A boatful of paddles dipped into the water simultaneously, pushing the water back and the boat forward. With every determined stroke, the boat accelerated, gliding onwards despite its heaviness. The power of the paddlers was surprising for another reason: this was a practice held the chilly Sunday morning before finals week. But the Stanford Dragonboat Team, undaunted, took up the challenge.

 

“There’s a dragon head on the boat,” one paddler said, when asked about his rationale for joining the team.

 

The décor is striking: a standard boat consists of 10 or 20 paddlers, a steersperson and a drummer. On race days, with its painted scales, dragon head and dragon tail, the boat appears to be a mythical beast.

 

The artistry of dragonboating suggests its cultural roots. The story goes that a Chinese poet, Qu Yuan, drowned himself to protest an impending invasion by another state. To keep fish and evil spirits away from his body, the common folk beat drums and splashed the water with paddles. Dragonboating, so it is said, then arose as an activity to commemorate him.

 

Dragonboating has since transformed into an international sport. While it is still relatively obscure in the United States, it is slowly becoming more popular at the national and collegiate levels. The California Dragon Boat Association (CDBA) holds races for colleges like Stanford and Cal.

 

Coaches Tek Li ‘12 and Mike Liu ‘00 said that they are promoting dragonboating at Stanford more as a sport than as a religious event. Liu rowed in the CDBA before joining the Stanford team. Li started dragonboating in high school. Structuring practices around their experience in dragonboating and Li’s experience on a college wrestling team, the coaches try to maintain a high degree of involvement. This year, they tripled the practices held per week, one on-water and two off-water sessions. Along with improving the team’s form, these extra practices “have been really successful in keeping people involved with the team,” Li said.

 

While picking up the basic paddle stroke in dragonboating isn’t difficult, getting power out of the stroke takes a lot longer to master. The force of the stroke should ideally come as a result of rotating one’s core, while minimizing extraneous motions. This principle was heavily drilled in the Sunday morning practice session, where paddlers were constantly focusing on “developing their rotation,” Li said. Li occasionally instructed his team to perform “power strokes” — fast-paced, extremely forceful strokes that rapidly propel the boat through the water. Even seasoned rowers like Liu were out of breath after such exercises.

 

Another challenge for dragonboaters is mastering the timing of the stroke. Both coaches are pushing for a faster stroke rate, but achieving that requires that team members paddle in unison. Synchrony is key to dragonboating, but is one of the more difficult skills for a team to achieve. While the Stanford rowers mostly paddled in unison, moments of discord between the oars caused the boats to flounder.

 

“Strokes should be timed to not go any faster than anyone can keep up with,” Li said.

 

While managing the pace poses a challenge, many team members agreed that the idea of doing something in sync with 19 other people is also a big draw of the sport.

 

But for most team members, the most exciting part of dragonboating is the races.

 

“It’s a chance to really hang out with the team,” one paddler said.

 

A standard race is 500 meters, and the team is trying to pare down their current time of three to four minutes to two minutes. During practice, Li frequently called for “mock races.” This drill was probably the most tiring exercise for the team, but despite this, the challenge was appealing: one paddler said he enjoyed races because “everyone paddles as hard as they can.”

 

In the coming quarters, the dragonboat team hopes to expand their presence on campus and recruit more members. Li said the team’s distribution of flyers and emails, along with word-of-mouth, are instrumental factors in “putting a face to the name ‘dragonboat’” and drawing more people to the sport. Li hopes to ultimately quadruple the current number of paddlers. As a result, no experience or athletic background is a prerequisite for participation.

 

“I want to expose a sport; so if someone is interested, I’ll do my best to let them in,” Li said.

 

The one requirement, Liu added, is “a willingness to do something new.”

 

“It matches up very well with a typical Stanford student, who’s adept at more than one dimension,” he said.