Director's Dare
Diver Down
Friday, June 9, 2006
I'll admit it. I'm a little scared. Any one would be if they were truly honest with themselves. Oh sure, you'll hear people, especially men, but women who see them selves "assertive" also, full of bravado, denying it. But underneath, you know it isn't true. Anyone would be frightened.
Tomorrow I will dive for the first time in my live in a competitive meet. I've been off the diving board before. In fact, I've been known to hit the board at least once at pretty much every swimming pool we visit. I am not a diver, but there's something dangerous even exhilarating about standing on a somewhat narrow plank of fiberglass, staring gravity right in the face and not backing down.
Of course I had high hopes this year of really getting some training in for my chosen sport. I started off right away by recruiting a coach. To protect his reputation, I'll call him John. John was a diver in high school and has some experience at this kind of thing. We met a few times and his advice was truly very helpful. Of course my dives are not very difficult on the degree of difficulty tables (or DD tables as they are apparently called in the diving world). In fact they are very basic. Even so, I'm not very good at any of them.
As usual, as the event drew closer my time to train evaporated. Then, about two weeks before the meet, I went to the SUU pool like usual, and you guessed it, no water. Time for the semi-annual repairs that always seem to fall on the years I have picked water based sport. I was tempted to train any way, but thought better of it. Of course the lack of water threw off my groove and by the time the pool was operational again, time to practice was pretty much nonexistent. I did squeeze one more practice in one early morning, but probably nothing to really make a difference in my scores on "game day."
I've picked six dives from the one meter spring board. I'm not even sure of the official names of the dives, even though Janet Christensen, the Diving Coordinator tried to teach them to me as we filled out my "dive sheet" today, but I can't remember them. My list basically amounts to a forward pike, an inward pike, a back flip, a forward one and a half in pike position, a back dive that I really can't do, and a thing that I've always called a Gainer, with is basically a back flip facing forward.
So yeah, I'm a little scared. Oh, I'm not really worried about winning. I'm pretty much assured it's not in the cards for me this year to walk away with the gold this year. I'm not really even worried hurting myself, the dives are pretty elementary. Making a fool of myself with my lack of dicing prowess? Well that's pretty much a given.
So what is it that has my heart rushing even now as I sit here typing. What has my hands trembling and my breathing rapid and shallow? What is it that I'm scared about?
Two words.
Spee and do.
This is going to be interesting.
Labels: diving
