Best Team Building Exercise: Dragon Boat Racing

Nashville Scene October 4, 2007
(full story here - http://tinyurl.com/6mxeq4)

Teamwork is key to winning Nashville’s newest tradition, the dragon boat race. Twenty rowers, sitting in a long canoe-like vessel, must paddle in absolute harmony or victory is unattainable. A drummer sitting at the head of the boat sets the pace—think Spartacus with less dying. Dragon boating started in China 2,500 years ago. The prows of the boats are decorated with a large, fearsome dragon head while a scaly, dragon tail curls from the stern. The race was held here for the first time in August on the Cumberland. The Scene fielded a team—Dragon Ass—and through practice, paddling and heckling the other teams, employees who at first didn’t even know each others’ names became pals. We may not have won first place, but it beat the hell out of trust falls and ropes courses at a corporate picnic. —P.J. TOBIA