Dragon boat racing. Yeah, it's a thing. And joining me now Mark Perez, our family's longtime physical therapist and the coach of the Filipino American Wait a minute, hang on, I had it right here, Mark, the Filipino American Society of Colorado's Fighting Dragons, a local dragon boat team based in Aurora, Colorado, and now he's about to head to Germany for an international competition. Mark, welcome to the show.
First of all, Hi, thank you for having me be on.
Let's start at the very beginning. What is dragon boat racing? Where did it come from?
Yeah? So dragon boat racing started out in China two thousand years ago. It pretty much involves a forty foot long canoe with twenty two people on it, so twenty paddlers and then a drummer up front and a stern at the very back of the boat.
So this is all about individuals working very hard by themselves together, right, because I mean that's a lot of people.
Correct. Yeah, It's all about timing, synchronicity, teamwork. So that's why I love the sport so much. Do we have without each other? So?
Do we have a large dragon boat racing community in the Denver metro.
We do. So. The Colorado dragon Boat Festival has been going on since two thousand and one and it's the largest dragon boat festival in the nation. Wow, we're one hundred thousand, Yeah, one hundred thousand attendees throughout the entire weekend.
How did you get started in this sport?
So? Yeah, I was just drugged into it. Back then, in two thousand and one, the Asian leaders in Colorado wanted to bring out dragon boating just to unite the Asian communities. So they went around to the different Asian communities, including my group, the Filipinos Postco, and asked us to join the racing. And I've been doing it ever since.
And you've been training hard because now you've been invited. I guess explain to me how this works that you are going to Germany to compete. You're not going with a team though, you're going as an individual.
So I'm going with Team USA. So this was a big tryout for the entire nation. So they're putting together paddlers, the top peddlers all across the US to represent Team USA in the World Championships in Germany.
That is so cool, Mark, how many athletes get to go and represent Team USA.
So there are different age divisions, so I'll be representing the Senior A division, so that's Peddler's forty and up. And in each age division they select about thirty males and thirty females for each age division.
That's very cool.
It's going to be Oh, go ahead, Yeah, there's gonna be a good number of athletes representing the US out there.
And where are you going in Germany?
It'll be close to Berlin. It'll be in Brandenburg, Germany.
All right, have you ever been to Germany before?
I've actually never been to Europe, so this would be my first time across the pond.
Oh, that's super cool. And Mark has put together a go fund me because the athletes. No, you guys need some sponsorship opportunities. Mark, you got to have some logos on your chest and your arms. We got to work on sponsorships for Dragon voting. I feel like this is an untapped market, but we'll get you here to Germany first and we'll work on all that. On the other side. We do have a go fund Me account set up for Mark so he can go and represent the United
States of America. Mark, I had no idea that this is like you. You are at the elite level of dragon voting in the United States. I mean, don't get me wrong, I was impressed before, but now I'm even doubly impressed that I know an elite athlete like this.
Yeah, I appreciate it. It's like a lot of hard work, sacrifice, dedication, but I'm excited to represent them USA.
Well, I've got a link to marksco fund me account, Chuck and I made a donation last night. So if you have a few bucks and you want to help this guy, go bring the dragon boat flag back to the United States, you can do that.
Mark.
I really appreciate your time today.
Thank you so much for having me on.
All right, now go kick butt, go kick international butt in the dragon boat on behalf of the United States. We'll do all right, Thanks Mark. I mean that's just cool. I put a video on the blog of the dragon Boat competitions. They are as cool as you would think they are. I mean, they're very, very cool.