Dive Season

I'm on my high school's dive team and I find it really useful to have people record my dives so that I can see how they look and what I can improve on. All the footage was shot with my iPhone and then I used iMovie on my iPhone to edit it. This is surprising to me since I'm not talented with technology and I didn't think it could all be done on my phone, but I tried it anyways and surprisingly i didn't have too many difficulties.

When I thought about what I think it means to live in silver spring of course there is the downtown area that people hang out and the local food places across from the the high school. But then I got to thinking about what it means to live in silver spring during this time of the year for me. Well that would be diving. We have dive practices on Wednesday from 3:15-4:30 and then I normally go with a few other people on the team to a nearby pool on Friday nights to get in some extra practice.  We have meets almost every weekend normally at 9 or 10 in the morning at pools in the middle of nowhere. Also this winter I did a diving camp from 7-12 in the morning during winter break.

This year was a lot different for me because last year I had two senior friends to dive with.  This year I have dove the entire season alone. Well not completely alone. There are three boys who I dive with and have become good friends with but all swim and dive competitions are divided between genders, so I am the only girl diver on the high school team. I wish there was another girl, but I'm glad to have gotten to know some of the boy divers who I didn't get to know as well last year because I was already surrounded by my two friends.

I really like diving because its the closest I can get to gymnastics. I dislocated my elbow last spring and have recovered but I can do any sport other than gymnastics. I spend my time busy as always and during the winter I do diving.

Diving is scored out of a 10. You get points marked off for flexed toes, bent knees, or bad entry in the water. A dive ultimately wants to go really high up with nice form and then the entry in the water should have the smallest splash possible. Then you also have degree of difficulty (DD) so dives with a higher DD are harder. This way a really hard dive is given credit even if It has ugly form.

It's funny when swimmers tell me oh I could never dive. It seems so scary. And while water hurts ALOT, if you smack the wrong way, diving is also about precision and moments where your body slices through the water. Diving is scary and sometimes I am terrified to try new dives, yet it feels amazing when your body rips through the water and you nail that entry.