How to: inward

I've been talking about inwards a lot lately and I thought it would be nice to tell you how to do one. Well an inward is any maneuver that you start facing the board and your back to the water, and when you jump off you turn your body towards the board, like this:

Here's some tips:
1.To do an inward you need a lot of spin to get all the way around especially when your doing an inward flip.
2.Your need to make sure that when you jump off you get far enough away from the board, so you don't hit your head. (The girl in the video, she is really far away and could probably go a little bit closer). Another thing to note, your probably going to feel that your closer than you actually are, if you feel that way get your coach or someone to tell you how far you actually are and it should help you get closer our reassure you that you wont hit your head.

Here's how to actually do it:
1.Like the girl in the video, she gets a little bounce before she leaps off.
2.She swings her arms so she can get all the way around.
...and that's it an inward is kind of easy to do but it still has it's challenges.

Another good yet bad time

This experience again has to do with me not being able to do a dive, but this it's not because of an injury, I couldn't do it because of an accident i had earlier, but that's not the reason why it was a bad moment. This was a bad moment because it was right before a competition and in the division i was in and inward was a mandatory dive, and couldn't do it but my stupid coach put me in the division anyways, even though i told him a million times that i couldn't do it and i wanted to be in the lower level. Anyways....the night before the competition i was determined to do it, I didn't end up being able to but it's the effort that counts, right? So, during the practice rounds I tried to do it but nothing, the competition started and i went up to my inward, and i tried but nothing again, the judges told me i could try again, but i didn't want to, all i was thinking was "oh ,great!"(sarcastically). Guess what? The same thing happened. After the competition they announced the winners, I wasn't expecting to get a ribbon (they gave ribbons from 10th to 1st), because everyone else was able to do all their dives. Anyways, they announced 10th, and then 9th they said my name, I was so confused, and happy that I beat people without doing one of my dives. Just imagine it my dives must have been really good if I beat people who did all 5 of their dives.

A good yet bad time

Okay so, this experience was amazing. Me and this other girl, we both learned how to do front one and a half 's at the same time, it was great to be able to learn it with some else and it really helped me because I'm really competitive and I wanted to be the first to be able to do it, which I wasn't because we both did it at the same time. We were finally able to do it, my coach said she never saw anyone learn how to do this dive that fast. It was going really smoothly, but for I don't know what reason I wasn't doing it as well as I was before, and I was getting frustrated with myself. I think that's why I got hurt,(that's the time I hit the side of my head against the water) I wasn't focused enough. this experience was good because I learned how to do a really cool dive and it was a bad experience because I got hurt and I was never able to do it again.
Here's a video of a front one and a half dive, enjoy:

The times I got hurt

There's been a few times I've gotten hurt. All between smacking my body against the water and hitting my head against the side of the pool(like I said in one my earlier blogs). One of the ones I remember the most is one that happens a lot, and it's not because of diving, it's because of the water, but I'm telling you this because it did happened one time because of a dive. This happened like a year ago, I was at a practice and I was finally able to do a front one and a half, and I was doing them fine but one of the time i opened up(from my tuck) too soon and I freaked out and landed on my ear(like the side of my face). The bad thing about that is I couldn't do my front one and a half anymore and I had to wear these stupid ear plug things for a while(but that wasn't the worst part). Another time, this was after the ear incident, I was trying to re-due my flip (because I couldn't even do that anymore) and I freaked out again and landed on my side and my whole leg and some of my face was all red. I know I've gotten hurt more times than that but these are the two that I remember very well, and the other time I got hurt from my "bad experience­­" blog.

Personal experiences; good one!

Like I said it's the good moment that make the bad ones seem okay, an example of that is after the inward incident happened a year later I went back to the pool and even though I said I would never try an inward ever again I did anyways, but never got close. I tried my hardest all summer. That same summer I entered in the competition that I always enter and the competition was progressing normally, the team went to practice and I was executing my dive perfectly. All the teams practice together but only the people who are in the next event. I'll never forget this one girl, she was complaining about everything, and how she wasn't doing her dives right, meanwhile mine were almost flawless. All I remember thinking was her doing her dives crappy meant that it would be easier for the rest of us to beat her, which five of us did. Later, the competition started and I was doing my dives really good, but according to my coach(who was one of the judges) I did them way better in the practice rounds. After my competition was over we had to wait for the group older than me to go. After that everything got set to announce the winners in each category. They finally got to mine they announced 10th, 9th, 8th, and my name wasn't called I wasn't really surprised because I know I did better than most of the others. They went on to 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2 and still nothing at this point I was scared! I was so nervous because I thought I did worse than everyone else! That wasn't the case, I kicked their butts to the moon, my score was 120.?? and the person is second place their score was 94.??. I beat them by 20 points. I couldn't believe it out of 20 divers I was the best. Also a little, bonus the city was on strike the next summer so to this day I'm still reigning champion! Hopefully, I'll win 2 years in a row, that would be super awesome!

Personal experiences; bad one!

I thought I'd take a break from all the details and just talk about my personal experiences with the sport. The sport and I have went threw a lot of good and bad times, but it's the good times that make the bad ones not seem as bad. Here's one bad time that I'll never forget, one day during practice I tried doing and inward(is when you start with your back to he water and you spin towards the diving board) but I couldn't do it to save my life. There was this more experienced girl and she decided to help me by us going to the edge of the pool and her grabbing my legs and just dropping me in head first facing the side of the pool. Well the suction of the water pulled me towards the edge of the pool, the only thing that stopped me was hitting my head off the side. I was almost fine, I just had a bruise on my forehead, but this is one of the reasons why i won't do an inward, even off the diving board. Also, I DO NOT SUGGEST THAT YOU DO ONE OFF THE EDGE OF THE POOL, ALWAYS AND ONLY OFF THE BOARD!
Here's just an example of an inward, so you guys have a visual:

How to: dive positions

Like I said in one of my other blogs there are four main types of positions, layout, pike , tuck and free. All four are used for every dive, and they're kind of really important especially in competitions.
How to do each one:
Layout position is basically just a pencil jump, but more complex, you must keep your whole body straight not letting any part of your body fly, and NOT forgetting to point your toes.
Pike position is you folding your body in half and keeping it tight, and NOT forgetting to point your toes.
Tuck is you folding yourself again, but this time in a really really tight ball. The tighter you put yourself into a ball, the better. Also NOT forgetting to point your toes
Finally free, or straight, is just twisting in the air, this is when a diver can move more freely and not get penalized. Also NOT forgetting to point your toes.

All of these position can be really use full if done properly and if used appropriately.

Here's a picture that shows all four types,

the picture on the left is also a layout, but it's also part of the free.

Different diving positions.

There are four main types of diving positions. Layout, pike, tuck and free. Layout, pike and tuck are more controlled or should be more controlled when your in the air. All three of these positions are used in every dive, in various ways and combinations. Free position is when a diver turn on an angle in the air. So, basically "twisty" dives.
All of these positions have different difficulty levels. In competitions having the higher level positions in your dive is a really good thing, it can take a simple back dive, to a back dive with a half twist (twist are the highest). Yes, even just twisting half way can bring the difficulty way way up.
From highest to lowest difficulty, free position is the hardest to do, that's why it has the highest rated difficulty. Pike would be the second. Tuck would be the third. Layout, is the easiest and it's the first thing you really learn. You probably won't need to learn it because it just a pencil jump.
If your confused about how to do any of these positions, don't worry my next blog will be on how to do them . :)