A reincarnation of a former Cornell club and also an American incarnation of a 2,000-year-old Chinese sport, the Cornell Dragon Boating Club has a colorful history. Lily Lin ’09, secretary of the current Cornell Dragon Boating Club, explained, “Dragon boating began almost 2,000 years ago in China and it is becoming increasingly popular in the United States.” Lin attributes this growing popularity to the publicity international dragon boat races are starting to receiving through media coverage.

The current club began when a few students found a brochure on campus for the Ithaca Dragon Boating Club and Helen Tsang ’08 a member of Cornell’s previous club, helped start the current one.

Lin explained, “[Our club] actually existed before — there was a Cornell Dragon Boat Club a few years ago — but then everyone graduated and it fell through.” But because Tsang was one of the few remaining students from the former club she was able to get the club restarted. Although the current members began thinking about forming a club last spring, it wasn’t officially registered until fall 2008.

Cornell’s environment fosters this particular activity: “There’s actually a local dragon boating club that’s run by the Ithaca Asian American Association [IAAA] and there’s the Finger Lakes International Dragon Boating Festival here in July, so it’s pretty popular here.”

This local popularity has worked out well for Cornell’s dragon boaters. Lin said, “[The IAAA] has two boats on Cayuga Lake that we work with and they have a coach and everything. All we do is just paddle.”

In fact, the Cornell Dragon Boating Club recently participated in a local regatta held at the Greater Ithaca Activity Center and they also have plans to participate in the festival in July. Given the limited number of college clubs, though, Cornell’s competitive outlets are somewhat limited.

“Because we’re such a new group we’re not up to the level yet to really compete,” Lin explained. “We tried to go up to Lake Mercer in September but ... we have so little water time because it’s a summer sport.”

“In the spring and fall we have practices three times a week on the water,” Lin said. However, the sport’s seasonality is limiting, she explained, “In the winter time [...] we do cardiac training and strength training twice a week in Barton.”

Lin explained the necessity of winter strength training, “You’re trying to move a boat that’s almost 800 pounds and you’ve only got about 20 paddlers so each paddler has to move about 100 to 150 pounds.”

Although that might sound like a daunting task, Lin explained that the sport’s difficulty is quite rewarding: “You get to meet so many people and we have so much fun on the team because even though you come off the boat and you’re tired and sore but you know you had fun.”

Although it’s a difficult sport, Lin was quick to add, “We have all levels of experience on our team — some people come in with lots of experience and some have never heard of dragon boating.”

“Our club also does social events where we hang out together and have dinner together,” Lin said.

The best part, however, is being in the water: “When we’re in the water,” Lin said, that’s when you can really feel what it’s about, when you feel what it’s like to paddle and see the paddles go in and out of the water all at the same time.” RLD