Many of you have heard the Coaches announce during water practices that tryouts will become part of the assessment and selection process for races.  While exact details are still being worked out by the Coaches, tryouts may involve fitness tests of strength (i.e., pull ups, push ups, etc), endurance (i.e., 1-3 mile run, etc) and paddling skill (i.e., time trials, individual paddler evaluation by Coaches, etc). 

The Coaches have forwarded the following article in order to provide information on the tryouts process.   Published in Dragon Boat World magazine (Spring 2006), the article describes a standard testing system used by competitive teams in Canada.   Note: This article should be used as a guide, and may or may not be the standards by which the Coaches will measure Houston Heat paddlers.  

One of the hardest and most important aspects of coaching an anonymous team sport such as dragonboating, where the collective is so much more important than the individual, is team selection.  It's not only a matter of who is pulling the most water now, because sometimes the pool of experienced, fit, national level flatwater paddlers gets a touch shallow.  Thankfully though, technique can be taught.  Then the question becomes: "Who has the most potential?"

Over the last decade Quebec's Matthew Smith and Robert, the French Connection of dragon boating, have coaches some of Canada's finest club teams and hundreds of athletes.  Most of those have come from sports other than paddling.  Over the years, they have developed a standards and testing system that, they  believe, accurately predicts the paddling potential of any individual.

Read the full article......