Team

Members | Coaching Staff | Board of Directors

Members

There is no typical ‘Living Rooter.’ We take anyone interested and turn them into mean, paddling machines. We’re competitive, but not jock-y. We’re a big, friendly, goofy community – when one boat wins, we all win. We love learning from veteran paddlers and we love introducing the sport we love to newcomers. We have a boat for everyone – from “sun’s-out-guns-out” competitive to “go-out-and-have-a-good-time” beginner.

Many people ask about the commitment. Rooters make it to practice when we can, but hey, we’re grown-ups, so sometimes that’s not all the time. After your first two practices, we do ask you to seriously considering officially becoming part of the team by submitting a membership fee. Your small annual fee is your license to attend as many or as few practices as you feel fit (the more, the merrier of course!).

The more you attend practice, the better your technique, power, timing, and endurance will be. These qualities are considered as the coaches determine line-ups during the race season. .

Coaching Staff

Our coaches are comprised of a volunteer staff of highly experienced and trained paddlers who dedicate more on and off the water coaching time than can be found on any team in Boston.

Here are short bios of all our coaches.

Dani Bradnan
When Dani isn’t on the docks dragon boating, she’s busy being a jack of all trades.. You can find her:

  • Practicing yoga; she’s our resident LR yogi
  • Designing and creating her own formal wear (she created her own wedding dress!)👗
  • Growing veggies in her new home🍅🌽
  • Spending time with our fellow teammate and her husband, Charlie, and their adorable kittens👨🐈🐱😻

Dani loves the Alien movies with Sigourney Weaver… RIPLEYYYY

Aaron Kraemer

Hailing from the Cheese State, Aaron is a standout coach, who can teach you all his fave crossfit moves. When he’s not dragon boating, he’s:

  • Like, we said, crossfitting🏋
  • Spending time with his awesome husband, James
  • Deciding if he needs to buy more kettlebells💪
  • Maintaining his facial hair🧔

Aaron is always here for any strength conditioning tips you need or just a friendly chat about all things French.🍟

 
Alfonso Ramirez

Not much is known about Alfonso, but this semi-serious man is actually full of unique traits… did you know he:

  • Used to be an actor🎥🎬
  • Was also the tenor in an acapella group🎤
  • Is an avid hiker, mountaineer, and ice climber🏔⛰
  • Is from Miami, but was born in Peru🦙
  • Met HQ on the team, and rest is history💏
  • Rumor has it, the women in Canada still call him Delicious

Don’t ever be afraid to talk to this coach, he’s patient and he’s married to HQ so you know that’s true.😂

Quinn practicing his catch with an ice dragon boat paddle

Quinn Tian

Quinn Tian got interested in Dragon Boat after accidentally stumbling into the 2011 Hong Kong International Dragon Boat Race in Victoria Harbour during his first trip to Hong Kong. He joined Living Root the following January and has been part of the Team ever since. He enjoys the intensity, the fortitude and the commodity that dragon boat brings. He likes training newbies and helping them improve, cause the most important thing about dragon boat is not if you can paddle but if you can paddle better, longer and stronger. There’s always room for improvement. You can catch him at almost every practice feel free to stay hi, pick his brain or just talk about your day.

Mark Yuen

A native Bostonian, Mark Yuen has been paddling since 2011, and joined Living Root in 2012. He believes in the transformative potential of sport for personal growth and development, and is passionate about the benefits of a good warmup/cooldown exercise routine. Living Root is the reason that he has prepared three turduckens,and Living Root is also the reason that he will probably never make another.

The Living Root Board of Directors

Living Root is a non-profit managed by an elected board of Rooters. The Living Root Board of Directors spends its time trying to take over the dragon boat world.  Primarily responsible for marketing, advertising, recruiting, team building, and generally being awesome, the Board meets regularly to discuss how to make Root even bigger, better, faster and fancier.  The 2023 Board is:

Helen Quach, President
Charlie Ritchie, Vice President
Traci Tong, Treasurer
Jesse Morrow, Secretary
Natalia Chilcote, Director-At-Large