By: Sharon Jackson
In between lectures and essays, I will always have Dragon Boat. There is nothing like being on the open water with the wind in my face while gliding with focus through the Willamette on a warm spring day. Oh, and it is a full-body workout as well. It is the beginning of a new season and I feel like a full-body bruise, but that is all worth it for the experience in the end. It is an amazing feeling when 20 paddlers, on a more than 2,000-year-old boat with a Dragon head, synchronize to maintain a rhythmic power as if nothing in the world can stop us. An even better feeling is when we place first in a race – Rose Festival here we come! But most of all it is worth the relationships that are gained and the immediate trust that continues to grow among us. We row as ONE. And only then, I am able to continue to my class – Oui, parler en française.
