Dragonboat Blog | The Dragonboating Resource

dragonboat talk for dragonboaters.

Winter can be a tough time of year when it comes to your health. Its cold out, gets dark quicker, and with all of the holidays and surrounding activities there just doesn’t seem to be the time to keep to a regular exercise routine. Many people hang up their paddles in winter, but if properly equipped, dragon paddling can still be enjoyed and risk minimized.

Cloth

Some paddlers take spare clothes in a waterproof pack. If they get wet, they go to land to change into dry clothes. Avoid clothes that are highly absorbent and slow drying. Cotton is poor, wool is better, but many synthetic materials absorb little water and are fast drying. Polyester or polypropylene clothing is popular because it is effective in moving moisture away from skin and into outer layers of clothing, where it can evaporate. It is fabricated into both thin materials and fleece-like piles. Dress in layers to allow for adjusting to variable weather. Waterproof shells are important as an outer layer to add protection from the cooling effect of wind and evaporation. Breathable shells allow water vapor to escape but keep wind and water out.   

Proper Footwear

Weather and condition appropriate closed-toe footwear should be worn. Neoprene socks and booties are great for cold water paddling.

Sun Protection

Sunglasses, sunscreen, and lip balm should be worn even on cold days when the sun is out. It’s amazing how exposure to the sun while out on the water can really have damaging effects on your body even when it isn’t that hot out. The lip balm will also help protect you from unnecessary discomfort caused by the wind.

Water and Snack

Even if you are only going to paddling for a short period of time it is essential to bring a full water bottle with you. It is quite common for paddlers to become dehydrated due to the combined effect that the sun and wind have on the body even during the winter periods. Also, you will be expending a lot of energy even if you don’t realize it so be sure to bring a snack so you don’t get light-headed from hunger.

Paddling is indeed great exercise, providing fantastic aerobic and cardiovascular effects as well as upper body strength. Enjoy paddling in winter!

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.

Read more »

About Dragon Boat Program
A company called Dragon Boat Program located in Vancouver, USA has a number of courses they run that helps maximise a dragon boat paddler’s potential. There are a series of classes or workshops, clinics, and weekend or weekly camps that run throughout North America. These classes or workshops have been individually tailored so that any paddler wishing to develop their dragon boat skills will be able to do so through a one on one coaching program.

The Dragon Boat Program brings together numerous state and national coaches that will help train novice to elite Dragon Boat Paddlers all in a structured training environment to bring the best knowledge and skills to the program.

They also have programs that are dedicated for corporations and businesses allowing them to do team building sessions and mix in fitness to their busy work lives.

What Programs Are There?
Dragon Boat Program offers numerous tailored programs that is suitable for most dragon boat roles, e.g. paddler, steerer, coach, team manager:

Below are the following different programs currently available:

• Novice Paddler Program
• Intermediate Paddler Program
• Advanced Paddler Program
• Dragon Boat Coaching Program
• Elite Coaching Program
• Novice Race Officiating Program
• Basic Race Officiating Program
• Race Officiating Program
• Steering Certificate Program
• Competitive Drumming & Calling Program
• Festival Management Program
• Fundraising & Sponsorship Program
• Time Trial Program

How Much Does It Cost?

The Dragon Boat Program compared to other courses is at the top end and starts at $600 (before the 1st December 2008) for each individual for a 5 day program. It goes up after that date.

Other similar courses I have heard from other companies cost:

Great White North: $425.00
Double Fifth San Diego: $600.00
Water’s Edge: $750.00

You can visit their website for more information at http://www.dragonboatprogram.com or you can contact them at:

Telephone: 1-971-222-3679

There is a firm belief in the dragon boat world that sychronised paddling stands above all the muscle and power athletes has to offer in a full boat. If paddlers are not synchronised to the two lead strokers, then more than likely the last two paddlers at the end of the boat will be out of sync. For example, a pair of paddlers takes their cue from the pair of paddlers sitting immediately in front of them, then each successive pair of blades hits the water a fraction of a second behind the blade just in front of them. This is similar to a domino effect or cascade / card deck riffle. So to an onshore observer, this resembles the movement of a many-legged caterpillar or centipede called the “Caterpillar” effect.

A great Dragon Boat contributor, Doug Sinclair wrote the following:

Out of Time

• You need room between paddlers to paddle clear water
• Timing between paddlers would be much more difficult to manage
• The boat run is constantly working against you because it never quite gets up to its sweet spot of speed where drag is minimal, thus your workload is constantly more than it needs to be.
• How does the stroker know when to take the catch again?
• How fast can you repeat the cycle before it totally fowls (when one gets out of sync)
• The boat is effectively being paddled by the equivalent of about six people at one time (given the relativity of amounts of blade in the water at any one time), and if you’ve done training where 3 or four rows paddle and drag the passengers you will know how tiring that is

The benefits of sychronised paddling:

• Absolute maximum power at one time to propel the boat forwards
• The chance of a synergistic outcome from a combined effort
• The boat run has sufficient momentum where all paddlers have a chance to take a graceful recovery and rest in that cycle of the process. Thus recovery of energy for better long distance endurance and more power per stroke consistently throughout the race
• Synchronous paddling means you can go to whatever rate your crew can sustain and when needed you can switch the rate upwards very sharply for more gain such as in the lift to the end
• Timing is easier for all paddlers because they take their lead from the stroke seat

Synchronised Paddling - Photo courtesy of David Liu

What do most people think? Do you believe that it’s important to keep in Sync with the whole crew or can it be possible that the Caterpillar effect may work in Dragon Boating?

Add your comments below.

Press play to begin streaming the audio or right click the download link and choose save as or save link.

[podcast]http://www.dragonglobe.com/podcasts/George_Louie_Interview.mp3[/podcast]

• Download the MP3 [ 12 Minutes - 11 MB ]

George Louie, coach of Sydney’s DSA Dragonboat Club has been enthusiastically paddling for over 25 years and shares with us how to improve your dragonboat paddling. Louie also was the NSW State team head coach, guiding the NSW team to win every category that they competed in at the National competition in Canberra in 2005. (I can confidently say we did because I was there to be part of the win) This success on the water over other states gave NSW the right to represent Australia at the Berlin World Championships.

In this Interview George shares with us…..

• How he got involved in Dragonboating
• His new “Elite Development Program” that is designed for the average paddler wanting to take their dragonboat paddling to the next level.
• His recommendations for new paddlers starting out

This interview should serve as a serious inspiration for anyone who wants to improve their dragonboat paddling as George is an excellent coach and definitely knows what he is talking about from experience.