Over the weekend at my last dragon boat festival of the season, my mom (who came up to be support) noticed one of the booths was selling the brand of paddles that I’ve been eying since early spring. On Saturday after my races, I came back to the room and noticed there was a Kialoa paddle lying across the bed, It didn’t click until I saw the paddle why my mom was asking what length of paddle I wanted if I got a new one. But boy did she surprise me. One of the reasons why I was drawn to the paddle was it’s t-grip and how comfy it felt.

For those that remember this paddle is replacing the Apex paddle that broke in half back in July. I only owned the apex for 9 or so months, oh well shit happens.. Its gonna be wall art once I get it fixed. I was told this will be part of my christmas present so now I have to act surprised on christmas morning when she puts a bow on it.

When I was surfing around on the net looking up information for when I get my next paddle, I noticed there are 27 different dragon boat paddle brands that are approved by the International Dragon Boat Federation (IDBF). Which got me thinking about how it would be a neat challenge to try them all out. Not do it as a one paddle, one day kind of trial but do it over a season or even half a season to find out how does the paddle handle in our year long weather conditions, and our different water/wind conditions, does it matter what boat your in/where your sitting, is it to heavy or light (can it cause damage to the body) all that good information.

Since I now own four different dragon boat paddle brands, I’m debating if I want to start writing reviews on paddling equipment (paddles, pfds etc), Though I’m not looking forward to seeing how much its gonna cost me.

Do you or would you write a review cause you love the product or for the money?

After @guapomole posted this youtube video (below) on twitter, I started thinking that I should kept with skateboarding instead of giving it up as a preteen. Also got me thinking about this year’s dry-land training routine since my 15th dragon boating season almost coming to an end in a few days.

I’m thinking about take up land paddling (a long board with a kahuna big stick) as my cross trainer this off season instead 6man outrigger, I’m looking forward not having to travel an hour to/from get to practice especially on those crappy nights.

It may not be the correct stroke that I do but from the videos I’ve been looking at, you can get a lot of good top arm drive, the whole body gets a workout and just think about the balance one can get from that too. Using this and my other core exercises would for sure help strengthen my core muscles that I lost due to the surgery I had back in April.

I want to be on the A boat next year, which means there is a lot of work a head of me to do.

What do you do the spice up your exercise routine?
Would you use a sport to strengthen another sport?