Promoting Philippine Autocross in Rev UP! 18th Diliman Motorshow

Hey guys! I've been doing some promotion events for Philippine Autocross Championship Series. This was my first of many planned talks for this year. Take more of a look in my motorsports blog, Flatoutivan. Hit the link to check it out!

Women in Sports Nationwide 2013 Volleyball Clinic: QC Edition

I have been with the Women in Sports Nationwide Campaign since 2009 and I am happy to still be here teaching one of the many sports I love to the volleyball community of teachers, coaches, students, and players. Through Women in Sports Nationwide Campaign, I have taught in Marinduque, Pagadian, Puerto Princesa, Marikina, Tayabas, Cebu, and finally for the opening of 2013, my home city, Quezon City.

A project of commissioner Hon. Akiko Thomson-Guevara of the Philippine Sports Commission, the Women in Sports Nationwide Campaign is aimed at promoting women awareness and participation in physical fitness and sport activities. The volleyball clinic is a 3-day course aimed at teaching the latest trends in volleyball for the Filipina women.

Explaining movement systems to both teams for better team cohesiveness.

Coach Jarod giving instructions before the drills

Me, Coach Jarod Hubalde, Vice-Mayor Joy Belmonte (forth from left), Atty. Jay Alano (fouth from right), and other coaches.

Click here for my experience teaching at Women in Sports Nationwide 2011 in Puerto Princesa : 
http://flatoutivan.wordpress.com/2011/11/01/volleyball-clinic-in-puerto-princesa-palawan/

Click here for my experience teaching at Women in Sports Nationwide 2011 in Pagadian :
http://flatoutivan.wordpress.com/2011/09/13/teaching-volleyball-in-pagadian/

Finswimming Inter-class Competition in UP Diliman 2nd Semester SY 2012-2013

This second semester's 2012-2013 school year finswimming inter-class was sanctioned by the Philippine Finswimming Federation, Inc. Truly supported by the county's national sport association of finswimming, all fins and snorkels were lent to the students for the whole semester and during competition day. Secretary General of PFFI, Mary Ann Reyes conducted the inter-class together with finswimming coaching instructors, Ivan Isada and Thor Manlangit. A total of four classes of service PE for finswimming joined the sanctioned event. 

The University of the Philippines Finswimming Competition is a program to develop, find more potential finswimmers and of course, to help propagate the sport of finswimming for entry level to the sport. As of now, finswimming is already recognized in the SEA Games and has now paved a future for new and experienced finswimmers.

To check more pictures of this event you can check: http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.164798823673445.1073741825.100004299851142&type=1

For more information about Finswimming in the country you click this link to go to 
PFFI's website: http://philippinefinswimming.com/
PFFI's facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/philippine.finswimming

March 2013 Lumpoton

My transition area!

I'm not sure why it was named Lumpoton, but in Filipino, lumpo means cripple or paralyze. With the "-thon" added to lumpo, it isn't necessarily a marathon of crippled or paralyzed people, but more of what may happen as a result of participating in the Lumpothon. In any case, the event is a brainchild of UP Varsity Swimming Coach Noel Rivera's activities for his aquatics' elective class in the College of Human Kinetics, University of the Philippines Diliman. The course was a comprised of a continuous 600 meter swim, 4.4. km bike, 400m swim, 4.4km bike, 200m swim, 2.2km bike, than a 200m swim again.

As a resident faculty who hangs out by the pool to swim after classes, Coach Noel invited me to join his event. I wouldn't really say "no" to such an exciting and conveniently hard core activity. So I made time and joined in. Coach Noel offered to lend me one of his bikes for the race and I just had to come in prepared. Prepared I was! Except my hesitation was recalling if I still knew how to bike as I have not done so for a very long time. I was comfortable with the swim as I practiced at a regular basis. The bike part however was something I could have under estimated. I always remember biking as easy and fun. I biked all the time when I was 7. Being older, unidentified body pains and increase of lactic acid could spring a surprise if I wasn't careful, more so after the swim event. Luckily, before the day of the event, I was able to borrow another bike of a fellow junior faculty to practice on. Balancing, cramping, unknown leg pains, tackling uneven courses were a few things I had to re-learn. The pre-event practice did serve its purpose of helping me gain confidence in the bike event.

The day came for what I call "recreational competition". Resident varsity swimmers, serious and recreational multi-sport athletes, the aquatics class of Coach Noel, set-up their transition areas and readied themselves for the start. I took off with the group of swimmers in front so that I wouldn't be one of those getting kicked during the washing machine start of a multi-sport swim event. I paced myself good but as expected, all the swimmers would have finally overtaken me by the first 150th meter mark. All good though, as I had to prepare myself for the bike event. After the first 600m swim,  the bike event went rather good, we had to pass by a transition road which had a lot of potholes on broken asphalt. The mountain bike I had lent took it smoothly and this was my first experience of riding a bike with front suspension. A good thing was that I knew how to adapt to such suspension and disc brake set-up that the bike because of the experience of having to drive rally cars. During the first segment of the bike event I had to cope with a bunch of student activists blocking the road, for two rounds around UP's academic oval. I had difficulty also with gear selection of the bike and just so that I was sure with the equipment I was using, I opted not to change gears fearing I might have technical problems and ruin a race I would really want to finish. It was all good until the end of the race. I paced myself well and finished the event first in my age group (haha, that was a cheat to be the only one there), but happy to have finished third in the swim-bike category. I was pleased with my performance for someone doing it for fun and for fitness. I officially clocked in 1hr21mins35secs. Quite a long event I would say but really pleasing a the end. I'd do it again that's for sure!

A lot of thanks to Coach Noel and a speedy recovery because he had an accident at the start and couldn't continue on with the race. Thanks for the helmet, bike, and invitation. This kind of events make me feel truly alive!

Review: Played in the Ateneo Basketball League 2013

The pictures do better justice than the videos. Cross over? What?!

I have this love-hate relationship with basketball. I think Michael Jordan is awesome. On the other hand, I don't really fancy watching NBA these days. I like playing and being in a game, but its style of contact leads me to think of the high risk injuries that could set me back in other sports and daily activities. I've never also been as satisfied playing in a serious game. That is up until now.

A jump shot? Every game.

My high school classmates yearly join in a basketball league, the ABL also known as Ateneo Basketball League. Every year our high school batch still comes together to play a game of hoops. It is nice seeing old friends during the league but playing in a rather serious league wasn't exactly what I thought would be fun and satisfying. I remember joining and having a measly 1 point for the whole league two years ago. My playing time was almost just a minute of two quarters. I'd find myself spending money and time not being truly satisfied compared to other many sports I do participate in. So I haven't really played since then, plus the fact that my weekends were occupied by work with other sporting activities that also fall on a weekend.

Things changed however early this year. I found it funny finding myself on the court again after my classmates asked if I could join. The fact that my class/team could barely make a proper starting line-up with extra guys to fill in, I said I'll be there to help out for those literally running out of breath. Lucky the schedule for work and play had allowed me to give it another go. I had not expected to have an awesome season of just playing three games out of the seven. I was scoring an average on 7.3 points per game. If it was the official stats, it was 9.3 per game (wherein I am sure the statistician had me mistaken for someone else). Definitely, all of this was far off from the previous seasons and other games. I still do have trouble finding good judgement and proper footwork on the court but I managed to get things done. I found myself also being the highest percentage scorer in the team. I scratch my head how this could have happened. Has a personal Ivan-sanity just happened? Every game, I managed to have a shot from under the ring, a fast break lay-up, and a perimeter shot! Awesome, but how?

Goofy foot fast break lay-ups.

It would find difficult to assess and to considered truth on how I managed to surprise myself. Maybe all this time as a coach and athlete, psychologically, what I have always been telling, teaching, reminding my players and students has actually been a part of how I go through any activity. I could now relate such thought to any sport I could involve myself in. A deep assessment made could only still make me ponder if it is really true, or a thought I'd like to believe in. Other factors are the maturity of the people I was playing with in the team, my classmates have really grown over time. There seems to be this unspoken agreement of how we play. I find it funny we still talk about the same things but, as my classmate, Joboy Quintos would say, "the ABL effect". I think the next step for us is to actually agree on set plays but I see that most are already happy with a system that works inside the court without having to consider the result. Only now is there a matter if we want to be more serious and how we balance having fun and being competitive. A challenge any recreational team would have. But as of now I still think its all about enjoying good competition with good old friends inside the court that makes things worth it. Winning would be a bonus as I always say. We did not manage to get that this year, but I can't say I wasn't happy with how I managed to play this season with the D-boys. I wouldn't mind doing it again.

Thanks guys (D-boys)! I still find it a good run on a personal level. This season just might have been a sacrificial year for the next seasons.

Maroon Pride Magazine

Get a free copy of Maroon Pride, the official magazine of the UP Fighting Maroons from the UPAA Office, Bahay ng Alumni in UP Diliman, Quezon City. The magazine features the UP Lady Maroon teams, mainly volleyball, swimming, table tennis, and badminton. 

You can read the magazine online: http://issuu.com/maroonpride/docs/maroonpridev1n2?mode=window