Daughter Diving for the first time as a Freshman in HIgh School

Question
My Freshman in high school started diving lessons in June of 2013.  She has a tumbling background (standing tuck, layouts, etc.).  She has her first High School practice soon.  She really only has 3 good dives now.  How many should she have and what are they?   Her instructor told us she would be great in the Novice division.  What are the divisions?  Thank you for the insight.

Answer
Hi Mom -

In high school diving there are two divisions: Varsity and Junior Varsity. Some leagues only have the Varsity division. The Novice division refers to meets held by club teams and is not a high school division. Here is some information about what high school diving is about:

There are four positions that dives can be done in: straight, tuck and pike. The fourth position is called 'free' and applies only to dives with somersaults and twists in them.

High school divers need to know how to dives from the five groups:

1. Front - front dives and somersaults
2. Back - back dives and somersaults
3. Reverse - take-off forward and then rotate backwards doing a dive or somersault
4. Inward - take off facing backward and then rotate forward with a dive or somersault
5. Twist  - dives that have both a somersault and a twist

In a high school dual meet (her school vs. a neighboring school), varsity divers do six dives consisting of both voluntary dives (easy dives) and optional dives (harder dives). All of these dives have a degree of difficulty value to them. Her coach will have a chart with all the dive choices there are along with the difficulty (D.D.) value. Here is an example of the easiest list I think of for a varsity diver to do at a dual meet:

1. Front dive (choose position)
2. Back dive     "      "
3. Inward dive   "      "
4. Front somersault "   "
5. Back somersault  "   "
6. A front somersault with a 1/2 twist or a back somersault with a 1/2 twist (free position)

Dives 1,2 & 3 are considered voluntary dives and easy to do. Dives 4, 5 & 6 are considered optional dives and are harder to do.

Go to this website, www.diving.about.com and in the search box, type 'high school diving' and have her read articles so she knows what to expect.

Good luck. Hope all this helps.