1 Star for SIM Canoeing Club

Picture by Rayyan

Taught a 1 Star group who signed up through the SIM Canoeing Club on 20-21 August. Its not often that I teach adult groups, but when I do get the chance, they tend to be more fun to teach.

Had a great weekend even though I was recovering from a runny nose.

Kind of coincidental that one of the participants is in my Buyer Behaviour class too!

More press on the River Clean-Up

SIM Canoeing Club was featured in Gaia Discovery, an online lifestyle magazine dedicated to give people around the world an insight into sustainable development and tourism.

You can read the article here

Paddling down the Singapore River

The SIM Canoeing Club organised a freshman orientation camp over the weekend. I only joined in from Saturday onwards due to some prior commitments.
One of the highlights for the camp was the river clean up on the final day. All of us got into kayaks and paddled into the Singapore River. As we paddled along, we collected rubbish that we could find in the river.

Apparently this was the first social responsibility event ever organised by a sports club in SIM. We created SIM history!

Unscrupulous practices revealed

I spent my last 2 days at SIM HQ manning the Canoeing Club booth for its recruitment drive. Basically freshmen from UOL are down in the school for their Freshman Orientation Day where the OGLs will guide them around the school and let them play games to know their coursemates. One of the activities is a massive recruitment by the clubs and societies in SIM.

So there I was manning the booth when 2 girls approached. One girl was interested in the 1 Star and another later revealed that she's already certified. The certified girl was telling her friend to go for the 1 Star. At first I thought it was great that this girl was doing my job for me, but then she told her friend 1 Star very good, can become instructor. What the hell?

I wanted to find out more, so I smiled and told her you need 2 Star before you can become an instructor. She replied that you only need 1 Star to be an instructor at Camelot. She also revealed that she worked there before.
To make matters worse, Camelot is the operator that MOE has chosen to run its Adventure campsite in Changi.

Oops. Let the cat out of the bag.

I hate red tape

As usual, many permits and paperwork is required if you want to paddle to certain places in Singapore. Its almost as if the authorities are trying to discourage any paddling outside of the confined reservoirs.

The SIM Canoeing Club is trying to organise a trip up the Singapore River. I've done it in the past and gone all the way to Clarke Quay. At that time you only needed to ask permission from PUB and have a powerboat escort.
However, PUB is now asking for acknowledgment emails from SDBA, NCC, SCF, PA, Waterways Watch Society, Singapore River Cruise, Duck Tours, Singapore Explorer, MINDEF, URA, Singapore Tourism Board and an endorsement from SCF.
On top of that, they are limiting us to the UOB Plaza. So basically, all these permits are required just to go pass the Anderson Bridge and Cavenagh Bridge. Pathetic.

SIM 1 Star Canoeing Course Flyer

1 Star Course for SIM Students

The SIM Canoeing club will be organising a 1 Star course on the 14th and 15th of March.
Only 20 slots are available. To book a slot, please email sim.canoeing@gmail.com
Updates and more info will be posted on http://simcanoeingclub.blogspot.com/

Tired of rushing

Training starts at 8.30am on Saturdays and my lectures begin at 2pm. Finding it a hassle to rush from training to school.
I end up being late and have no time to eat my lunch. So I've decided not to go for the Saturday training sessions and only go for the Sunday sessions.

Qualified?

The time trials for MR500 was held yesterday. Wont be entering the finals with that sort of timing achieved.

For the T1, I finished the 500m sprint in 2:58, 5 seconds slower than Junsheng. Paired up with Jason for the T2 and finished in 2:48, 1 second behind the pairing of Junsheng and Nizam.
I lose stamina and speed after the first 200m and start to slow down, allowing the others to catch up.

Just for fun, I tried to do the 500m sprint in a K1, was unstable moving at sprinting speed and took 2:53 to complete.

Time Trials

The upcoming MR500 race regulations limits the number of participants a team can send for each category. Only 2 rowers are allowed per category.

So to select the best rowers, the team is conducting a time trial.

I am aiming to take part in the T1 category. However, Jun Sheng wants to take part in that too, meaning there's only one slot left. There was talk last night about getting Alex to try out for the T1 category too.
I will need to row hard to ensure I get that slot!

Humbled

Got my butt into a K1 again today. Balance was has improved since the last time I tried. Managed to paddle 6km and do some sprints. I did capsize twice though.

At the end of the training session, everyone who came down tried the K1, including Alex. That guy is incredible. He managed to balance in a K1 with just 5minutes of trying. 15minutes later, he was paddling around!!! Incredible lah.
The first time I tried a K1, I spent almost an hour on the beach just trying to balance.

Singapore Canoe Marathon 2009 Results

The SCF website is full of broken links. But you can download the results here

SCF finally released the results for the Singapore Canoe Marathon with adjustments made.
I missed a medal placing by 2minutes :( So close, yet so far.
But the timing of 1:29.35 is decent for a 14km paddle. Will just have to buck up.

Anyway, congrats to Sarah who came in 1st for the Women's T1 Novice category, Nizam and Jason for coming in 5th, Vincent and Alex for their 10th placing in the T2 Novice Mens category and Junsheng and Lex for coming in 9th for the K2 Novice Mens category.

The timing for this medal haul couldn't have been better. We've recently spoke to the Student Care Services manager who has agreed to get 6 kayaks for the team. More reason for them to get the boats now.

When Your Best Just Isn't Good Enough

Well, well, more disappointments. Didn't manage to win anything for the SCM.
However, I did manage to keep up with the T2 pairing of Alex and Vincent for the first round which is quite a feat for me.
Also finished ahead of Sarah, which is a first.
So although I've come home empty-handed, I guess I've improved?

Its been said, it isn't all about winning, but winning sure would be nice. Feels worse when it seems that its so easy to get a medal in the T2 Novice and T1 Womens categories.

To quote Vincent "Try again next race".

I shall end this post with some smiling pics. Cant be all doom and gloom.

The racers


The SIM Canoeing Gang

Pictures from Round Ubin Kayak Race

Wonderful day!

All those practice sessions have shown results! I managed to catch up with Sarah and Jason during 2km sprints. Woohoo! No longer lagging behind. Finally got the technique down. Will have to work on my endurance and fitness now.
Really good to see some improvement.

Increasing the Tempo

The Round Ubin Kayak Race is approaching and SIM Canoeing Club members who are participating are expected to train 4 times a week! Trainings are on Tuesdays, Thursdays, Saturdays and Sundays.
Unfortunately, trainings are in the mornings when I have lectures. So I'll only be able to join the club on Sunday afternoons.
Lucky for me I can still train by going down to Kallang after lectures. I've made plans to train on the same days as the club, but on my own and in the afternoons after my lectures.

Broken Paddle

Today was the 2nd and last session of the 1 Star Kayaking course for SIM ODAC and Canoeing Club. Actually, there's only 4 canoeing club members in the course. Haha.

Well, it was quite an enjoyable 2 days, although I think I talked abit too much.
The funniest thing happened while we were paddling towards the Benjamin Sheares bridge. I was trying to splash water on the participants when my paddle blade snapped! Paddled around for a while with that broken paddle. It didn't affect much cos the participants were tired out from a mass capsize which slowed them down considerably.

Rest of the pictures are here

Stability

Went down to Macritchie today for some practice in a K1. At first I started out using the K1 without a seat, it was very stable. I could even sprint in it. Later on, Clarence had some difficulty and we decided to switch boats. I took his which had a seat and started to paddle around. Still a little shaky but a huge improvement compared to my last session where I could barely move 50m. This time around I managed to paddle about 1.5km in all.

Die die also must paddle

When I woke up this morning the sky was dark and a cold wind was blowing in through the window. It soon started to drizzle and an sms to Junsheng confirmed that training has been postponed till tmr morning.
I went back to sleep and woke up an hour later when the sun started to shine again, took my stuff and went down to kallang for my own training.

Using a T1 and wing paddle, I went about paddling my usual 8km route. I only managed to help reduce my timing by 3 minutes. I expected a much bigger decrease in timing. Lousy improvement could be due to my lack of balance in an abeam sea. The waves were hitting me perpendicular to my kayak and it affected my stability. Its hard to go all out when you're more concerned about staying upright.

Switched to a Turbo afterwards and paddled another 3km. Did a few hand rolls and tried the elbow roll. Showing signs of improvement with the elbow roll, at least I can get my body up close enough to the surface and get a breath of air when previously I could not even bring my body any where near the surface.
The trick seems to be to float the body close to the surface before sweeping the body while doing a hip flick.

Feathercraft Kahuna

My Feathercraft Kahuna arrived yesterday and I spent the night trying to assemble and disassemble it.
Took it out for a spin today and it took me only about 25min to assemble compared to 48min last night! Cool...

Had some difficulty rolling and doing side sculling with the kayak at first, especially since the aft deck is high. But I got a hang of it after a few failed attempts. Even managed to do an angel roll and balance brace.

While I was waiting for Aaron to empty his kayak at the beach one of the coaches asked in a demanding tone "Is Cher Huey coming later?". (Cher Huey is the guy who runs kayakasia.org and imports Feathercrafts)
Come on man, is there a need to talk as if I owe you money?

Later I met a Canadian guy who has been on a trip with Cher Huey to Lower Seletar reservoir. He owns a Klepper Aerius II which has to be kept in 3 bags!!! OMG.. but he told me he has been to Malaysia and Riau Islands with his kayak.
He was admiring my kayak and said he will definately get one the next time he goes back to Canada. Haha..

Took some pics for the SIM 1 Star course and disturb the pple a little too.

So anyway, here are some pics.




Rest of them can be found here