[Music]
primary to what I would be talking about
to you today is my own personal
experience in sports that has shaped my
profession as a sports psychologists let
me start by giving you a background of
why I am in this field because many of
my friends and colleagues asked me why I
am in sports psychology and if this is
where huge money is that’s why I got
training in it one thing’s for sure in
the Philippines there is no money here
as they say it is all for the love of
the game I have been involved in sports
beginning five years old at the age I
mean I played soccer with my brother’s
was trained by my father in tennis my
mother encouraged me to play volleyball
did gymnastics briefly I played
basketball in intramurals because back
then I was the tallest in our class not
anymore now did Taekwondo and played
varsity in softball hence I had sport
involvement sin both team and individual
sports but I’ve always preferred to do
team sports I have learned so much from
sport participation as an athlete I
learned about punctuality or the
importance of punctuality to training
sessions and race competitions the
principle of obedience to my coach the
value of respect for our coaching staff
and teammates and the essence of months
of hard training for just a days race or
game so growing up these values I
carried on to the other aspects of my
life outside of sports I have come to
believe in the power of sport
participation
shaping the needed qualities required to
live in this world
hence apart from being born in a family
of athletes I had a childhood dream to
help athletes develop their full
potential so from being an athlete I
moved towards coaching a softball team
there were challenges one was to make
people wake up early in the morning that
was the most challenging parts another
was to deal with individual differences
differences of one’s and needs of
athletes and different personality
characteristics I remember I asked one
athlete at a game why she was late she
responded and apologetically and flatly
I woke up late I thought then that that
was the only level of struggle one goes
through in coaching a team until I
started dragon boats so Dragon Boat is
yet an emerging field in the provinces
of the Philippines even when the country
started participating in it in the
international Z scene in the 21st
century
so in Dumaguete we started it in 2015
and being one of the pioneers there has
been various challenges through training
and competitions to enhance paddling
skills and psychosocial skills the
pioneering team team hilarya has 31
members as of the moment and they are
aged 14 to 50 years old five art
students three are working part-time 23
are working full-time 21 are males and
10 are females so if you’re interested
you can always join in managing and
coaching a dragon boat team there have
been three major challenges one is a
challenge
on shifting from an individualistic
mindset to a collectivistic mindset
most of the paddlers came from
individual sports triathlon marathon
rock climbing making it difficult for
them to adapt a team mindset especially
that the dragonboat sport is actually
the ultimate team sports even with
paddlers who came from another team
sport like frisbee they have been
observed to feel very challenged at
embracing the fact that in dragonboat
everyone has to be really totally equal
in terms of performance level so you can
be either as strong and fast or weak and
slow as everyone else to move the boat
forward at the most synchronized manner
as possible so to show you let’s watch
this video
[Music]
[Music]
[Applause]
[Music]
[Music]
you know okay fine fine all right so
it’s bragging time for me that was my
team
Alera at last year’s Baraka
International Dragon Boat Festival that
was her first heat and we were actually
more than one boat ahead of the others
that was our best time so far
so we’re trying to break that this year
the other teams were so impressed Sui
overheard an international athletes say
they are so small but they are very
strong because height in Dragon Boat is
actually an advantage and as Filipinos
we were way shorter than many of our
competitors we did not get to this
performance level the easy way there was
so much hard work in the months of
training in pool land and gym we also
did yoga and we did Zumba when it was
raining and we couldn’t use the OVA and
we also improvised training when
necessary so this leads me to my second
challenge there has been found a
difficulty in developing a full
understanding of the importance of
training there were those who thought
that a few weeks of intense training
before a race has the same performance
effects two months of training I use
different kinds of strategies to keep
people in training so from games from
games to rewards for perfect attendance
to posting motivational quotes and
videos in our page to eating together or
socializing
we had we had fun but they all had a
shelf-life in the end I had to resort to
an autocratic style of coaching as I say
to my team bitch mode on and that
somehow actually kept people in training
but not everyone was kept in training
with that autocratic style others
started hating me so for example one
former team member posted this in social
media she was taken out from a race line
up because of misconduct in retaliation
she posted this and took it down right
away but a teammate caught it took a
screenshot and sent it to me this
paddler never improved in her one year
of jagan boat participation but she
wanted to be one of the best paddlers so
how do you connect the two another was
kicked out of the team because of
disrespect to leadership she gave me a
fist sign behind my back after I talked
to her about being a model to the
younger ones because she was behaving
really badly and she was one of the
older members and she was 47 years old
so she hated me for talking to her one
other paddler resented me for pointing
out her mistake when we were analyzing
race she refused to admit she needed to
improve there were those who disliked me
when I emphasized their lack of training
they believed in themselves that they
were still good paddlers even with
sufficient insufficient training and so
this leads me to my third challenge it
has been the most challenging to deal
with individual differences because
there is an awareness of the
importance of the psychosocial skills or
aspect of athleticism
there is a strong desire to see this
demonstrate that overtly by the paddlers
given the various intervention
strategies now it is observed that in a
dragon boat team whose membership is
voluntary so much of the commitment and
dedication to the sport should be
intrinsic opposite to the set of
paddlers I indicated earlier our
paddlers who have been observed to be
intrinsically driven they show up a
training did what they were required to
do a training even if it was very
challenging physically and mentally
listen well to instructions and respect
decisions of their leaders especially at
race day and these were those who have
improved in paddling and psychosocial
skills in a very short period of time
than expected more interestingly because
the nature of Dragon Boat requires for
full synchronisation of all paddlers no
one will stand out so unlike other
sports or team sports there’s no most
valuable player there is no best
goalkeeper there is no best striker or
highest pointer so if someone is highly
egoistic because one’s ego has an
intense need for appreciation and
recognition Dragon Boat will be most
challenging to the person so for these
kinds of paddlers they want to be Pacers
why okay these are the Pacers they are
the ones in the front so once you have
the front seat it feels good right I
often hear people say oh wow pacer no
kaha so the pacer position seems to be
the most prestigious one and that there
is the impression that Pacers are the
best paddlers that’s actually entirely
wrong
that’s the Pacers are those who do not
get agitated okay they are the ones who
can pace themselves well from the word
Pacers they have to be able to learn the
skill of maintaining a particular pace
because it is necessary for a dragonboat
to be synchronized and all the rest of
the paddlers behind them will follow
they define the pace of the dragon boats
the middle paddlers the middle paddlers
should be the strongest paddlers because
this is where you put the bigger body
paddlers or individuals and it is
assumed that your power in paddling is
proportionate to the size of your body
the paddlers at the end of the boat will
serve as a turbo and they should be
powerful enough to push the boat and not
drag it so each paddler in the boat have
specific special roles if all paddlers
are equally strong and powerful just
imagine how fast and efficient the boat
will run the signal or we also called
the drummer has to know what stroke to
call how to motivate the paddlers and
most especially how to read and analyze
the race the steerer is the driver of
the boat she or he has to make sure that
the boat is moving to the right
direction
one false movements of the steer will
make or break the team’s race therefore
given the nature of how Dragon Boat
Works a highly egoistic person will
definitely be miserable in the sports so
to be successful in the Dragon Boat
sport there are two characteristics that
need to be present in a paddler one is
having a strong core and this is common
among many athletes in sports science we
call this as your strong abs in any
sport you need strong abs this is your
core because this is primary to high
levels of performance paddlers need to
have the strong core to have strength
endurance and power and you can only
attain this if you commit and submit
yourself the sufficient amount of
training in my personal experience as an
athlete team manager and coach and
professional experience as sports
psychologists there is another kind of
core for paddlers or athletes to achieve
high levels of performance and this core
is what makes us
survive life’s challenges and in the
context of and in the context of Dragon
Boat this is what makes a paddler
resilient to the challenges that come
along determined and committed despite
the hardships in training disciplined
and understanding the technicalities of
the sports and most importantly
dedicated at improving the self into
becoming a better athletes this core
will make or break an athlete especially
immense pressure in Psychological terms
we may refer to this as our ego if
sufficiently strong is the shield that
protects us from falling apart thank you
[Applause]
[Music]
primary to what I would be talking about
to you today is my own personal
experience in sports that has shaped my
profession as a sports psychologists let
me start by giving you a background of
why I am in this field because many of
my friends and colleagues asked me why I
am in sports psychology and if this is
where huge money is that’s why I got
training in it one thing’s for sure in
the Philippines there is no money here
as they say it is all for the love of
the game I have been involved in sports
beginning five years old at the age I
mean I played soccer with my brother’s
was trained by my father in tennis my
mother encouraged me to play volleyball
did gymnastics briefly I played
basketball in intramurals because back
then I was the tallest in our class not
anymore now did Taekwondo and played
varsity in softball hence I had sport
involvement sin both team and individual
sports but I’ve always preferred to do
team sports I have learned so much from
sport participation as an athlete I
learned about punctuality or the
importance of punctuality to training
sessions and race competitions the
principle of obedience to my coach the
value of respect for our coaching staff
and teammates and the essence of months
of hard training for just a days race or
game so growing up these values I
carried on to the other aspects of my
life outside of sports I have come to
believe in the power of sport
participation
shaping the needed qualities required to
live in this world
hence apart from being born in a family
of athletes I had a childhood dream to
help athletes develop their full
potential so from being an athlete I
moved towards coaching a softball team
there were challenges one was to make
people wake up early in the morning that
was the most challenging parts another
was to deal with individual differences
differences of one’s and needs of
athletes and different personality
characteristics I remember I asked one
athlete at a game why she was late she
responded and apologetically and flatly
I woke up late I thought then that that
was the only level of struggle one goes
through in coaching a team until I
started dragon boats so Dragon Boat is
yet an emerging field in the provinces
of the Philippines even when the country
started participating in it in the
international Z scene in the 21st
century
so in Dumaguete we started it in 2015
and being one of the pioneers there has
been various challenges through training
and competitions to enhance paddling
skills and psychosocial skills the
pioneering team team hilarya has 31
members as of the moment and they are
aged 14 to 50 years old five art
students three are working part-time 23
are working full-time 21 are males and
10 are females so if you’re interested
you can always join in managing and
coaching a dragon boat team there have
been three major challenges one is a
challenge
on shifting from an individualistic
mindset to a collectivistic mindset
most of the paddlers came from
individual sports triathlon marathon
rock climbing making it difficult for
them to adapt a team mindset especially
that the dragonboat sport is actually
the ultimate team sports even with
paddlers who came from another team
sport like frisbee they have been
observed to feel very challenged at
embracing the fact that in dragonboat
everyone has to be really totally equal
in terms of performance level so you can
be either as strong and fast or weak and
slow as everyone else to move the boat
forward at the most synchronized manner
as possible so to show you let’s watch
this video
[Music]
[Music]
[Applause]
[Music]
[Music]
you know okay fine fine all right so
it’s bragging time for me that was my
team
Alera at last year’s Baraka
International Dragon Boat Festival that
was her first heat and we were actually
more than one boat ahead of the others
that was our best time so far
so we’re trying to break that this year
the other teams were so impressed Sui
overheard an international athletes say
they are so small but they are very
strong because height in Dragon Boat is
actually an advantage and as Filipinos
we were way shorter than many of our
competitors we did not get to this
performance level the easy way there was
so much hard work in the months of
training in pool land and gym we also
did yoga and we did Zumba when it was
raining and we couldn’t use the OVA and
we also improvised training when
necessary so this leads me to my second
challenge there has been found a
difficulty in developing a full
understanding of the importance of
training there were those who thought
that a few weeks of intense training
before a race has the same performance
effects two months of training I use
different kinds of strategies to keep
people in training so from games from
games to rewards for perfect attendance
to posting motivational quotes and
videos in our page to eating together or
socializing
we had we had fun but they all had a
shelf-life in the end I had to resort to
an autocratic style of coaching as I say
to my team bitch mode on and that
somehow actually kept people in training
but not everyone was kept in training
with that autocratic style others
started hating me so for example one
former team member posted this in social
media she was taken out from a race line
up because of misconduct in retaliation
she posted this and took it down right
away but a teammate caught it took a
screenshot and sent it to me this
paddler never improved in her one year
of jagan boat participation but she
wanted to be one of the best paddlers so
how do you connect the two another was
kicked out of the team because of
disrespect to leadership she gave me a
fist sign behind my back after I talked
to her about being a model to the
younger ones because she was behaving
really badly and she was one of the
older members and she was 47 years old
so she hated me for talking to her one
other paddler resented me for pointing
out her mistake when we were analyzing
race she refused to admit she needed to
improve there were those who disliked me
when I emphasized their lack of training
they believed in themselves that they
were still good paddlers even with
sufficient insufficient training and so
this leads me to my third challenge it
has been the most challenging to deal
with individual differences because
there is an awareness of the
importance of the psychosocial skills or
aspect of athleticism
there is a strong desire to see this
demonstrate that overtly by the paddlers
given the various intervention
strategies now it is observed that in a
dragon boat team whose membership is
voluntary so much of the commitment and
dedication to the sport should be
intrinsic opposite to the set of
paddlers I indicated earlier our
paddlers who have been observed to be
intrinsically driven they show up a
training did what they were required to
do a training even if it was very
challenging physically and mentally
listen well to instructions and respect
decisions of their leaders especially at
race day and these were those who have
improved in paddling and psychosocial
skills in a very short period of time
than expected more interestingly because
the nature of Dragon Boat requires for
full synchronisation of all paddlers no
one will stand out so unlike other
sports or team sports there’s no most
valuable player there is no best
goalkeeper there is no best striker or
highest pointer so if someone is highly
egoistic because one’s ego has an
intense need for appreciation and
recognition Dragon Boat will be most
challenging to the person so for these
kinds of paddlers they want to be Pacers
why okay these are the Pacers they are
the ones in the front so once you have
the front seat it feels good right I
often hear people say oh wow pacer no
kaha so the pacer position seems to be
the most prestigious one and that there
is the impression that Pacers are the
best paddlers that’s actually entirely
wrong
that’s the Pacers are those who do not
get agitated okay they are the ones who
can pace themselves well from the word
Pacers they have to be able to learn the
skill of maintaining a particular pace
because it is necessary for a dragonboat
to be synchronized and all the rest of
the paddlers behind them will follow
they define the pace of the dragon boats
the middle paddlers the middle paddlers
should be the strongest paddlers because
this is where you put the bigger body
paddlers or individuals and it is
assumed that your power in paddling is
proportionate to the size of your body
the paddlers at the end of the boat will
serve as a turbo and they should be
powerful enough to push the boat and not
drag it so each paddler in the boat have
specific special roles if all paddlers
are equally strong and powerful just
imagine how fast and efficient the boat
will run the signal or we also called
the drummer has to know what stroke to
call how to motivate the paddlers and
most especially how to read and analyze
the race the steerer is the driver of
the boat she or he has to make sure that
the boat is moving to the right
direction
one false movements of the steer will
make or break the team’s race therefore
given the nature of how Dragon Boat
Works a highly egoistic person will
definitely be miserable in the sports so
to be successful in the Dragon Boat
sport there are two characteristics that
need to be present in a paddler one is
having a strong core and this is common
among many athletes in sports science we
call this as your strong abs in any
sport you need strong abs this is your
core because this is primary to high
levels of performance paddlers need to
have the strong core to have strength
endurance and power and you can only
attain this if you commit and submit
yourself the sufficient amount of
training in my personal experience as an
athlete team manager and coach and
professional experience as sports
psychologists there is another kind of
core for paddlers or athletes to achieve
high levels of performance and this core
is what makes us
survive life’s challenges and in the
context of and in the context of Dragon
Boat this is what makes a paddler
resilient to the challenges that come
along determined and committed despite
the hardships in training disciplined
and understanding the technicalities of
the sports and most importantly
dedicated at improving the self into
becoming a better athletes this core
will make or break an athlete especially
immense pressure in Psychological terms
we may refer to this as our ego if
sufficiently strong is the shield that
protects us from falling apart thank you
[Applause]
[Music]
Please follow and like us: