Dragon Boats

My friend Maryann asked if I wanted to try Dragon boating with her. I said, "Sure, Why not?". Actually it is something that somewhat interested me anyway and this seemed like the perfect opportunity to try it out. Maryann discovered this group through meetup.com called dynamic paddlers. The group is comprised of experienced dragon boats teams that conduct open sessions for people like us who want to try it.

So today we headed to Betzwood park to try dragon boating. For those of you who don't know a dragon boat is like an oversized canoe. There are ten rows of seats which each seat 2 paddlers each. In a competition there is a drummer at the front but we did not have one of those. In the rear there is the steer person. I'm sure there is a proper name for that person but I forget what it is.

We were given basic instructions on how to hold the paddles and how to use them in the water. We climbed in to the boats gingerly. The river is low at this point and rocky. So we had to walk into about our knees and then 'climb in' one at a time.

I knew this would be a hard workout but it was even more so than I imagined. Most of the work is in your core not your arms as I thought it was. Let me try to explain the motion.

I started out on the left side of the boat so My left hand is at the bottom of the paddle just above the paddle itself. My right hand on the top of the handle. We measured the lenght of the paddles by hold the top under our arm and reaching out the the paddle part. The tip of my fingers just reached the top of the paddle.

Ok so in ready position you place the paddle on the gunnel (edge) of the boat with the paddle pointing forward. Then at attention you hold the paddle just above the water perpendicular to the side of the boat reaching forward. Your body is turned toward the middle of the boat.

The stroke then is to put the paddle in the water and turn your body torward the front draggin the paddle through the water and raising it out just when it reaches your hip. Repeat the stroke by turning your body toward the center and reach forward with the paddle. It's about as hard is it is to read all that!

You have to look up (not down at the paddle in the water) and watch the handle of the person in front and diagonal from to keep the timing. I had that wrong for a while. I kept looking at the handle of the person in front of me and kept hitting my hand on the side of the boat (it hurts).

So we practiced the timing first. Then they explained about power strokes and "up". Power strokes involve putting more pressure from your top hand and dragging the paddle back forecfully. so they would say "Power 10 on 2" We'd take 2 regular strokes then 10 power strokes.

"UP 5" meant increasing the speed every 5 strokes. "Take me home" was a sprint to the finish.

there were two boats and we 'raced' and tried to stay even and then once our boat went out ahead and tried to stay ahead of the other boat.

In total we were out there for about 2 hours. It was a very hard workout. I will feel this in my midsection and arms tomorrow I'm sure. It was fun but i'm not ready to commit to a team right now. They practice three times a week and I need that time to focus on Phillyfit right now. They said we could 'drop in' another day though if we wanted to.