Dragonboat Blog | The Dragonboating Resource

dragonboat talk for dragonboaters.

San Francisco’s Rainbow Koi Team- a wide ranging team consisting of many colors, encompasses of homosexuals, transgender and the straight alike. As it appears, the team is as unique as its name, harbouring still the same strong bond of a dragon boating team. The team was put together with Gay Asian Pacific Alliance along with the Asian Pacific Islander Queer Women and Transgender Community last 2004. Michael Ellis was its first coach, along with Jean Danao as its first captain.

Rainbow Koi became San Francisco’s Rainbow Koi dragon boat team last 2004 when they were discovered by a 10 year veteran coach Jeniffer Eng at their novice race at Lake Merced, San Francisco. On its second season, the team became a part of the Recreational Division. With it’s motto: “Fierce and Fabulous!” the team was able to bring home a silver medal in 2006 at the first out games in Montreal, Canada. They later snatched a gold medal at Kaiser Permanente San Francisco International Dragon Boat Festival in the Rec C Division.

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Best paddling technique for Dragon Boat from Kirby Mark

Kirby Mark who has been paddling for a few years made some compilation of guidelines and pointers to the dragon boat strokes to improve your technique. Lots of paddlers give thanks to Kirby Mark for assembling this useful information for them.

This comprehensive information has been based on the many aspects of Dragon Boat and Outrigger training and racing with documentation readily available for sports like canoeing, kayaking and for general fitness. This post is a bit focused on Outrigger Canoeing or Dragon Boating. The overall objective is to define the general training principles for similar sports that you can relate to a precise scheme to efficiently improve and enhance paddling performance.

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From the time of early China up to this present day, in remembrance of Qu Yuan, dragon boat races are still performed. Every fifth day of the fifth lunar month which is the anniversary of his death, people eat zong zi, and do several other activities.

There are a lot of things to see in Dragon Boat races and the most thrilling part of the festival is the crowd of people that are there to witness and participate in the event. Generally, Dragon Boats are brilliantly painted and decorated with some shades of Chinese old ancient tradition. It varies from 40 to 100 feet in length, including their heads which shaped-like a hearty dragons, while the firm end has a flaking tail. It has the capability to handle 80 powered rowers including drummer and a flag-catcher. Before the start of the festival, a dragon goes through a certain ritual called “brought to life”. This is done by painting the eyes in a sanctified ceremony. Races have no definite numbers of boats that wants to participate and compete, with the winner being the first team to grab a flag at the end of the course. Once a year, dragon races are held all over China, Macao, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and other countries around the globe.

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What happens at the 2008 Montreal Dragon Boat Regatta?
The Montreal International Dragon Boat Regatta is a 2 days event with approximately 150 teams participating. Each team should have at least 21 paddlers plus a cox and a couple of spare paddlers.
This is really a big event together with all the participants, spectators, vendors, staff and volunteers surrounding the area. The rankings on this sports event are from A to G Division depending on the numbers of teams participating. Each division was then divided into three categories namely the Premiere, Intermediate and Rookie.

This year competition was a bit watered down because most of the top teams were not in attendance as they were in Penang, Malaysia for the 2008 6th World Club Crew Championships and as a result some of the teams that were not usually belong in the A Division category was subsequently ranked as such in this regatta.

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Arizona will be hosting it’s 6th Annual Dragon Boat Festival for 2009! The boats will be in the water but out in the dessert! A very exciting event.

For more information, visit: http://www.azdba.com/Festival/festival_index.htm

Dates: March 28/29, 2009
Venue: Tempe Town Lake

Teams who are interested in paddling at the 1st Putrajaya Dragon Boat Festival held in Malaysia should visit their website at: http://www.putrajayadragonboat.com to register

The festival is held between the 5th – 7th June 2009.
Venue is at the Man made lake of Putrajaya, Malaysia.