On Saturday, May 6, Dragons Abreast Illawarra will host a Biggest Morning Tea fundraiser at the Illawarra Rowing Centre in Warrawong. The Flame spoke to Helen Bent about the group, the sport and how dragon boating can help breast cancer survivors stay well
Twenty-one years ago, Windang breast cancer survivor Helen Bent, along with other members of the Illawarra Breast Cancer Support Group, took up dragon boating for their health and founded Dragons Abreast Illawarra, a group that later inspired the region’s first Dragon Boat Club.
“Because it’s a team sport, our motto was ‘fitness, friendship and fun’, which is still our motto to this day,” Helen says.
It’s certainly one she lives up to.
On Saturday, May 6, aged almost 80, Helen will be up early for a ‘Pink Paddle’ on Lake Illawarra before joining her dragon boating friends for their Biggest Morning Tea Cancer Council fundraiser, an event she helped to organise at the Illawarra Rowing Centre on Northcliffe Drive.
The Morning Tea fundraiser has been a feature on the dragon boaters’ calendar for many years. “We’ve always supported the Cancer Council in their activities,” Helen says.
“It’s a social event as well. People bring a plate and we have raffle prizes. We have a $5 entry fee, and there’s a lucky door prize with that. The games are usually a gold coin to compete, or whatever people want to give.”
Helen was one of the members of the Illawarra Breast Cancer Support Group who helped found the committee for Dragons Abreast Illawarra. None of the women had any experience in paddling – they were in for the health benefits, specifically how the sport could help prevent lymphoedema, a chronic condition involving the swelling of the lymph nodes or vessels that can occur after breast cancer treatment.
“I was diagnosed with breast cancer 31 years ago,” Helen says. “I went through all my treatment and so forth with very few problems. I joined the Illawarra Breast Cancer Support Group, which was very big in those days. And the breast care nurse at the time decided that we should start dragon boating.”
The idea that strenuous and repetitive paddling would be good for breast cancer survivors was a new one, originating in 1996 with Dr Don McKenzie, a Canadian exercise physiologist and a kayaker.
“He decided that upper body movement would be very good for preventing or helping with the lymphoedema,” Helen says.
“Before that we were more or less told to not do too much activity, especially with the affected side, we were told to be careful. We still have to be careful … if you get an infection or even a little cut or something, it can spread to lymphoedema.”
A year after her cancer treatment, Helen contracted lymphoedema but thanks to physiotherapy it was soon treated.
“I haven’t actually got rid of it,” she says, “it’s still there in my system, but it hasn’t shown any recurrence of swelling. A lot of that is probably due to exercise and dragon boating – upper body exercise.
“But dragon boating is also a whole body activity because you use your feet and your legs to stabilise yourself. You’re sitting down, so you use your core.”
“Dragon boating is an activity that helps with the movement of the lymph through the body.”
The Dragons Abreast movement first landed in Australia in Darwin, then Canberra and then the Illawarra. In 2002, Helen and her friends went to the Darling Harbour Dragon Boat Festival to learn the ropes. “It all led from there,” she says.
“We were the third group to start in Australia. It has spread from us, from those first three groups and I think there could be over 50 groups now, in the whole of Australia.
“We belong to Dragons Abreast Australia, that is our main body. And we all paddle in pink.
“I started off as a paddler. And then I became a sweep, the helmsperson at the back with the big oar … and then later on a coach.”
Not only has the sport kept her in good health into her late 70s, it’s also led to world travel and lifelong friendships.
“Every four years, the Dragons Abreast commission holds a regatta somewhere in the world. My last one was Venice, five years ago – that was wonderful. It’s a sport that you can travel with and you paddle as a team, you support each other.”
“All our holidays were based around dragon boating and travel. It was a good way to see the world. And it was a good way to be with friends.”
After its first few years, Dragons Abreast Illawarra led to the formation of the Illawarra Dragon Boat Club, founded in 2009 by Helen and four others: Catherine Holland, Lesley Gal, Sylvia McMullen and Cheryl Rigby.
“We had people like husbands, carers, other people with not as much connection with breast cancer, but wanting to paddle,” Helen says.
So the Dragons Abreast members started a new club, welcoming men and women.
“The Illawarra Dragon Boat Club is a more competitive group. But it’s a group that anyone can belong to from the age of 11 up to whatever.
“At the moment, we have 25 survivors and supporters, who are called the Pinks. And then we have 60-odd people in the Dragon Boat Club.”
In two decades in dragon boating, Helen says highlights have included travelling, making friends, coaching school sport and community teams, getting new people paddling, and organising the dragon boating component of the Shellharbour Festival of Sport.
"Some of our members have gone on to represent NSW in the state team," she says.
“My highlights have been the travelling, and the fact that my husband and I could do it as a couple. We could do things together.
“But also doing things like becoming a coach and sweep, which was something I never would’ve dreamed that I would do.
“I always was a bit sporty, but it was mainly like netball when I was younger and then we walked a lot, we bushwalked. So it [dragon boating] wasn’t something that I ever knew anything about.
“We did the marathons, we paddled the Ord River, a 55km marathon; Vogalonga, which was in Venice; The Four Bridges in Hobart."
Helen stepped down from coaching earlier this year, but still enjoys a morning on the water with her crew and another club founder.
“Catherine and I are still active members in the club. We have a Pink Paddle once a month.
“The Pink Paddle involves everyone wearing pink. It’s not just for the breast cancer survivors and supporters, it’s for our whole club, the Illawarra Dragon Boat Club, and they come along and we get out on the lake in our pink.”
“It’s a good opportunity for people who want to come for the first time to have a go, because it’s not a competitive paddle or a training paddle, but just learning how to dragon boat, the technique, a gentle paddle around the lake.
“Which is really nice for people who are getting on, like me,” she adds, laughing.
Want to try dragon boating?
The Illawarra Dragon Boat Club paddles on Saturday and Sunday mornings, and Monday and Wednesday evenings. The club has three dragon boats: its original wooden Light of the Lake, an ex Dragon Boat NSW craft and their most recent acquisition, a racing boat made of fibreglass for regattas. There are up to 10 pairs of paddlers per boat. New members are welcome.
For more information on Dragons Abreast Illawarra, go to their Facebook page or call Ann on 0434 563 095 or Helen on 0403 844 880.
Dragons Abreast Illawarra’s morning tea will be held upstairs at the Illawarra Rowing Centre, 251 Northcliffe Drive, Warrawong. From 10am, Saturday, 6 May, entry $5, plus gold coin donations to enter games. Everyone is welcome to attend.
