Play the Game of Life
Ryan Petersen's Blog

Right now I am nearly unable to sit down, get up, walk, move my arms or any other part of my body wihtout intense pain. The other day I got an email from a new friend from school inviting me to pizza. I haven't had good pizza ina long time and he said he knew the best pizza joint in Shanghai, so of course I was down. At the dinner I met a Fillipino guy who is into"dragon boating." This sounded like a lot of fun, the images in mymind involving a leisurely sightseeing ride on the historic Yangtze River...

We met up with our crew, about 15 people from around theworld, at a local Starbucks where our bus took us to the Shanghai Acquatic Center. I was in good spirits as we began the day with a 1mile jog, did some brisk jumping jacks and stretches and distributed the paddles (no life vests since this is China). As I walked onto the boat I naively thought how my experience canoeing all summer in Annapolis would prepare me and that I would show these people a thing or two about paddling.

Soon however, I realized the reality of dragon boating is far closer to internment on a Viking slave ship than any boating we do on the Severn River. For the next 2 hours we paddled full steam ahead, in unison, as though there were some important purpose to what we weredoing. I found out later there is an important purpose. Rather than a pleasure cruise, I had in fact signed up for training with a sponsored dragon boat team that travels all around Asia for competitions. I think I did okay for a beginner and certainly felt good about myself for toughing it out till the end. And I made several new friends and at the end of it all I decided I would go back next week for more slave-driving. But, I just took a nap and, waking up, realized that both my ass cheeks are severely bruised, my back will not bend properly, and my arms barely reach above my head. Major second thoughts about pursuing this new sport...

Labels: china, my favorite posts