January 30

Nice day for a great paddle team! we managed to have a pretty good hour workout- with some boat-to-boat competition, that was kind of fun!

And Karen "im-a-huki-winner" Jewel took the till and did an excellent job at it! Look forward to us giving more tiller experience at the end of each practice. Its good for everyone to have experience on how to react when a boat gets taken away from the tiller, and it happens to the best of experienced steerers, ask Jerry, Susie, Suzanne, anyone! Plus it builds on our experience and depth of talent in the club.

WOW! Can you believe how many new folks showed up?!?!?Even with cloudy skies and cooler temps- BIG THANKS to Judith and Meet-Up.com for encouraging the attendance- and to Andi and the rest of you for bringing food and friends to the beach on Sunday.

Lets hope we can keep them on board with us as we strive to build the teams and membership.

We logged in a little over 3 and 1/2 miles in our hour together- Stay tuned as we use the blog to give you information on what to expect in future practices and how we plan to prepare for Tempe, Long beach, and San Francisco!

And for those of you who have an interest in trying out for the USA Teams heading to Tampa in August, we will also keep that information posted here.

Its all good, and its all going to get BETTER!

January 23

HeyTeam! GREAT turnout Sunday- optimum weather and enthusiasm. The wind was holding back and really let loose as soon as we left the parking lot!

I hopped over to the OC demo at Santa Clara, and by 11am it was howling! Ask Roberta and Kim (Survivors) as they were testing some oc's that day.. Steve and Judith were over there too.

Thanks to Jerry and Susie for taking the 10man steering group on a crash(less) course of dragonboat steering- its just a first lesson gang- so no one gets to toss in the towel! Time at the till, time in the boat... its all about practice, and we promise to give you that time as we move forward these next few months.

The 30th is orientation day- and it could be "rewarding" for you to recruit serious participants to the team, there is a financial incentive program in place: if you recruit and 3 of your recruits sign up and pay their membership- your member ship dues are FREE! How great is that!?

We have a great day planned:

we will meet and get on the water by 8am- DONT BE LATE! we wont wait

work out til 9

meet and greet the recruits at 930 (Judith already signed up 38 people!)

introduce the stroke and the sport, then get YOU to help teach them the basics- its a teach-to-learn philosophy- so please plan to stay! and paddle with them until 1030

Afterwards, we will EAT! (bring something to share)

Looking forward to a great day Sunday!

January 16

I hope you all feel like you accomplished a little bit with respect to gaining a better understanding of what the stroke should look and feel like, and how close you are to getting it "right".
Previous coaching with Les has given you all an excellent starting place, and some of you have improved greatly from one season to this. We are fine-tuning and adjusting the little things that, when added up, can make a huge over all difference in competition.
Film is a valuable asset to our program, please do not be afraid to get filmed. We are all, on some level, self-conscious and we all, myself included, can learn a lot from being filmed and critiqued.
I will review the film again, and make individual comments and email you some clips to help solidify the areas that you need to concentrate on- as well as allow you to ask us specific questions so we can clarify in as many ways possible what we are hoping to achieve.
"in as many ways possible" - may not make much sense, but often times I think I am explaining something and it makes clear sense, and then Mike,Jeannette or Lisa will say the same thing in a different way- and suddenly its all clear to you.
Dont be afraid to ask us.

Excellent job today team- thank you Steve and Dave for teching out the pop-up studio, thank you Jerry for steering us, and thank you Marshall and Lisa for the stationary boat set-up.
Have a great week team- see you Sunday!

Reminder: Sunday the 23rd: we have Jerry and Susie offering a steering clinic towards the end of practice- for those interested- please plan to stay.
Dont forget to RECRUIT for our January 30th Orientation!

January 9th

Great job today team!

Good turn out too! Looks like we are ready to get the year off and running!

Mike took some time at the beginning of practice to reiterate the form and function of the elements of the stroke.

Basically:

The catch: when the torso is rotated with the outside shoulder forward, and the inside shoulder back, engaging the abs and obliques the paddle should be buried at the forward most position that is comfortable for you to get the maximum power when you ...

Pull: ...pull yourself to the buried blade, thereby forcing you to untwist from that rotated position. The stroke ends when you are sitting up and the paddle comes even to your mid-thigh. at which point you will slice it out for the...

Release: the paddle is sliced out and away from the side of the boat as the lower arm's wrist relaxes and the elbow bends slightly, simultaneously the body begins to rotate forward as you snap into the...

Recovery: is only a word used to label the action.. there is very little time to actually "recover" from anything. The recovery needs to be a snappy decisive action of rotating yourself back to the catch phase...

While it is a fast motion you can relax for however briefly it takes to get back to your next stroke.

Overall: Your head needs to be up, to open up the chest and allow for easy breathing. Your eyes need to be forward and watching the stroker.

What is important is to note is how each phase depends on the execution of the phase before it.. they tie together into once continuous fluid motion. the body is never at "rest" during the entire stroke. You are either rotating or un-rotating, pulling yourself up to the blade or snapping

the paddle back to its set position. There is no pause at the top or at the back of the stroke. The triangle stays intact as the body moves it thru the stroke.

Today we worked on wet-starts and familiarized ourselves with the call, as from here forward we will ingrain the wet-start sequence at every practice.

We did some drills: zipper, roller coaster and front half/back half. (can be reviewed on the "drills" tab)

It was a great day to be on the water with like-minded friends and oh yea! there was a dolphin in the back bay- I think Paula was going to call SeaWorld to let them know.

Have a great week team- see you next week-

Jan 16th: videoing and reviewing and applying it immediately, dont miss out!

January 16: Technique and conditioning
January 23: Technique, conditioning and steering clinic
January 30: Orientation

January Schedule

January Practice Schedule

January 16: Technique and conditioning
January 23: Technique, conditioning and steering clinic
January 30: Orientation

-Now is a good time to recruit like-minded athletes to join Dragonboating- as we will be spending a good amout of time going over our technique. Perfecting what you already know, and bringing everyone together with same style and rhythm.

Once we get into the hard training leading up to Tempe and beyond, the learning curve will increase and new folks will be timid to continue.
So recruit now, and bring them out this month leading to the formal orientation of everything they need to know about Dragonboating on January 30th.

Our technique practices this month will include video and one-to-one coaching.
You will get to see what you are doing, as well as what we want everyone to do- then get back out and try it immediately. We will be focusing on a more hands-on process, whereby we will sit behind you when necessary and actually "manipulate" you to the proper technique to help you feel what we are looking for.
If your preferred method of learning is reading about the stroke, or seeing photos, or seeing it in action, be sure to tell us as, we all have a variety of ways to get the point across.

January 9 2011

Hey Team! Happy New Year!
In an effort to keep you all up to date on what are we doing with practices, I have initiated this "blog".
It's a bit easier than a website (for me).
Here you will find a break down of what we will be doing weekly, and monthly as we move towards our racing goals.
Coaches may include links to video and reading material, as well as suggestions for off-water crosstraining.
If there is something that you would like to see discussed here, please send me an email and we will try to include it.


Your SDDBT 2011 Coaching Staff:
Head Coach- Marshall Parks
Assisting: Mike Gaughan, Lisa Stangl, Jeannette Pascua, cheance adair