Cebu 'cascades' its way to another Guinness world record

A small group of people with a dream can conquer the world. Apparently, in the case of the chairman of Cebu City Sports Commission Ed Hayco, you can conquer the world more than once. Thanks to Hayco’s selfless efforts and vision, Cebu City owns another Guinness World Record, this one for most board games being played simultaneously. Cebu staged the world’s largest chess tournament. Cebu not only broke the previous world record, they pulverized it.

Previously, Krasnoyarsk City in Russia set a new standard of 1,214 participants playing chess on June 2, 2007. Cebu City’s new mark? A staggering 43,157 kids playing chess. The tournament spanned seven months, culminating in the Cebu Chess Festival held on Jan. 21 and 22 of this year.

Hayco and his wife Eleanor started Dancesports Team Cebu City modestly over a decade ago simply out of their love for the sport and their wish to share that passion. They had a plan, since not everyone had the means to afford world-class coaching. So Ed and Eleanor instituted their “cascading” policy. They would teach the dancers for free, if the dancers agreed to teach for free. This was the only way they could multiply their talent base. They also made the conscious decision to let go of those who were talented but bad for team chemistry.

“Our thinking was simple; we wanted people to give what they had received,” says Hayco, a respected, soft-spoken businessman in Cebu. “Cascading is simply volunteering to share what you know.”

In the years since, Dancesports Team Cebu City has turned heads constantly. At the start of the previous decade, they began dominating quarterly ranking competition of the Dancesport Council of the Philippines. In 2005, dancesport was introduced into the Southeast Asian Games in the Philippines and held in Cebu. The Philippines won both gold medals even before the opening ceremonies, setting the tone for our most successful SEA Games. They soon had summer classes with thousands of students, with instructors who were purely volunteers. Then two years ago, they pushed to obliterate he existing Guinness World Record of under three thousand dancers in one class.

With their massive student base, it was easy to harness all the raw talent. After some intense rehearsals, they went for it. Cebu set a new Guinness World Record of 7,770 dancers, more than double the previous mark. Actually, Hayco confided that they had over 10,000 dancers, but he wanted to have only the truly talented ones performing.

In the case of chess, it was a little more difficult. Though Hayco had helped initiate free summer clinics in over a dozen sports (including chess), they had nowhere near that many chess players, not even a thousand reasonably competitive players. And on top of that, they did not have enough chess instructors.

Again, cascading would make the difference.

On July 13, 2011, over 750 public school teachers, sports coordinators, Physical Education and other teachers volunteered to become the training corps to target 43,000 kids on how to play and compete in chess. The volunteers were trained by 22 volunteer trainers, members of the Cebu Chess Federation for three consecutive months in 20 locations all over the city in a Chess Coaching and Officiating seminar.

After three months, the trained teachers were unleashed onto their students, and started teaching chess during PE classes, recess, after school and on weekends, whenever they had the time. From October to December, classroom tournaments were held. The momentum was building. A wide field was narrowed down to 32 champions from each of the 100 public schools involved. The tournament organizers made it a point to follow the guidelines set by Guinness World Records, including keeping tournament record forms and detailing classroom and school levels. Members of the Cebu Chess Association served as witnesses and experts to make sure the rules were followed.

Finally, a week and a half ago, Cebu City Sports Commission received word that Guinness had ratified the new record. Their first record (and Manny Pacquiao) made it into the 2011 edition of the Guinness Book of World Records. That would be the next hope, that this new record likewise receives that added recognition.

Amazing what a little cascading can do, isn’t it?

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Follow this writer on Twitter @BillVelasco.