Michael Yu

When Michael lost his sight back in 2009, he thought his life of racing in any sport was over.  Then in 2010, he was invited to try Dragon Boating.  Michael has been going strong ever since. Last year he reached the pinnacle of the sport and was selected to represent two team USA crews in the International Dragon Boat Federation’s World Championships in Thailand.

Michael has worked for American Honda in the motorcycle division for the last twenty five years. He also found the joy of outrigger canoe racing, and became the first blind person to complete the Queen Lili Ukelani short course with a remote-control device called COOP.

Michael enjoys eating out while at race locations with his wife and his second Guide Dog, Devo. He is trying to build the Paradragon division, and currently serves as the US Dragon Boat Federation's Paradragon Committee Chair.

Jeff Liu

Jeff was first introduced to dragon boat racing by a friend from the former Deaf Dawn Dragon Boat team and quickly became passionate about the sport, When Deaf Dawn disbanded, The Blind Start team saw an opportunity to recruit their paddlers and Jeff joined them for a few years before the name was changed to Adaptive Fusion. Additionally, Jeff paddled for the Long Beach Masters and represented the team at the CCWC 2018 in Szeged, Hungary. In 2022 and 2023, he traveled to Sarasota, Florida, for the National Championships and CCWC. In 2024, he went to Ravenna, Italy, for the CCWC in the Paradragon division, representing Adaptive Fusion.

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Jeff is also an avid swimmer and is currently part of the Masters swimming group with the Grunions Swim team. He works at the California School for the Deaf in Riverside, which serving K-12 students in 13 counties in Southern California. In his role, Jeff helps monitor student grades to ensure they pass their classes and advises high school students to help them meet graduation credit requirements. He also teaches health classes for high school students.

Jeff is set to graduate in May 2025 with his second master’s degree in Deaf and Hard of Hearing from the National Technical Institute of the Deaf in Rochester, New York. He is also a certified athletic trainer, having passed the National Athletic Trainers’ Association Board of Certification. He was part of the medical staff as an athletic trainer for the Deaflympics and the Deaf International Basketball Federation World Championship. Jeff earned his bachelor’s degree in Kinesiology from the University of Tennessee and his master’s degree in Kinesiology from the University of Georgia.

Lynda Razo

Lynda discovered dragon boating in 2008 and was instantly hooked. As an employee of Kaiser Permanente, she was recruited to the KP festival team. She honed her paddling skills with various crews in the Long Beach community. In 2010, she created the KP year-round team for SCAL and served as Captain for 3 years, organizing the team structure into the thriving club it is today. She began coaching dragon boat in 2011 with KP Dragonfit and volunteered her skills with Blind Start, SoCal Masters, LARD, and has coached Adaptive Fusion since 2022.

Lynda led teams at Club Crew World Championships in 2014, 2018 and 2023. She was also selected as an assistant coach for the first Paradragon division to represent Team USA at the IDBF World Championships in 2023.

Lynda holds a BS degree in Kinesiology and an M.Ed. specialized in physical education and is a certified fitness instructor who taught fitness for more than 35 years. As coach for Adaptive Fusion, she strives to guide paddlers toward personal improvement wherever they are in capability, and promote team building, fitness and healthy competition.

Steve Kashynski

Steve started dragon boating in 2004 learning to paddle and steer his first year. He started coaching high school festival teams in 2009. By 2014 he was helping coach the SoCal Masters team and in 2021 he was invited to coach Adaptive Fusion. Since then Adaptive Fusion has competed at the Club Crew Nationals in 2021 and 2023, Club Crew World Championship in 2022 and is currently preparing for CCWC 2024. In 2023 Steve was an assistant coach and steersman for the Team USA Paradragon team which competed in the World Championship in Thailand.

Steve was a track & field and cross country athlete in jr. high through college and continued competitive road racing until dragon boating took over his life. With his background in engineering and his passion for paddling, Steve strives to develop and improve his teammates’ skills and considers paddling and coaching to be a lifelong learning and collaborative experience.

Arnold Balais

Arnold is a right above the knee amputee and former National Para Athlete from the Philippines. He is a champion bench press powerlifter and Gold medalist Para swimmer. Arnold was the 1st amputee to successfully climb Mt Apo, the highest mountain in the Philippines.

Arnold started paddling dragon boat in 2016, and is the former Team Captain of PADS, the World Champion Paradragon team. He is also an inspirational speaker and TV commercial model, as well as an alumnus of US department of state Global Sports Mentoring Program (GSMP) 2023.

“I’m honored and humbled by my new role as assistant coach. Rest assured that I will help and share my vast experience to the team. Let's paddle hard and enjoy the journey!”

Heidi Stone

Heidi started paddling SUP in 2011 as a form of physical therapy. It soon turned to training and racing SUP, 6 man & 1 man outrigger canoe and dragon boat, with over 25,000 total miles paddled to date. She has been a volunteer and advocate for adaptive water sports for paddle boarding, surfing, outrigger canoe and dragon boat for many Para organizations.

She was selected for Team USA for Senior B World Championships 2021 and 2023, and was an assistant coach for the first National Paradragons team for 2023 Worlds in Thailand. She has been an ASL signer for over 40 years and assists interpreting for Adaptive Fusion. As a retired graphic designer, she assists with logo and print design & social media, and as an individual coach on 1 man outrigger canoe.

Cathleen Avalos

This is Cat's first year on the Board and she has been paddling for 1 year as a support member.  She is responsible for managing the team funds and bookkeeping. She had some experience with kayaking and stand up paddling before deciding to give dragon boating a try and has enjoyed learning the sport as well as getting to know the team. She has especially enjoyed learning ASL to communicate with the Deaf. Outside of dragon boating,

Cat is a Principal Operations Engineer at SpaceX, enjoys spending time with her husband and two kids, and loves doing escape rooms.

Debbie Bushong

Debbie started dragon boating several years back, with SoCow, which is a summer time festival team. She joined Adaptive Fusion in 2022, and has had so much fun with the team members, along with the paddling.

Debbie was on track & field, basketball, softball, cheer, and band in high school, and track & field in college. She has since stayed pretty active. She enjoys camping, walking, biking and paddling with her personal outrigger canoe.

Debbie was a nurse at the Long Beach VA Hospital for 30 years, and is now enjoying retirement very much. She loves spending time with her husband, who is also a paddler, and her daughter and grandson.

Nea Tatupu

Growing up, Nea excelled at many sports such as softball, basketball and track & field. She comes from an athletic lineage with both her father and brother playing professional football in the NFL and her mother was a state high jumper in Hawaii. When Nea moved to San Diego, she was introduced to Dragon Boating by a friend—and was hooked.  

Nea has been a member of the San Diego Dragon Boat Team since 2016, San Diego Outrigger Canoe Club since 2022, and finished her first year with Adaptive Fusion in 2024. She originally signed up as a support paddler for CCWC. After learning that ADHD/OCD and being neurodivergent qualified her as Para, she registered as Para. She qualified with San Diego to secure a seat for CCWC 2018, and also paddled with SouthBreeze to qualify for CCWC 2018.