Freshman Beginner

Question
Hi...My daughter is completely new to diving.  She's 13 and has competed as a gymnast for 8 years.  An injury set her back a bit so she decided to try diving as a distraction.  It turns out that she loves it!  I have no knowledge of this sport, but I think that she's pretty good.  She did her very first dive on September 8, and last week, after only 4 weeks, she qualified for sectionals (New York State-you need 165 points to qualify and she got 172).  Looking at the local competion, not many qualify for sectionals (only a couple per school).  Now I'm wondering if I need to pursue more advanced training for her to see what she's really capable of.  There is a local club coach that she's been seeing for 2 hours per week.

It it common for kids to pick it up this quickly?  Or, is this something unusual?  What would you do if it were your daughter?

Answer
Hi Nancy -

I am going to give you a little background information on club diving to help answer your questions. There are two national governing bodies for diving in the US. USA Diving is the primary organization that is recognized internationally and sends divers to major meets like the Olympics. AAU Diving is a secondary organization that has one national championship each summer but no international events.

Both of these groups are comprised mostly of females (about 65%) between the ages of 12 to 24. Some younger and very few older.Of that age span, there are a huge number of girls between 14 and 18 separated into two age groups (14-15 and 16-18). Most of those high school age girls are ex-gymnasts.

Diving in general is full of kids with a gymnastic background. Diving coaches rely on getting new team members from gymnastics because it is a natural transition.Gymnasts take to diving quickly and find it more fun than gymnastics. Diving has a lot of the same acrobatic moves a gymnasts already knows but has a different personality to it. Gymnastics is a very serious activity because of the injury potential. Diving has injuries but is less traumatic. It also has a serious side to it but is less demanding on the body than gymnastics.Divers have a more laid back attitude to them and make the sport fun.

All that being said, it is common for kids with a gymnastic background to pick up diving quickly so she is not attaining something unusual. Kids like her do this all the time all over the country.They learn fast at the start and then it tapers off a bit.She'll be learning lots of new dives the first few months and then just work on getting the hang of it to do them consistently.

I would keep having her do what she is doing for the high school season and then when it is over pursue serious club diving. She will need to learn how to dive on the high board (3 meter# if she wants to excel in the sport and take her skills to a college program. This sport is mainly a 3 meter one and it is all about the 'optional' dives which have the higher degree of difficulty. College diving is only optionals - no basic compulsory fundamental dives. Only hard ones on both boards.Platform diving helps but it is not a necessity. Not a lot of platforms in NY. Only one I know of is on Long Island.

If the club coach she is working with now has a high board at their pool then she can learn there. If not you will need to find a program that has 3 meters. She will also need to know how to use a trampoline and a 'dry board'. This is a board that is not over water and has a landing pit #like gymnastics# in front of it. The tramps and dry boards in diving also have a spotting rig over them with ropes and harnesses to learn new dives. She will need to be familiar with all this equipment to be competitive because club diving for high school age girls is very difficult.

Here are websites to become familiar with:

www.usadiving.org. Click on Clubs and then Find a Club. Enter NY and a list of teams will come up. Other good information for parents and divers is found here.

www.aaudiving.org. Another site to find teams.

www.diving.about.com. Site that explains the sport.Lots of good high school information and also club diving tips.

www.divemeets.com. The largest diving site in the world for events. If she pursues club diving, you will be using this site. Click on Past Meets and look for results from events held this past year. Scroll down looking for results of Region Meets in your area #Region 1#. Click on results and click on 14-15 girls events. Click on any divers total score. A list will come up. Click on printable dive sheet so she can look at the type of dives girls her age are doing and the scores they are getting. This will give her an idea about what club meets are about.

Good luck. Hope all this helps.