The myth of the magical rice is most definitely true. This morning when I put the battery back into the camera and pressed the power button, it acted like nothing had ever happened. The key to the process is once you get your electrical appliance ie. digital camera or cell phone wet, immediately remove the battery and or memory card. Submerge all items into uncooked rice and leave it for at least 12 hours, to allow it to do it’s MAGIC…
Returning to the city is always a relief, and knowing that tomorrow is a day off, the boys want to have a night out tonight. In fact, this will be our last leisurely night out as the tournament begins on Monday and we will be checking in to the hotel to be sequestered. So it was a good ad definitely long night, but also a champions night for some. Right Kenny??
I now have lost track of my days, and must apologize as it can be either the fast pace of each day, scorching weather, or being 12 hours ahead of all of you at home. My body clock has now re-adjusted to Manila time, but living at Camp Krusty makes you lose track of time because of it’s isolated nature, just day and nite, really.
I am just happy to be alive today. Aside from the 100+ degree weather out there and the intense training sessions, our yearly trek to the waterfall took a very dangerous turn. This year, we decided to cross a train track that was built during WWII and was suspended about 1000 feet off the ground. I successfully crossed the bridge and got to the waterfall, but without falling in the stream face first, tripping over my trick toe, and soaking my digital camera.
A couple of the boys told me to stick it in a bag or bowl of uncooked rice, and that it should absorb the moisture and will be fine tomorrow. I’ve never heard of this method, but I willing to give it a shot. And if it works, will use it forever and tell people that it was my idea.
This is a typical day in the Philippines. A task that would normally take a couple of hours, lets say like getting to camp, becomes an all day event. The Philippines Sports Commission lent us a “new” team bus to take to Word of Life bible camp in Laguna, or the infamous Camp Krusty.
An early 8:30am departure time ended up being 10:00am, a 3 hour trip ended up being a 6 hour trip, and all of the minutes of the itinerary sent in a very formal email a month ago became null and void.
Tomorrow I will take you on a tour of the some of the camp and some of the surroundings. It’s absolutely beautiful out here and this is one of the reasons I come out here, to get a grip on my reality and continue to be thankful and gracious for all I have.
The boys have had Barbs on the hook, texting him, pumping him up, and going as far as creating a facebook profile for “Clarissa”, the mysterious woman we met out one night in Manila. Tonite was the night that the champ was to meet his beauty, only to find that he had been duped by his teammates. If you slow down the video, you can actually see where his heart breaks. Classic boyish fun.
Sponsor’s night was tonite also, so we were all in our national team gear, and decided to stay in our kit out for the last big nite before Camp Krusty. This drew proper attention from the paparazzi, as well as all of the other club goers, but after tonite, we lose all of the amenities for some hard training in the jungle.
Camp Krusty is actually a bible camp in the province, in Laguna. It is literally cut out of the side of a mountain, and it is close to nothing. We will be there for the next couple of days, and I’m not sure if there is a wifi connection there, so i’ll keep blogging, but I may not be able to update until Saturday, or Friday nite in Tampa.
I’m serious when I tell you we almost met our end today whilst practicing on the pitch today. Being a citizen of the “lightning capital of the world” I probably should have used better judgment and chimed in to call off practice, but when the lightning actually struck part of the complex, God intervened and said we had endured enough physical punishment for the day.
Training included shuttle runs, 50m sprints, cross field sprint/jogs, a series of 200m and 400 sprints, rucking and mauling drills, passing drills, footwork and tackling drills, and ended with 200m sprints. Only 30 minutes of working on the scrum machine is all we got in today before practice was called to an end.
The rest of the day was spent at the Mall of Asia with time off and some promotional work. Wow, unreal. But what is interesting to me is that how a mall of this magnitude can survive in a true third world country, where 97% of the population is living in poverty and the average monthly salary is 8000 pesos, or 200 US dollars. hmmm….
Okay, so I thought to change the format of my video taking and came up with more content, and less me. What a great day to start that as the first day of training camp at PhilSports was a killer.
The day began with meetings about goals and expectations for this year’s A5N (or Asian 5 Nations) series. This was in the air conditioned lecture room. That would be the last time that we would feel that cool for the rest of the day. In the 100 degree heat, we ran a game of touch rugby after warm ups, followed by a 1 mile timed run, followed by a series of tackling, rucking, mauling and passing drills. We then broke up into our groups and began to work on our technical parts of the game reserved for the forwards. And after 4 hours of training, we capped off our day with a team run.
And so begins another year of Philippine rugby and I am but a year older. I love it. These young men keep me young. Oh, btw, please excuse the F bomb dropped by one of the boys on the last clip, he didn’t realize I was taping and I still don’t know how to edit the sound.
This is gonna be heaps harder to do than I thought it was, or maybe it’s because I got in a day later, but the last couple of days has been a whirlwind.
After arriving safely in Manila, I was whisked directly to the field to meet and greet with all of the new Philippine Rugby officials, got into both matches that afternoon (in which, we won both) and continued on to the Makati night club district to do promotions for our upcoming event.
Tomorrow marks the beginning of camp at one of the Philippine Olympic training centers called Ultra. Just by the way, the temperature here is almost exactly like Tampa, but even in the evening. ahahaaa…talk to you later.
Travel days suck. Not only are the crowded airports, long plane rides and and longer airport layovers enough, but I had a feeling that the day would not run according to plan.
I left a couple of essential items in Tampa, a 4 hour layover turned into a 9 hour delay in Chicago, a 14 hour plane ride to Hong Kong turned into a night in Hong Kong and one day more of travel to get to Manila. Talk to you tomorrow.
I just thought of this great idea…I’m going to create a daily video diary of my trip to the Philippines. Those of you who haven’t been with me since I opened the practice don’t know that I play for the Philippine national rugby team and have traveled all around the world to play for the last couple of years.
I have often said it is a different world out there, especially in the Philippines, especially as an international athlete, and now you’re going to get a taste of my other life.
I’ll begin my travels on Thursday, so until then, enjoy this music video by the Black Eyed Peas celebrating being a Filipino. It’s done in the native language, Tagalog, but it is and incredibly catchy tune and the video is done well. Enjoy and see you very soon!!!
This looks like a promotional clip produced by the California Chiropractic Association about Dr. Terry Schroeder, the current Men’s Water Polo head coach, but also is a Sports Chiropractor. What a great story, but what’s even better is how he’s sharing not only his knowledge about water polo but about life with Chiropractic and how it has improved his athletic performance as a player and how it is now improving his team’s performance as the national team coach.
Here’s a bio on Dr. Terry Schroeder taken from teamusa.org website:
U.S. men’s water polo coach and four-time Olympian Terry Schroeder first began his career as a player, captaining the National Team from 1983 to 1992. During that time, his squad won two silver medals, finishing second to Yugoslavia at both the 1984 and 1988 Olympic Games, and placed fourth at the 1992 Olympic Games. His first Olympic Games was in 1980, so the team did not compete due to the U.S. boycott. He was a three-time All-American water polo athlete at Pepperdine, earning the honors in 1977, 1978 and 1980.
As head coach of the Pepperdine Waves, he led his team to a record of 340-220 (.607) and attended the NCAA tournament eight times, claiming the NCAA Championship in 1997. He was named the 1997 National Coach of the Year, Mountain Pacific Coach of the Year in 1997 and 1998, and the Big West Conference Coach of the Year in 1989. Named head coach of the U.S. men’s water polo team for the 2008 Olympic Games, Schroeder led the team to the silver medal, upsetting Italy, Croatia, Germany and Serbia en route to the medal stand.
* Competed in four Olympic Games and captured silver medals in 1984 and 1988
* Coached U.S. men’s water polo to the silver medal at the 2008 Olympic Games
* As a player, led the U.S. to its first-ever major international water polo win in 1991 by defeating longtime nemesis Yugoslavia
* Coached Pepperdine water polo to its first-ever NCAA Championship in 1997
* Inducted into the U.S. Water Polo Hall of Fame in 1998
