Rotation! Finish it, NOW!

The focus of today's practice was on rotation and learning how to finish. There was also some tension about the one stroke "go" transition. Anyway, we had skits to start off practice. The white team and the red team each designed their own short skit based on a few constraints Coach created.

As usual, we took out an HK boat and a BuK boat. Paddlers are beginning to get used to the commands and techniques of dragonboating. Loading is still taking a bit of time, but no one is stumbling anymore. We had the assistance of Victor and Frank to steer the two boats, and we are very grateful. 

Both boats ran along side-by-side for the entire practice. We started off with a 15 minute warm-up. Then a technique session on practicing rotation. At this session, Coach emphasized the touching of the inside knees during the reach portion of the stroke. This way, the hips are opened and with derotation, transferring the energy into the boat to push it forward. 

stretching out before we hit the water

preparing the skits

team lunch at chipotle

We also did the push-pull drill to work on form as well as generating an explosive pop at the top of the stroke. Coach emphasized SNAP to action repeatedly. After a race with Lightwave in which the red team actually won by about a boat (Lightwave had half its members), both Stanford boats practiced finishes. The call was "Finish it, NOW!" Then the count goes, "Up, up, up, 4....10" and it repeats. The first few attempts at the finishes resulted in huge caterpillars as paddlers did not know how much to rate up by. By the end of the day, things got a bit better. The team is looking very promising for the upcoming college cup.