How to train for dragon boat racing
Dragon Boat Technique For Beginners - How To Paddle
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[Music]
hey everyone welcome to paddles up
my name is nevin mccabe and today we're
going to be just going over some of the
basics about how to get you started on
paddling in dragon boat
to begin with we're going to show you
the paddle and we're going to talk about
the different parts as well as where to
place your hands
after that we're going to go into some
technique and talk about every component
of moving through the stroke
and then finally if you stick around
long enough we're going to share with
you some tips and tricks about how to
take your paddling game to the next
level
to begin with we obviously need to go
over the tool that you'll be using for
your entire dragon boat career which is
the paddle
and when looking at the paddle we have a
few different parts we have the handle
we have our shaft and then the final
part which is going to be making contact
with the water is your blade
as far as how to hold your paddle you're
going to have two hands on this thing at
all times
your top hand is going to be whatever
hand is inside the boat and will be your
off hand for the sport
and as you grab this you're just going
to put one hand right over the top of it
almost in a false grip motion if you're
familiar with that term
and making sure that you're not gripping
it too tight so as to cause hand
strain and cramping as you're going
through the race as far as your main
hand which will be your outside hand on
the boat
this is going to go right above where
the shaft meets the blade
where it goes exactly it'll take some
time for you to figure that out
a lot of people will recommend one
fist's length above the blade is where
you should place it
and it's also good to note that as long
as your coach or your team is okay with
it it is perfectly all right to place a
piece of electrical tape or another
marker
in order to make sure you know where to
place your hand every single time
from that point on a full motion is
going to look like this so with my right
hand or my main hand
this is outside the boat and i would
place this here with my top hand here
and we're going to make sure that it
stays parallel with what would be the
side of the boat in that case
now that we've gone over the basics of
the paddle we are going to go into some
basics of
what the form looks like as you're
moving through the motion of paddling on
the boat
now it's important to note here also
that we will be using an erg machine for
all of our purposes
but that is not necessary in order for
you to practice these basic techniques
even if you can sit on the side of a
couch or a chair and grab a broomstick
again you can see in this case that we
don't even have a blade on the end of
this one so as long as you have
something that can act as that blade for
you you can work on these basics at home
now to begin with we have four
components of our basic stroke we have
what is called the setup
we have the extension we have the catch
and then finally we have the press which
will lead right back into your setup
those four components uh put all
together are going to comprise your
entire stroke which will look something
like this breaking that down into
individual parts our setup
is our first part of the stroke and and
this is how you're going to set up as
soon as the race begins to start
when we get into this position you're
going to want to make sure that your
back is nice and straight that your hips
and your in your body make a 90 perfect
90 degree angle
and all you're going to do is put your
your outside hand over your inside hand
straight up outside the boat this is
what comprises
our setup portion of the paddle from
here we move into extension
and the only difference with extension
is that we are going to rotate forward
now it's very important that you notice
that i'm not leaning forward as i do
this
we want to keep that same straight back
you can bend at about a 30 degree angle
at the most
and then all we do is rotate our body so
that our back is facing the outside of
the boat and our chest is facing the
inside of the boat
again from our setup to our extension
now from extension is where we're going
to actually make contact with the water
so if i go set up to extension our nest
our next piece is the catch
and for the catch all we are doing is
dropping our paddle into the water
now this should make a perfect straight
line so if this is my extension
this is my catch notice i'm not leaning
more into it to get more length
and i'm not pulling back as i do it and
rotating the opposite way
from extension to catch the final
component of our stroke is going to be
pulling back
on the water and propelling yourself
forward from our catch
we're going to rotate out of that
movement
and drop our hand giving ourselves the
the motion or giving ourselves the power
for that motion here
so again going through the motions so if
i'm relaxing
set up extension catch and then
pressing with our top hand and letting
this hand just serve as a guide
as we move through and rotate through
the motion to bring the paddle to our
hip
another find another important thing to
notice is that by the end of your
of your of your pressing movement your
outside hand is going to be roughly at
the same level as your heart or right
where your chest is at
and your inside hand should be right
around your hip it's also very important
you don't press
further and pull back behind the hip
because you create a negative movement
with the paddle which causes drag and
ends up slowing the boat down entirely
putting this all together we're going to
go from setup to extension
to catch and then finally on our press
and put it all together in one fluid
movement
i'll start slowly at first and move more
into it as a fluid movement once we get
into it
so here we go setup catch extension
press set up extension
catch press setup extension
catch press okay
so now that you've seen this you know
the basic components of how to complete
a stroke on the dragon boat
and you can work on this technique in
order to make sure that you're ready for
your next race so now that you've made
it this far into the video i want to go
over some common tips and tricks to help
you avoid the pitfalls that a lot of
beginner paddlers make
to begin with one is going to be in
reference to your outside arm
a lot of people when they begin paddling
they like to as they're going in for
their setup and their extension
like to bend their top outside arm as
much as they can because they think
they're gonna get more power out of it
and you end up with what we end up
calling the chicken wing
it's very important to avoid the chicken
wing instead what you want to do as you
are setting up and as you're extending
is you can start with your arm straight
and then bring it back about 15 degrees
and what this is going to do is it's
still going to give you some power where
you're engaging your bicep but it also
adds a bit of stability
without taking away from your reach
so as we set up and we move forward you
can see that i have that slight bend
in my arm and i'm ready to press into
our next movement
beyond that another common pitfall that
paddles will fall into when they begin
is as far as their pressing motion and
how far they're going back
now it seems at first glance to be
common sense that if you're gonna go
through the water you wanna pull as hard
and as deep and as far back as you
possibly can in order to get the most
out of that swing
but what you see in that case is that
not only have i gone negative
and i've lost a lot of the momentum for
my muscles but i'm also
based on the shape of the blade now
creating a negative angle for water to
catch the blade and actually slow down
the boat
so in order to correct this what i want
you to do as you're going through these
movements
is to make sure that we go set up
extension
and as you go through your catch
movement you want to make sure that your
back stays straight
your top hand your outside arm ends up
at about chest level aligned with your
heart
and that your bottom arm doesn't go in
past your hips before you start your
recovery process
in full motion this would look like this
your extension
and we catch and bring back and you can
see that i terminate with my hand
at my heart level and my other in my
inside or my outside hand
at my hip level the final pitfall that i
want to go over with you all
is the fact that a lot of paddlers when
they start paddling think that the
momentum
from their from their stroke comes from
their bottom hand and so what you'll see
a lot of times is paddlers going through
here
barely touching this top driving hand
and just pulling as hard as they can on
the bottom
like that uh it's very important that
you recognize though that your bottom
hand is really just stabilizing the
paddle as you move through the walker
it's making sure that you stay in a nice
straight line
and that you don't deviate from that so
you're all of your momentum can go
straight forward as you propel the boat
but a lot of your driving force actually
comes from your top hand
so as you're going through these motions
and you're practicing the four portions
of each stroke
i want you to make sure that you're
emphasizing the press down
of your top hand in order to gain your
momentum again you should almost be able
to just relax your outside hand as it
just stabilizes you through the water
you can see i can do a false grip and
press through and get the same
end goal as if i were to death grip it
and do the same thing
so save yourself that time on the on the
boat so that you don't get cramped in
the middle of a race
another important note though is that i
should still be able to do this even
open palmed because like we talked about
earlier you don't want to death grip the
head of the paddle either
what i want you to do is focus on
pressing with the palm of your hand
okay so as we set up you should even be
able to take your hands off of the
paddle completely
and still get force as you go through
the component
and you can see here that i'm not even
gripping the top of the paddle
and i can still generate force and stay
in a nice straight line
without fatiguing either of my arms
thank you so much for watching this
video we really hope you enjoyed it
we are a growing channel so please if
you could share this video with all of
your teammates and as well subscribe to
our channel let us know if we could do
anything differently
and we'll see you in the next video
[Music]
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