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Dragon Boat Racing Print E-mail
Written by Greg Johnston   
Monday, 01 January 2001 02:15
Helps Northwest Breast Cancer Survivors

The goal is to make a 57-foot dragon fly across the water. To do it, the 22 people aboard must become a single entity as paddles flail, a drum pounds and spray flies. "When you have your first race, it's wonderful," says Susan Oliver-Kirasawa, a member of Seattle Survivors Afloat, one of three dragon boat teams in the Seattle area. "It's so euphoric, and everyone feels it."

Dragon boat paddling is a colorful, 2,400-year-old Chinese sport that is stroking its way to newfound popularity. Up to 250,000 people have turned out for the annual dragon boat races in Toronto--mirroring the recent growth in outrigger canoe paddling. Last summer, the Pacific Northwest International Dragon Cup Festival on Lake Washington drew teams from Vancouver, B.C., Portland and San Francisco.

Twenty of the 22 team members on a dragon boat are paddlers. Another is a drummer, who pounds out a cadence on a traditional drum placed in the bow of the boat and verbally counts out various paddling patterns. Helping on that count, shouting out encouragement and guiding from the stern is the steersman. The stroke used in dragon boat paddling is unlike a canoe stroke, with a longer reach ahead and a shorter draw. It is a quick stroke--70 to 80 per minute by a seasoned team--with power being provided by the shoulders, not the arms. The goal is to lift the boat high above the water with a cresting wave beneath the bow.

In many cities, sufferers and survivors of breast cancer and other cancers have formed dragon boat teams because of the activity’s physical and mental benefits. Paddling helps rebuild areas of the chest and arm affected by cancer and surgery. "It's been very good for me," says breast cancer victim Oliver-Kirasawa. "You get a lot of support from people who have been through what you have, but you're not always talking about it. You're just staying active." Recently, Oliver-Kirasawa's teammates broke out champagne after a workout to celebrate the end of her chemotherapy. "I've never been part of a team before, and I've learned what that's about," she says.

Paddling might also provide treatment in a spiritual way. "It’s controversial," Oliver-Kirasawa says. "When you have cancer, you lose control over your body, and this helps you take back some control in a fun way." Part of the beauty is in the boats themselves and their culture and history. Once made of hollowed logs and now of fiber-resin, the curiously concave hulls are from a design developed by Chinese fishermen thousands of years ago. As one of the most venerated of Chinese zodiac figures, dragons symbolize control over the water, and during regattas the 57-foot boats are fitted with colorful, fierce-looking heads and tails.

As the legend goes, dragon boat racing began some time after 400 B.C., when a statesmen and poet named Qu Yuan drowned himself in southern China's Mi Lo River to protest the tyrannical regime of the Chu Dynasty. Fishermen on shore raced out to save him but failed. To prevent fish and water dragons from eating his body, the legend goes, they beat the water with their paddles, pounded drums and threw rice cakes wrapped in bamboo into the water. Dragon boat racing now commemorates Qu Yuan's sacrifice by re-enacting the rescue effort, celebrated in China on the fifth day of the fifth moon of the Chinese lunar calendar.

Around the Northwest, dragon boat promoters say the sport celebrates diversity. Participants say it’s as much about contact and camaraderie as culture. "I was initially attracted to it because it was a way to find out more about Chinese culture," says Steve Win, a member of Absolut Sake, one of Club Sake's two teams. "But most people participate because it’s a sport of camaraderie. You rely on each other and you travel together to different cities and meet other teams. And when you see teams of breast cancer survivors you get even more inspired."

Another appealing aspect is that it doesn’t require great strength, but rather a keen focus on technique. "It’s so appealing because it's a sport anybody can compete in," says Ishii, steersman for Absolut Sake. "You don't have to be fastest or strongest, but you have to have that unity within the boat."

--The Seattle festival benefits Team Survivor Northwest. For details, call (206) 732-8350 or visit www.teamsurvivornw.org or www.dragoncup.com.

Originally Published, Paddler January-February 2001
 

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