Philly paddlers embrace the worldwide phenomenon of dragon boat racing, but what is it?

As the sun rises or sets over the Schuylkill River, any Philadelphian in the area will come across boat activity.

But if one looks closer, there may be the striking sight of a long and narrow boat that glides smoothly through the water, headed by a dragon, fangs out and all, colored in scales, and finished with a tail. Over the faint wind, one would hear the sound of a drum, dictating the beat to which the paddlers match pace, completely in sync, to propel the dragon through the water.

This is dragon boating — a sport that dates back to over 2,000 years ago in southern China.

Nearly 7,000 miles from where it originated, dragon boating found its way to America in Philadelphia in 1983, when the Hong Kong Tourist Association was looking to create a dragon boat team of U.S. rowers and take them on a 10-day all-expenses-paid trip to Hong Kong to race in the international championships.

Right behind China, they placed second.

The trip included Robert McNamara, the head coach of the oldest and most decorated dragon boat team in the United States, the Philadelphia Dragon Boat Association (PDBA). At the time, he was a college lightweight rower at La Salle and was up to his ears in debt as a second-year resident in emergency medicine.

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“It was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, and I’m still doing it since then,” said McNamara, who also is a coach for the U.S. national team.

No matter the origin story, the water sport paddlers share a space of community, a stress reliever, a way to stay in shape, an opportunity for growth, and a connection to heritage for some. Above all, they’ve been bitten by the dragon and won’t be going back.

“I did it once and I thought I would never do it again,” said Isabelle van de Walle, coach/manager and member of the Pennsylvania Dragon Boat Club (PDBC) since 2017.

The old college try took place while she was studying abroad in China when her host sister recommended the sport.

“I tried it, and I thought it was interesting, but I didn’t think there was anything like it in the States. And boy was I wrong,” she said.

Upon moving to the city after college, she didn’t know many people in the area and fell out of a workout routine. Coincidentally, she ran into someone on the PDBC team through an employee resource group and hasn’t left the Schuylkill since.

“As soon as I got to that first practice on Saturday morning at 8 a.m., I literally fell in love with the people and also just being out on the river that early, which sounds weird, but it was fantastic,” she said.

Like many, van de Walle was drawn to the groove of the sport, feeling the movement of the boat as she races. Intention is ingrained in dragon boating — muscles moving together with a keen awareness of others around you.

Dragon boat participation is as competitive as one wants it to be, while being inclusive, inviting anyone of any age, gender and background. The sport has had significant growth since its start. There are various divisions by gender and age, from those at least 60 years of age to paddlers as young as 12 years old, along with men’s and women’s boats, open boats of any gender, and mixed-gender boats.

At the start in the United States, the sport largely was dominated by men, said Mark Kane, the president of the United States Dragon Boat Federation. That is no longer the case, with the majority of paddlers being women.

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“In 2007, it was fairly easy for most clubs to put together an open boat, which is typically men,” he said. “Now, many clubs struggle to put together an open boat, a standard boat, which is 20 paddlers, of all men. ... The gender mix has definitely shifted over the last 10 years to be more heavily weighted toward women.”

Outside of the drummer and the steerer, mixed boats include by rule a minimum of eight and a maximum of 10 per gender, typically 10 men and 10 women. In a small boat of 10 people, it’s divided by six and four either way. Kane said these numbers changed about four or five years ago, when it once was 12 men and eight women.

That means that in certain divisions, men and women compete side by side.

Together.

“Everyone has a certain purpose, and there are different techniques and skills. It’s not just brute strength, which is what I love about dragon boat,” said Helen Xu, who joined the PDBC in 2022. “If we were to just have people who are hammering at the water, how long could you actually sustain that for? There are 200-meter paces, 500-meter paces, and 2,000-meter paces.

“It’s not just based off of how much muscle you have in your arms, and I think that’s often the assumption. ... It is a full-body sport from your core being centered to full leg drive. That’s where I really appreciate that there are mixed-gender boats.”

Dragon boating also became more popular among women who are survivors of breast cancer, as doctors recommend it as a support group and full body exercise. There are 262 International Breast Cancer Paddlers Commission (IPCPC) member teams across 32 countries.

It was around 32 degrees on the Schuylkill when Tommy Leonardi, president of the PDBA, tried his talent at dragon boating. Within minutes, splashing water began to freeze on the paddlers’ outerwear, to which he thought, “This is the dumbest thing I’ve ever done.”

Once warmed up he thought, “Hey, you know what? This is fun,” and 25 years later, he is still at it.

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“There’s a certain almost meditation of what you’re doing because you’re paddling, your timing is supposed to be as impeccable as possible. ... You’ve heard of a runner’s high. There is definitely a paddler’s high,” Leonardi said. “The high thing is from feeling the energy of the boat around you and matching it and being a part of something much bigger than yourself.”

Similarly, Xu sees the sport as less about identity and more about relating to people. As an Asian American woman who grew up in a homogenous area, she gravitates toward certain elements from a cultural perspective, such as relating to others about being children of immigrants and their various backgrounds.

“It feels nice to not have to surveillance certain parts and there’s shared understanding that only makes us stronger as a team when we know things about each others’ lives,” Xu said.

“It’s not necessarily the identity, it’s the experiences created around all of these different identities of people who were in the boat with you.”

While there are multiple access points for curious minds to try out the sport in Philadelphia, these clubs aren’t built overnight. Likewise, it takes time to get to the national level of competition, let alone the world. Founder and president of PDBC Henry Chow knows this best.

Since his start on the water, Chow has been his own coach via YouTube, financial adviser, and loaner. He built PDBC — a 501(c)3 nonprofit with a hierarchy of coaching and management — simply from having dragon boating in the back of his mind when he participated in a single race as a teenager. Bored with his first job out of college at the University of Pennsylvania, he created a small community team with no experience to enter local races simply for the fun of it.

“So that’s kind of how we started, and, to be honest, we were quite terrible,” he said.

As people who enjoy being active and involved in sports, and Chow, who has a blood connection to the sport, the small group decided to establish its roots as a dragon boat organization in 2015. Seven years later, the club recently competed at the IDBF Club Crew World Championship for the first time in Sarasota, Fla.

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“We started this team with no money, no experience, no resources,” Chow said. “We literally came up from dust, recruiting people from the street, and not a single person here has been trained by anyone else other than us. Now we are at the world championship. If I went back six, seven, eight, nine, generations, all my ancestors would be like, ‘Wow you’re seriously doing this and you’re representing a team in Philly, from the United States, at the world championship.’ Because that blows my mind how far this sport has come and how someone like me could be in this position to lead a team.”

Now, Chow and the PDBC, like many other clubs, rely on membership dues and fundraising to race. From holding events to teach people how to paddle to renting boats, clubs work together to be able to continue the sport they love. Julie Regnier, from the all-women Schuylkill Dragons, explained they rent their boats, volunteer for cleanups, and host raffles and bingo nights to raise money. The PDBA also has hosted its own event, the Independence Dragon Boat Regatta, on the first Saturday of June on the Schuylkill for the last 15 years.

However, the money isn’t all that’s needed — so is the skill.

The various races — 200 meters, 500 meters, and 2,000 meters — require a different pace and skilled set of paddlers. For instance, the 2,000-meter race includes turns as big as 180 degrees to navigate through, fighting against the water and other boats for the inside line. It’s a life sport, but by no means is it a walk in the park. Or a simple paddle through the water, for that matter.

In the winter, most clubs have time trials of some sort to start the selection process for either the Club Crew World Championships or the Nation Worlds Championship (racing for Team USA), which alternate each year. Chow’s team uses a rowing machine that’s adapted for dragon boat paddling to run testing to see how fast everybody is, as well as time trials on outrigger canoes to determine how strong a paddler one is. After these tests, the scores are ranked, and it quickly becomes clear who the best paddlers are.

Dawne Ballard, a paddler for the Schuylkill Dragons since 2018, finds the learning process in dragon boating to be eye-opening in just a year of paddling, and much more rewarding as a team sport.

“It’s incredible to see people’s understanding of the sport, of technique, and of things we can improve evolves over time. It’s sort of mind-blowing at times to see this one really simple shift in what you do with your wrist makes a world of difference when you are moving a boat with 10 people or 20 people,” Ballard said.

World championships involve racing with people from all over the world, from the Czech Republic to the Philippines, paddlers who have mutual respect for what it takes to get to the present moment.

Everyone is in the same boat.

The PDBA won a race recently at worlds by eight one-hundredths of a second, Leonardi said. They beat out a Canadian team from Montreal.

“When they saw us, they all came up to us, looked us in the eye, shook our hands, and said, ‘Great race,’ with smiles on their face,” he said. “That’s how it is here. ...

“We all know what it takes to get to this level. Sometimes you win by a tiny margin. Sometimes you lose, right? Even though it hurts to lose by a tiny margin, you saw people who are very, very positive nonetheless.”

The sport circles around and around again to the idea that this is more than just a sport, it’s an activity bigger than sitting in a boat and paddling to the finish line.

McNamara has now brought many PDBA members with no paddling experience from the novice level to the winning paddler on the water at the World Nations Championships, and, for him, he still gets a kick out of watching the progress toward success on the water. From strangers to now teammates, to even his four children, who are experienced paddlers.

“It’s just one of the coolest things to see somebody get better,” he said. “We are able to compete at the level where I get to see somebody — take them from the first time they have a paddle on their hand and see them be a world champion. There’s nothing like it.”

Added Chow: “I kind of do this because you have an opportunity to change lives. It can change 1,000 lives, but maybe if you can change one or two, and those two people change one or two, and those people change a few more, eventually you’re going to make a nice difference in the world, and then you’ll get people who not only want to be part of something, but they want to give back to it.”