Hello Paddlers
I will write down the race so we can familiarize ourselves with the different steps of the race.
Getting to the start line is always a challenge for the steers person. It may be windy, there may be unfamiliar currents to deal with. Listen to his or her commands and you will get there. You may be called on to move forward a few strokes, only the back two seats may be called on to paddle. You may have to draw, you may have to pry, only some may be called on to draw such as "front left draw, right rear draw". The key is pay attention and listen to the steers person. We will practice this as well.
It always starts the same------Attention please-----Starter has the race, when you hear this your paddles should be buried and you should be ready to start when you hear a whistle or horn. Usually a horn. This is the only time when you are listening for the horn and not your steers person or drummer. The start usually starts from a stop but depending on condition it may be a flying start. The point is always be ready for that horn when you are at or near the start line. The support boats only talk to the steers person. Your job is to move the boat. Anything else that catches your attention will stop your concentration and the start will be negatively affected. During a race no one in the boat talks other then the steers person and drummer.
The first stroke should be strong and gets the boat started. If you can, reach out and give it a powerful stroke. The first two strokes will be called "half, half" as they are first two strokes and they are the shortest to get the boat started. The second two strokes will be called "three, three". These will be about a three quarter regular stroke. The third set of two strokes will be call "full, full". These are normal full strokes as you would normally do. So you can see we build up to our race speed.
The next are the "ups". We did a few of those today. They are faster then the normal pace designed to get the boat planing. You will not have the time to hing or rotate fully. You will most likely use more of your arms instead of your core muscles. These up strokes are relatively short, they will not go past your knees, you will not have the time. We will do two sets of ups. Each set will consist of 6 strokes. The second set will be marginally faster then the first. They will be called as follows, "UP, two, three, four, five, six, UP, two, three, four, five, six". After that we will slow down the rate by calling "long and strong".
We will finish the race with our regular paddling as there is not much time to call for a "power 10" or anything else. Some of you don't know what that is but you will find out. Power 10's are basically called when the drummer feels we are slowing down and the paddlers need to get some encouragement to paddle harder. A power 10 is some extra reach and energy. Some coaches don't like to use them as it sometimes makes things worse and gets the paddlers to loose timing. The dash is not a long enough race to worry about them.
The whole race call will be as follows, HALF, HALF, THREE, THREE, FULL, FULL, UP, TWO, THREE, FOUR, FIVE, SIX, UP, TWO, THREE, FOUR, FIVE, SIX, LONG AND STRONG, PADDLE UNTIL YOU HEAR LET IT RUN. I think if we can do 1 stroke per second for our regular paddle, that should be good.
I am told that timing is important and it is. Where you take your timing ques from is not so clear. Timing is traditionally taken from the first two paddlers know as the strokes. This is why you will sometimes hear the coach telling you to look at the front of the boat. We are fortunate to have two very good strokes in the boat but when you can not see them you will have to look for a different place to get your timing. This is why we have two strokes in the middle of the boat. Look at them if the front of the boat can not be seen. Sometimes when I am in the back of the boat I look in front of me outside the boat and look at the paddles going in the water and if I see a few of them going in in time that is where I take my timing from. As long as you can stay in time with the rest of the boat it really does not matter where your timing comes from. If you have trouble with timing try one of the other methods above or tell me and we can try to solve the issue. Maybe we have to move you to a different seat so you can see. If you are not comfortable in your seat you will not be as effective as you could be so tell me and we can try to fix the problem. The strokes take their instructions from the drummer and he or she will tell them to go faster or slower by talking to them or changing the rate of the drum. We have not discussed a drummer but we do need one. And we should have a volunteer soon so we can practice with a drummer. We will put on the seat and see how the volunteer will work out.
The stroke is also important. Long reach and hinging forward will let the person behind you reach. Rotation will also help you reach farther forward. Once you have reached to about your hip your stroke is over. Anymore pulling at this point is counter productive. You will actually drag the boat down and that is not what we are after. Once we get the boat planing with our ups we do not want to suck it back down by powering our paddle way past our hips. If you power past your hips you will feel like you are really giving it but it is not doing any good. It will slow the boat down. One more thing about the stroke, keep your top hand over the gunnel. Everytime you drop your hand in the boat it causes the boat to rock. This will slow the boat down. It also takes time to drop your top hand in the boat taking time away from moving the boat with your paddle. The more eficient we can paddle the faster we will go. Including myself we are not as young and fit as some of our competition, but we have patience and determination.
When I took the coaching course I was told by the coach teaching us that technique will usually win the race over brute strength. So if we can manage to learn some basic good habits and technique we will do well. In Whistler last year I watched the Canadian National teams and the winner did not have a fast stroke rate but they hinged and rotated very well. Like, really well. The more time the paddle spend moving the boat correctly, not past your hips, the faster the boat will go. Later we will get into the recovery where you will try and move the paddle back to the catch (the point where the paddle enters the water) very quickly so the paddle can spends more time in the water to move the boat more effectively. Last year that was called "snapping the paddle back".
I did not intent to write a manual on paddling but there is a lot to know. Please don't get discouraged by all the things you read here. Take one thing that is not working for you and try to improve that. Try and focus on one thing at a time. Tell me and we can all focus on that one thing as most paddlers find the same things difficult. There is more and we will get into that later in the season. One more thing I will say and that is that the dragon boat is not a pleasure boat. By that I mean it has one purpose. To go from one point to another as fast as we can make it go. Usually 500 meters. There are 2000 meter races but we will most likely not have a chance to do them as last year they cancelled them in Whistler and you need to so some endurance training to do that. We also do obstacle races in the dragon boat but we have only done them here on the coast in the final fling. This does not mean we will not use it as a pleasure boat and go sight seeing from time to time. We will take the boat out of the Garden Bay area and go snooping around at other places. If there is enough interest we can go camping some place overnight. But the boat is made for racing. That is what the Dragontinis do best. I have seen some amazing paddlers on this team and this year is no different. The new paddlers are catching on very well and you will know that because I don't hear many paddles hitting.
