"Paddles Up! Dragon Boat Racing in Canada." What a fantastic job they've done on this. The subject is treated with knowledge and care, the photos are beautiful and the list of contributors speaks for itself:

Forward: Mike Haslam
Beginnings of DB: Arlene Chan
DB Technique: Albert McDonald & Suzanne Mackenzie
Dry Land Training: Jamie Hollins
Drumming & Steering: Matt Robert
Coaching: Kamini Jain
Teamwork: Andrew Fox
Beast Blogs: Albert McDonald
Making an A-team: Jim Farintosh
Injury Prevention & Treatment: Dr. David Levy
Nutrition: Pam Lumb Collett
Canadian Contribution to ISDB: Mike Kerkmann
DB Paddles: Gerry Kavanagh
BCS Stories: Eleanor Nielson & Kathy Levy
Canada on the International Scene: Matt Smith

Finally someone has told the story of competitive dragon boat in Canada! That entire community can be proud of this book. Congratulations to everybody involved in getting this to print!

http://www.shelfari.com/books/5923433/Dragon-Boat-Racing-in-Canada-Paddles-Up-/editorialreviews

Nice.

I love this book.

Took a quick look through it and it seems like they did an OK job. As a true "westie" the only comment I would have is that most of the contributors are from Ontario and east of Ontario, outside of Kamini. Not that we'd need more for the book as what was covered was pretty good.

I would've liked to have seen a section profiling the more competitive teams from across Canada. There is some stuff there on Mayfair Predators (Jim was a contributor) and some other teams, but I think it would be really interesting to see a history and recent profile on a bunch of comp teams, from BC to Halifax and all points in between.

Perhaps I'll write my own book???

write your own book!
i think the book and it's contents are great!

Sweet. Amazon says it ships in 1 to 2 months. I'm heading up to Vancouver next weekend, maybe they'll have it up there....

Yes, I believe Kamini has copies for sale.

I want to congratulate Arlene and Sue for this compilation of chapters from a fairly representative sample of authors from across the country. There are a few more central/Ontario authors, but since the book was done in Toronto that is to be expected. No different than previous books on dragon boat.

For the record, I believe each author worked in relative isolation from the contributions of the others, so any overall editorial direction did not come from the individual contributors. Most of the information was pretty generic, I feel. Hopefully every part of the country can find some connection to the content and enjoy the both the beautiful pictures and the message.

All the best this season.
Jim

Book authors -

Most of the book is informative and a great resource. Andrew Fox's section on Teams and Teamwork should be required reading for all new paddlers. Would prevent a lot of bad karma on teams when they develop from corporate, to recreational to club to "A" level, elite & national.

I would have liked to see more info on team organization, bylaws, websites, how to run a race, etc. Types of races (barrel racing, marathons, etc.)

The exercise section really needed a glossary, as there were not pictures of all items. I know wht a Russian Twist is, but doubt a novice paddler does. There could have been a lot more photos in this section.

Also, since OC-1's are used for time trials, there wasn't much info given on what a range of time should be for elite paddlers.