Dive Right In by Matt Christopher Page B

Margo never praised Traci, but Sophia provided plenty of support.
    Several sessions later, Traci began working on reverse and inward dives. Though Traci was more self-assured now, she found
     these dives scary becauseshe had to tumble
toward
the board instead of away from it.
    In reverse dives, the diver faces the pool but does
backward
somersaults. For inward dives, the diver’s back is to the pool and she does forward somersaults. Either way, Traci worried
     that she might bang her head against the edge of the board. She said this to Sophia when the coach described the dives.
    Sophia said, “Most divers worry about that at first. But when you come off the board, your momentum carries you away from
     the edge so that you aren’t going to collide. Watch.”
    For the first time, Sophia actually demonstrated dives to Traci. She started with a reverse one-and-a-half somersault in a
     tuck position. She did an approach and hurdle. As she sprang from the board, she did a tight backward roll, coming out and
     entering the water with barely any splash. Traci noticed two things: first, that Sophia was a really great diver and second,
     that Sophia missed the edge of the board by a couple of feet.
    “Awesome!”
Traci whispered. “I didn’t know how good you are!”
    Sophia smiled as she dried herself off. “See how far I was from the board? Also, I arched my back as I started up, which got
     me into the somersault. Now I’ll do an inward one-and-a-half somersault in the pike position.”
    Sophia stood at the end of the board with her back to the pool and her heels off the board’s edge. Bending her knees deep
     and swinging her arms up, she jumped high off the board and outward. She bent at the waist and kept her legs straight until
     her forehead almost touched her shins—a perfect pike—then spun in a forward somersault, toward the board. But, as with the
     reverse dive, she missed the edge by plenty, straightened into a beautiful come-out, and plummeted into the water smoothly.
     Traci and the other girls applauded. It was an amazing dive.
    Traci began working on inward and reverse dives and soon got over the fear she had felt. It was clear that if she took the
     time to visualize each dive before she started it she’d stayed out of danger. She was far from perfect, but she sensed that
     she was making progress.
    Traci was now doing four kinds of dives: forward,backward, inward, and reverse. She had learned the straight, tuck, and pike positions. She was managing pretty well with one-and-a-half
     somersault dives and improving with two-and-a-half somersaults. Thanks to Margo’s leg exercises, which Traci did every day,
     her legs were getting noticeably stronger and she was able to get more height when she left the board.
    “You’re not ready for three-and-a-half somersaults,” Sophia said, “but you will be before too long. I’d like you to start
     working on twists. But before you do, I want to see you do some work on the trampoline. Put on your sweats and meet me in
     the exercise room.”
    A somersault involves “rolling” forward (or backward), while a twist is like a dancer’s pirouette or a figure skater’s spin
     on an ice rink. The most difficult dives combine somersaults
and
twists. These dives score the most points when divers do them well, but they are also the ones that are most likely to be
     done badly.
    Traci wasn’t worried about twists. She was comfortable with them from gymnastics. Some of her balance beam dismounts and some
     of her vaults hadincluded twists. She knew how to get a twist started by turning her upper body to the left or right while she was in the air.
    As Traci warmed up on the trampoline in the exercise room, Sophia came in with Margo. Traci felt a tingle of nervousness,
     which always happened when she knew Margo was watching her.
    Margo didn’t say anything as Traci went through some maneuvers on the trampoline that included twists and somersaults. She
     did single and