John

Lunch from our host DWW

By John Herrera

VANCOUVER:  The Bay Area Dragons made their much anticipated return to Vancouver's ultra competitive Alcan Dragon Boat Festival last Saturday.  In returning to this festival BAD had three goals:  The first was to get a taste of the extreme competition that Vancouver's 160 + teams offer in order to get a sense of what it will be like next year  in the World Championships at Penang, Malaysia.  The second was to get a taste of Vancouver's legendary Sushi.  The third goal was to make new friends in order to nurture the growth of our sensational sport.  MISSION ACCOMPLISHED!

Kiran

BAD 2 (lane 4) battles it out

After being on BAD since November 2006, all the months of practice and enduring painful reaches and rotations finally paid off at the local Redwood Shores race on May 12 2007. It was the first race for me and several other new members of BAD, but I think we all gave it our 100% since all the BAD teams did well against pretty stiff competition.

Kien

It was a sunny but bone-chilling windy day at Redwood Shores; a perfect day to catch a cold and a few championships BAD style.  The Masters and Men’s 1 set the cadence with no-questions-about-it 1^st place wins in their championships.   While some teams would have been happy to call it a day with that, we continued on with a strong pull and finish in practically every heat and division we paddled in.

John

TEMPE - The Bay Area Dragons season began with a bang at the end of March as the BAD I mixed crew took second place overall in an ultra competitive fourth annual Arizona Dragon Boat Festival.  The only blemish on an otherwise perfect two days of racing in the desert was BAD's loss in the final heat to last year's west coast World Dragon Boat championship representative San Diego.  Aside from that, BAD left everybody else in its wake en route to a hard earned silver medal. 

Felicia

Arizona sunshine makes for a nice weekend of dragon boat races.  You’ve got teams from all around (even Taiwan), and good competition to get the season going.         

From my perspective things were awesome. A little more sleep would have helped, but that is beside the point. The goal here is to take a look at the Arizona race from my point of view.

For the second time, BAD went to Phoenix for Dragon Boat spring training.   We were the only Bay area team but there were a lot of crews from Southern California, 3 from Canada, and lots of local crews.  The usual SoCal teams were strong.  DPW is a lot stronger than last year. 

Our host team, the Gila Dragons, was a LOT stronger than last year.  They placed in all 3 divisions.  Wow!!   They were also excellent hosts and run a fine BBQ. 

BAD placed second overall to San Diego in the  Div A Mixed.  We also had a crew place 3rd in Div B Mixed.  Medals for everyone!!!  

Another great road trip with lots of paddling, eating, and hot sun.  Most races were 500M but they also had 250M and 1000M.

 Highly recommended.  Next race is Redwood Shores - May 12. 

Photos by Justin Lien

John

Dominic Shew

 

By John Herrera - "Long & Strong Column"

FOSTER CITY - Last Saturday 40 members of BAD attended a paddling clinic from a world class dragon boat extraordinaire Dominic Shew.  Excitement was in the air as BAD's members gathered in anxious anticipation of receiving some one on one tutoring from their new mentor.  By the time the clinic was over, BAD members didn't really receive any one on one mentoring, but instead learned a few new drills, one "crazy start," and the importance of timing.  Yes, all this was acquired in a clinic that clocked in at a whopping six and a half hours.

"I'm glad I brought my ass pad," exclaimed a very exhausted Ed Iovino once the grueling day had come to an end.  The importance of the butt pad did not go unnoticed after an entire day's worth of paddling with a new stroke that emphasized the importance of hip movement which forces one's rear end to slide back and forth on the seat.  "You're definitely going to have a lot of movement on the seat if you're doing the stroke correctly," explained Shew when South African born BAD member Marco Gabbiani asked Shew about how much one's butt should slide on the seat.  "In fact, sometimes your butt will even lift out of the seat," Shew further explained.  This was not good news for those of us who blister very easily where the sun doesn't shine; however, the news was welcomed with great enthusiasm by IKEA, who reported a 200% increase in sales of butt pads in the two hours following the clinic.