By MA. THERESA M. REYES
PAUL Mascarinas had modest expectations when he was drafted last May to be steersman for the dragon boat team at De la Salle University (DLSU). He booked a flight to Malaysia convinced that his alma mater’s 22 paddlers, mostly competing in an international race for the first time in September, could reach the semifinals at best, but would not bring home any medals.
“Thank you for proving me wrong,” the beaming sport enthusiast told his teammates at the end of the Sarawak International Dragon Boat Regatta last September 7. DLSU’s crew of 16 men and 6 women had won not one, but two medals – the silver in the 500-meter mixed 12-seater small boat race and the bronze in the men’s open, also in the small boat category.
This motley group of students and alumni from Taft Avenue, ages 17 to 23, had faced off with 19 teams from Australia, Canada, Brunei, Hong Kong, Macau, Singapore, Thailand, Taiwan, Malaysia, the Philippines and Indonesia. Two other Philippine teams — Bugsay Boracay and Filipino Dragons (Singapore), composed of Pinoys based in the city-state – joined the regatta.
But the DLSU team, which had no coach because it could not afford his plane fare, was fiercely determined to win.
“It was all heart,” according to John Racpan, team captain and a senior engineering student. “We were apprehensive because we didn’t know the competition, the other teams we were up against. But I said, ‘So what?’ Let’s just focus. Think only of yourselves.”
For sure, individual members had their doubts and fears when they flew to Sarawak on September 3, lugging their worn and chipped wooden paddles. These were the same old ones they had been using in past races and during the intense training for this competition that conveniently fell on their school break.
When the team reached Kuching, capital of Sarawak on Borneo Island, the members’ anxiety grew on discovering that all the other contestants used carbon fiber paddles which are lighter (and more expensive at P8,000 to P10,000) than their wooden ones (cost: about P3,200, excluding shipping fee since these have to be imported usually from Singapore or Hong Kong) that were two to three years old.
Their heavier paddles placed DLSU at a distinct disadvantage, but it was not the only challenge to contend with.
The team also lacked life vests, a requirement in international races which the DLSU paddlers were not accustomed to wearing in the first place. The vests provided by the organizers, they soon learned with dismay, were bulky, uncomfortable, and restricted movement. The team ended up borrowing the slimmer and lighter life vests of Bugsay Boracay and Filipino Dragons (Singapore), which later pledged to donate vests to DLSU.
To make matters worse, the current on the Sarawak Waterfront was very strong and they had to paddle upstream. The race course was curved instead of straight, making it harder to navigate; and the wind was blowing hard throughout the entire competition.
Things did not look good. The team’s collective heart sank.
Night before the start of the race, the Green crew from Taft huddled for a last attempt at a much-needed pep talk. They resolved to leave behind all problems and concentrate on the competition. They committed to give their best, their all.
The crew’s secretary general, Miguel Luis Reyes, stressed the importance of team work and the ability to adjust to one another because movements on the boat must be synchronized.
“If your partner slows down, you must compensate. You slow down and the rest of the team is set back. You destroy the rhythm and synchronization is lost,” he pointed out.
“Everyone has to be on the same page on the boat. You have to be of the same mindset,” Reyes, who studies applied economics, continued. “You have to trust each other that you will give 110% effort because it’s really tiring and grueling. You have to trust that all your teammates will compensate for you when you become weak and tired. At the same time, you have to trust yourself that you won’t be a burden to others.”
So the DLSU paddlers were pumped and raring to go. They were as ready as they could ever be.
After all, they had been preparing for the Malaysian regatta since June, waking up at the crack of dawn to be at the Manila Bay or the DLSU pool by the 4:30 a.m. call time. Four times a week, they had boat training from 5 to 6 am. On Tuesdays and Thursdays, they practiced twice a day, paddling and swimming as well as having land training which consisted of a workout focused on strengthening and endurance.
They mastered the A-form, concentrating on their core to maintain the proper paddling posture. The team’s daily mantra was “haba, lubog, hila.” Haba refers to the paddler’s longest reach; lubog is the effort to dig deep with the paddle and scoop as much water as possible; hila is to pull as hard as you can.
“We had these words written on our thighs. When we would feel weak and want to give up already, we would look at our thighs and read these words. Then we would keep paddling,” Reyes said, chuckling at the memory.
At the end of every training, the team would assess their performance and constantly figure out how they could improve. They pushed themselves to the brink, beyond the limits they thought they had.
All the hard work paid off.
The first day of the games began with a false start in the initial race that dampened spirits all around. They quickly recovered, however, when DLSU won first place in the two other contests they joined – the mixed 500-meter half-boat race and the men’s open also for half-boat.
DLSU topped the mixed race by a comfortable lead of eight seconds or about the length of a full boat. This boosted the team’s morale and it suddenly dawned on the paddlers that they could actually bring home a medal. Stoked, the paddlers pushed harder.
“We told ourselves we can do this. We can do better. We kept telling each other, ‘puso!’,” Racpan recalls, noting that it was really their passion for the sport that earned the medals for DLSU.
“Without that passion, we could not have won. We could not have reached this point. It’s very hard to wake up at daybreak every day. You have to love the sport to do it,” he grins.
Racpan credits every individual on the team for the success in Malaysia — Raciel Catacutan (team president and signal, open half-boat race); brothers and engineering students Erico (co-captain, men’s division) and Buck De Leon (pacer, half-boat race); Meniah Galanza (co-captain, women’s division), Cyrus Umali (logistics officer), Riggs Justine Dizon (pacer, mixed boat race), Aric Valenzuela (head of human resource), Miguel Martinez (pacer, open half-boat race), Pancratius Dela Rosa (signal, open full-boat race), and paddlers Micah De Guzman, Illurosa Lim, Rona Jade Santos, Miguelito Navarrete, Steffi Caunga, Vince Areño, Michael Gacad, Marvin Salcedo, Gabby Nisay and Luigi Lago.
Towards the end of the regatta, paddlers of the other teams, especially the Australians and Canadians, were shouting “puso” (even though they didn’t know what the word meant) whenever a DLSU crew member passed by. It had become a salute.
When they raced, the other Filipino teams cheered for the indefatigable DLSU team, the paddlers who refused to quit. Camaraderie, respect and kinship had replaced doubts and fears. DLSU had earned it all.