Pull your own weight and help your teammates pull theirs.
It was a pretty simple calculation Saturday morning outside Edith Kanakaole Stadium where a handful of teams comprised of Big Island weight trainers and power lifters gathered to celebrate the opening of Summer Jam 2018, the 6th annual event by the Big Island Substance Abuse Council, to promote healthy living.
They come here each year to support a drug-free lifestyle and move very heavy objects, starting with a 25,000 pound bus.
Five teams of 10 participants each lined up and took turns rolling the bus 50 feet on concrete still wet from early morning rain.
Darren Elisaga captained the Hawaii Electric team, comprised mostly of Kona-area contestants, and explained to them how it was all going to work.
“Everybody on the same side of the rope,” Elisaga said, “facing the bus. When we start, pull, pull, pull and when it starts to roll I’ll yell, ‘Run,’ and then everyone turn forward and sprint with all you got.”
It was the first time the Summer Jam used team efforts over single individuals attempting pull the massive conveyance. After the competition, a few individuals, including Summer Jam organizer Hannah Pita, took their best shot at nudging the bus forward, to no avail.
It was left for Elisaga’s team to lead the way, which they did with a certain amount of flair.
“Go, go,” Elisaga hollered at the start and within about three seconds the big bus was on a roll, traversing the 50 feet in 13.68 seconds, easily distancing second-place finishers, the War Pigs (15.09), nudging two other teams, Big Toe (15.14), and Hannah’s Team (15.42). Team BISAC, in its first bus pull attempt, rounded out the contest with a time of 18.50.
You could say HELCO routed the competition, finishing 1.51 seconds ahead of the second-place finishers while the separation between second and fourth was a mere third of a second.
“It’s not exactly rocket science,” Elisaga said after the competition. “If you have the most big guys you can probably get it rolling sooner and then you just run for it.”
Elisaga put himself, the biggest on the team, in the first position on the rope with the other nine members lining up in cascading order by their size. Men, women, anyone can play this game, and at the end, judging by the smiles and hugs, they all had fun.
It’s like that at Summer Jam, with power lifting exhibitions and competitions and a wide variety of food available while mingling through the booths of various support groups.
The fun is what draws people in to a serious subject that BISAC deals with in on a daily basis. This is all about showing people struggling with substance abuse a new way to live, and it continues to produce results.
“I was not in a good place,” said Brandon Torres, 30, a Hilo member of Hannah’s Team, speaking of his own issues. “I had to do something.”
Torres had previously trained with weights and heard about the program.
“It interested me, I wanted to know what it was all about, if it was for real or not,” Torres said. “I found out, This is real, it will help you if you want the help. I’m only a couple months into recovery, so I don’t have years of being clean and sober behind me, but in the short time I’ve been involved here, my life has changed.
“I’m a construction worker, I got my job back,” he said. “I have (health care) benefits, I got my family back. It’s all one day at a time, but now I know how important this (BISAC) program is; I have friends again, it wasn’t that long ago that people didn’t want to be around me.
“It’s just great to be here.”
It will be more of the same next year when the event moves over a couple parking lots to the Afook-Chinen Civic Center. For information on sponsorship or volunteering, see BISAC.org or call 969-9994.