Training for Bradford Dragonboat Festival
Our Barracudas were on hand from April through to July to help train teams for the Bradford Dragonoat festival. Running alongside our club training, our members were on hand to assist registering each team member, completing safety briefings, kitting out paddlers with buoyancy aids, helming the boat and manning the safety boat.
Each team that came to train with us would coached in seating plans for race boats, paddle techniques, timing drills, some practice race starts and essentials for race day. Training took place whatever the weather good or bad and one team trained with us in the worst weather we witnessed as Barracudas this year which was a hail storm with hailstones the size of 5ps!
We welcomed teams from across West Yorkshire to train with us at Doe Park Teams including this years media teams BBC Yorkshire, Pulse 1 and Pulse 2 alongside work and charity teams ranging from Epta Group, Baildon C of E, St Francis Primary, Leeds Cares, Bradford Teaching Hospitals, Christeyns, Uni of Bradford, Reach Beyond, Bradford Council and Acorn Stairlifts to name but a few.
At the festival weekend with heaps of teams all ready to race, we set up base for the 3 day event near the pavilion at the top of Roberts Park. The Barracudas were on hand to assist for all three days from the youth event day on Friday right the way through to the charity day on Sunday.
Our chairs were out lined up replicating the boat seats, the paddles were out and we were ready for land side training sessions handing out last minute tips. Some teams came to us with no previous Dragonboat experience and some came along to brush up on technique in between races.
Alongside all of that, we were incredibly lucky to take part in a showcase race ourselves at The Bradford Dragonboat Festival against Team GB and The Purple Warriors - who were just the loveliest bunch of paddlers that we have had the pleasure to race this season. We may have been the underdogs but we held our own and that was down to the cheers of support from the crowd (and the teams we had helped train) shouting 'Go Barracudas' from the start line right through to the finish line.
We loved this so much, we're going to be doing it all over again! If you're taking part in a Dragonboat Festival this year you can book your place training with us one Thursday Night from April 2020 just click HERE
