Dive Right In by Matt Christopher Page A

arched your back, but you didn’t keep those muscles tense, so you bent into a sort of tuck. Keep your
     muscles tight and stay in a straight line this time.”
    Traci got better until, on her last try, she was almost vertical on her entry. Sophia’s grin showed Traci that she had done
     well.
    Traci then went on to the backward dive in a tuck position. “This is tougher,” said Sophia. “As you jump, you have to lean
     away from the board a little to get clear of it when you come down. On the way up, bring your knees to your chest and grab
     your shins; then straighten and use a ‘lateral entry.’ That means—”
    “I know,” Traci cut in, smiling. “I stretch my arms to the side and then overhead in my come-out. Right?”
    “You’re getting to be an expert,” Sophia replied. “Let’s see the dive.”
    Standing with her back to the pool, Traci madesure that her heels overhung the end of the board. She closed her eyes and visualized the dive: the tuck, the come-out, and
     the entry. She bent her knees and jumped. The dive was far from perfect—she hit the water before her hands came together—but
     it wasn’t bad. The next attempts were better.
    The backward dive in the pike position was less trouble for Traci. “These backward dives are easier for me than the forward
     ones,” she told Sophia. “Is that weird, or normal?”
    “Divers often have less trouble with backward dives,” Sophia said. “Maybe because you don’t have to worry about an approach.”
    The same day Traci started on backward dives, she added a new skill to her frontward dives: somersaults. As a gymnast, Traci
     figured that somersaults wouldn’t be too hard for her, and she was partly right. She was all right doing a frontward one-and-a-half
     somersault dive in the tuck position. Traci was supposed to do a complete spin in the air and come down to enter the water
     headfirst. Sophia had her lean forward as she left the board to get the somersault started. Traci picked it up quickly.
    The same dive in the pike position, however—spinning with her legs straight and bending only at the waist—was harder. Sophia
     said, “You need more forward lean, and try to get higher off the board.”
    After a bad dive in which she hit the water before coming out of the pike, Traci got better.
    “Want to try two and a half somersaults?” Sophia asked.
    Traci felt confident. “Why not?” But when she tried it, she lost sight of the water and hit the surface flat on her back.
     The mistake bothered her more than the pain.
    “How do you keep track of where you are when you’re spinning like that?” she asked Sophia.
    “It’s called ‘visual spotting,’” Sophia said. “The idea is to pick out something that you can see each time you spin around.”
     She pointed to a clock on the wall facing the springboard. “Use the clock. Each time you see it, you’ve completed another
     somersault. When you’ve done your last one, it’s time for your come-out.”
    Traci looked at the clock. “I’ll try.” Sure enough, she found that watching for the clock as she turnedhelped keep her from getting lost. But she still didn’t have enough time to straighten out before reaching the water.
    “You need more lean,” Sophia said, “and you need to get more spring from your legs when you leave the board.”
    On her fifth attempt, Traci bent her knees and sprang upward as hard as she could. She had enough lift to finish her come-out
     and hit the water with her body in a straight line.
    But Traci couldn’t do a two-and-a-half somersault dive in the pike position. She couldn’t finish the spins in time, even after
     several attempts.
    “It’s okay,” said Sophia. “You’re doing great! Margo has exercises to strengthen your legs and give you extra lift.”
    Margo came to see Traci’s progress at every session. She would always give Traci some pointers for her to work on. Traci started
     writing them in a notebook and studied it every day.