericka was just taking it easy on me that day.
Afterwards, they split, and I did some upper body workout. It consisted of:

5 sets - 12, 10, 8, 6, 12 reps.

Dumbbell bench press - 30, 35, 40, 45, 50 lbs.
Lat Pull Downs - 65, 80, 95, 110, 125 lbs.
Dumbbell shoulder press - 20, 25, 30, 30, 30 lbs.

Overall, I felt good. I still need to work my shoulders, my shoulders were wicked tired at the end of the set. Also my shoulder felt funny at the end of the shoulder press. Perhaps watch my technique and go with lighter weights to finish at 30 lbs. After stretching it out, it felt fine.

I was going to do biceps and triceps, however that would've been a bit much, because... I had dragon boating that afternoon. Last thing I needed were fatigued bi/tri for one hour of paddling. Besides, the dumbbell workout worked them out indirectly. Perhaps if it was a non-paddling day I'd be good to go.

Onto... Dragon Boating

That afternoon was a great day for dragon boating. It was beautiful, warm and Lake Washington was just nice. The boat had 10 people, so the usual complement of 22 people weren't there. We practiced anyways, and it was a good practice. It felt great to be paddling with just 8 paddlers plus the caller and the tiller.

I was working on my form. I like paddling as it's a near constant resistance workout that involves your abs, obliques and upper body.So as you can see from the picture, it's a lot of good rotation, working the obliques and some good upper body workouts. I think this is good. It's a lot like the shrimping drill right before mat-work, and this will be good resistance training at that.

Did paddle boating for about an hour, with 30 minutes left side and 30 minutes right side. It was a good workout and I could feel my obliques burn. Today my body has a good soreness to it. It was a great workout. I had to work on my snap and my timing. It's really hard to keep pace and keep excellent form. The hard part is the exit out of the water and snapping the paddle forward for maximum reach. I kinda get lackadaisical and of course when you're tired, you're technique just isn't that good. I was getting into a good rhythm and getting to breathe. I think I did decent in paddling last night as I didn't have to stop at all. Then again, the pace was just constant, so there were no burnouts nor race starts, which really tires me out quick. I also think that since my arms were already tired, that I actually used my whole body, rather than just the upper body for paddling. So overall a good day...

And then... onto Judo.

After paddling, I was a bit chilly and decided to get some Pho to warm myself up. Afterwards it was running around 8:30 pm, which coincidentally happen to be the time that Seattle Dojo was holding practice. Since I was already in the International District, it was only a simple matter of driving 3/4 of a mile there. I was still a bit wet from paddling and I didn't have my judogi on, so I simply decided to stop by there and watch.

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/living/2004473068_judo150.html

So Seattle Dojo according to the article is the oldest continuous judo club stateside. I've practiced there once before about a year ago and saw a few familiar faces. It's been awhile though and there's a lot of fresh faces. Yeah article, pretty much sums it up, better than I can.

So, after the article publish, Seatlte Dojo has become popular. I witnessed a lot of new students, with 5 new students joining Seattle Dojo that day. It was cool to see the joy and awe of fresh new students. I hardly see that anymore. There were a group of 3 guys that enrolled that day that knew each other. The "recruits" all had the issued unbleached gi, still fresh with from-the-wrapper-crease-marks. There were a total of about a dozen recruits, which is quite amazing! I hardly ever see more than one or two people start in a club a month, if that.

It was a good refresher on dojo etiquette, proper bowing, etc... And some instruction on tying the belt. They did some ukemi drills, and one ukemi drill that we don't usually do. The front breakfall. We hardly ever do front breakfalls. We do spend quite a bit of time on ukemi, rolls, cartwheels, and the like.

Since there were a lot of new people, this class was more of an instructional class on the basics, and a lot of things were going on quite a bit. Two black belts were practicing the nage-no-kata, and it was actually interesting to actually see it in practice in the dojo rather than on a few demos that I have seen. Now that I'm a brown belt, I should eventually learn nage-no-kata. Eventually being a key word, since earning a black belt really isn't a priority of mine, and besides that, it'll be another half decade or so before I'm qualified to do so. I actually need to ummm, win some tournaments perhaps? I really don't think I'd deserve a black belt until I can get onto the national ranking roster. I think most black belts I roll around with are on the roster at one time or another. And Tracy from my club didn't get her black belt until six months before the Olympic trials. And she won the trials in her division, so. Yeah, that's my gage. And seriously in comparison, I am nowhere in that level. Really being a brown belt, sounds cool, however I know far less than what I'm supposed to know. Sure I can tell what the 40 classic throws from the Canon of Judo looks like, however, executing them is a whole other story. I still am not that proficient in mat-work as well, and was really thinking of taking some submission wrestling classes, or bjj classes to supplement that hole in my game. I digress...

Seattle Dojo class format was.

1. Intro
2. Warm-ups.
3. Ukemi from laying, to sitting, to standing.
4. Squats while saying the japanese numbers 1-10.
5. Rolling Ukemi
6. Matwork warmups, shrimping and the like up and down the mat.
7. Matwork technique. (Basic holds: kesa, yoko-shiho, kata, etc...)
8. Holding the pin with resistance.
9. Ne-waza randori
10. Standing uchikomi
11. Standing technique. Ippon Seio, Morote Seio
12. Standing Randori for colored belts/ Ukemi instruction for white belts.
13. Closing
14. Ukemi when leaving the mat.

In the meantime after the warmups, a couple of people were practicing nage-no-kata on the side.

It was cool to watch another club, and to think about judo that day. I got judo practice tonight. Looking forward to it. Anyways, I should go do a short run or something.

Anyways that's about it.

So last few days... have been ummm growing..

So Saturday was to be a full workout day, but ended up a few quick matches on the mat, so barely really worked up a good sweat.

Sunday I just chilled. Monday was going to be Dragon Boating. We went out onto the water, paddled for 15 minutes. There were some whitecaps, and the wind was howling.... It'll be good for sailing, but not for paddling. Turned around came back to the Blue Water Bistro for Happy Hour.

Last night was supposed to be a potluck for judo. It was a good potluck. Ate lots of food. And umm no training.

So last 4 days no real workout. And my fat ass is growing. I'll be hitting the weight room and pool today, with a decent run around the track this afternoon. And later this evening some dragon boat paddling.

At least, hopefully by the end of this month I can get back onto some of my tailored suits...

So... I have been putzing around trying to get my stuff together.

Last weekend did a hike at Falls Creek Trail. Which was cool. Yesterday, did Dragon Boating. Nice upper body workout. Paddled for about an hour. 30 minutes right side, 30 minutes left side. It was a great workout.