Over Rotation (aka Straight Arm Drill) – The emphasis of this drill is to over-rotate your torso. Rotation starts from facing your seat partner on the inside and rotating all the way out to face out of the boat. Exaggerate the rotation of your body! Take all use of arms out by keeping them completely straight in this drill.
ON/OFF Drills – There are several ways to do this drill, but the focus is to train endurance. While ON, you are paddling at 100%. Focus on perfect technique and maximum pressure on your paddle blade. When you are “OFF”, you are at active rest, which means perfect technique but less pressure on your paddle blade. An example of an ON/OFF Drill can be 2 minutes ON and 1 minute OFF with multiple sets.
Pyramid Drills – Endurance is the focus of this drill. Paddle ON then OFF for increasing amounts of time. Once the maximum duration is reached, start decreasing the time. For example, a common Pyramid Drill is to paddle ON for 30/60/90/60/30 seconds with equal times of OFF. Use multiple sets for a better workout.
Push/Pull Drill – With this drill, you get to experience what your full reach will feel like. Back paddle for three strokes. on the last stroke, keep the paddle in the water and let the water pull you forwards. The resulting position is your full reach setup. Then take one stroke back to your neutral position. Repeat multiple sets to develop your muscle memory.
Catch Drill – Focus on the entry of your paddle blade in this drill. Setup in ready position. When “catch” is called, drop your body and, therefore, the paddle blade into the water and take a stroke. Return to the ready position. When you drop your body, you want to make sure that you bury the paddle blade completely before pulling back. Also, make sure you drop in at the proper 45° (approximately) angle. Things to avoid is the plunking sound when you pull back. When done right, you should hear nothing.
Gunwale Drill – This drill is done without a paddle and emphasizes the very fundamental setup of Dragon Boat technique. Start by sitting in an upright position with your fist on the gunwale and your inside hand on your hips. Slide your fist forward along the gunwale and hinge at the hip to reach even further. Rotate your body by pushing your inside hip back. You can get a longer stretch if you drive your inside leg and help push the hip back. Raise your inside arm into the air as if you were holding the top of the paddle. With full speed and force, snap back to the starting upright position. When done as a team, the boat should surge forward during the snap back to upright position.
Varying Timing Drill – This drill forces paddlers to focus on their strokes. In regular Dragon Boat, the aim for any paddler is to keep in time with the person diagonally as far forward as possible. In this drill, the strokes will vary the rate and it is up to each paddler to keep in time with the changing rate. The rate may change gradually or quickly.
Seat Pulls – This drill is great for individual critique and constructive feedback. Only called sets of paddlers paddle. Seat Pulls allows a coach to watch individuals or pods. You may call specific seat numbers from 1 to 10, or you may call pods such as FRONTS, BACKS, BACK LEFT and FRONT RIGHTS, ODDS only, EVENS only, etc.