Relay Dives

Thursday morning:  If you have not already figured out, Marcia has had her swimmers tapering this week in anticipation for this weekend's meet.  I have never tapered for swimming or really even seriously trained for swimming enough to merit tapering.  I find that tapering for swimming is actually fun because we do a variety of exercises, including sprinting, diving, kicking, pulling.

This morning after our usual warm-up, we spent about 15 minutes practicing relay dives.  Apparently, relay dives are different from normal start dives.  In an individual event for fly, breast, and free, you start on the starting block, one foot in front and one in back.  The announcer will say, "Take your mark," and you will take your ready position, either bent over, hands touching the block or leaning forward, hands above in a streamline.  When the announcer says, "Go!", you dive and pray that your goggles, cap, and swimsuit all stay on.  In a relay event, the breaststroke and freestyle swimmers start by standing on the blocks, waiting for their teammate to finish his or her leg of the relay.  As the teammate approaches the wall in the last stroke, the swimmer on blocks sweeps his arms back and then forward in a circular motion, steps together, and then, dives in a streamline.  Sounds rather simple, graceful, and fluid. 

My relay dive was not that easy.  I am not really coordinated--hence, one of the reasons that I row and not play tennis or volleyball.  To watch the incoming swimmer, sweep my arms, step, keep my balance, put my head down, and then, dive is asking a lot.  The first few times, I felt very awkward like an elephant trying to dance with her legs and arms at the same time.  The main problem was that I was sweeping my arms the wrong direction.  Imagine the letter "C."  Instead of drawing the C from the top to the bottom, I was drawing the C from bottom to the top with my arms.  Minor detail in my head, but Marcia yelled, "Ann, what are you doing?!"  Marcia later joked, "Maybe I should put you first in the relay so I don't have to worry about your dive."  Oh, man.  I am that bad.