Get Over It

A reverse dive is probably my least favorite dive. Wait, what am I saying? It IS my least favorite dive, in fact, I think I might even hate it. A reverse dive is a dive in which the diver does a regular forward hurdle and rotates backwards to enter the water. It may sound like a pretty simple dive, but it is in fact, really scary. When rotating backwards, I often see the board pass by as I enter the water. My biggest fear is cutting off the board and landing on the board instead of the water. Even though I am a former competitive gymnast, I never learned how to do skills that relates to a reverse dive. In gymnastics, we learn how to travel and flip backwards, forwards, and sideways, but never at the same time.

Every night at practice, my coach has to force me to practice my reverse dives repeatedly. He always tells me that the only way to get through my fear, is to get my numbers in. In other words, I have to practice that dive many times so I can get more comfortable doing it. I have been doing reverse dives throughout my season of diving, and I have to admit, I'm not exactly comfortable doing it yet.

During the summer of 2006 was when I first attempted these dreadful reverse dives. Surprisingly, my first few reverse dives were actually my best, because for some reason, I slowly got closer and closer to the board after these first few dives. My coach told me to take it out, but I didn't exactly know how. And instead of taking it out I took it waay in. I jumped on the side of the board, flew backwards when I was supposed to go forwards, and almost landed on the side wall, which is about 2 feet behind the front of the board. If I hadn't have went sideways, I would have landed on the board, and might have gotten some broken bones. In mid air, I saw the wall pass by me, while my teammate and coach were screaming. Luckily, my coach didn't me do it again that day, and it was the last practice of the summer session.

I was obviously terrified when I came back to practice before season started. I tried to leave early from practice so I wouldn't get the chance to do those reverse dives. But as time passed, I realized that I couldn't hide from that dive forever, and that I had to at least attempt it sooner or later. My coach realized this too, and taught me how to do reverse dives over again. I remember doing those drills, and wished that I could do those forever. My coach finally talked me into trying one eventually, and I actually I ended up going for one. It wasn't the prettiest dive, but I was proud of myself for attempting it. That dive didn't miraculously free myself from that fear, but after attempting it, I started to get a little more self-confidence. I actually ended up competing that dive in five meets, not very well, but I it anyway. In fact, at diving states, I cut off the board again, and ended up being very close to the board. My teammate's grandma screamed really loud, which scared the heeber jeebers out of me. I ended up getting a really low score for it too.

But no matter how scared I am of the dive, and how terrible it is, I learned to get through the 'heeber jeebers' and just go for it because I learned that if I wouldn't have tried, I wouldn't have gotten very far in diving. Besides, there really isn't as much satisfaction and pride of getting through the season without any obstacles along the way.