sd steering clinic

thanks to mike, i was referred to teaching a steering clinic for the new san diego dragon boat alliance. they've been holding tournies for a few years, but have been borrowing the sd team's boats and staff for them. they finally bought four of their own boats this year, but at their annual tournament in april, all the boats were involved in capsizes or swamping. :( mike, who was helping to run the tourney, suggested that in order to avoid capsizes and such, the steers should be better trained, and told linda to contact me about teaching a clinic down there.

scdbc had a bit of a relationship with the alliance already. a few years ago they sent a steer up here to attend a clinic, and two years ago ucsd sent two steers to be tested. i was pretty surprised they would want to drive that far for a couple hours of instruction (or for testing, which takes even less time), but hey, if they don't mind, we certainly don't either. but for a large group, it of course makes more sense for me to go down there, rather than having them all come up here.

anyway, mike said that i should teach the clinic myself, rather than sending someone else like we did for an NAC steer training session a few years ago. he also said that i should charge. i was definitely nervous, since i've never taught a clinic before (altho i have sat in on tons), but i figured that this was a good opportunity. a lot of the steers were going to newbies, so i figured i could handle that. and i've tested many an advanced steer, so i figured why not.

i won't bore you with the details of the clinic, except that i think it went well. turns out i know more than i thought i knew! and their most experienced steer has only been steering for 1.5 years and i've been steering years longer than that. i think it was a great experience for everyone involved. everyone learned something, including me. i also got to spend time with annie g, went to dan kim's wedding bbq/pool party, met his new wife, and i made a couple hundred bucks too.

also, i think in the grand scheme of things it was really good. dr chen helped the alliance get the boats and mike and gary helped them with their earlier race (and the three of us are going to help with another race in a couple weeks). and i think it'll be "useful" for the socal dragon boat clubs to be friendly with each other. steering wise, scdbc is on pretty good terms with all the other groups here in socal, but the sd alliance will probably be the 2nd largest in just a couple seasons. i don't at all mind helping them during their infancy so they don't waste time reinventing the wheel. also, an sf steering board member and i talk and have been thinking of more closely aligning our programs, so maybe cali will kind of unite as a whole (even tho scdbc will probably never be under the cdba).