Parents Diving?

[SophiaPD]

Does anyone have experience with a gymnast without much competition experience moving to dive team in high school? My 12yo competed Xcel bronze (and just finished 6th grade), and she'll continue Xcel for at least another year or two. She's done several years of recreational gymnastics off and on, mostly tumbling, but this was her first year to compete. She is not interested in cheer or dance. I wondered what skills are required for high school level diving. Any insights?

 

[txgymfan]

Divers need strength, flexibility a level of fearlessness and air awareness. Lots of divers started as gymnasts. Bookworm’s daughter was a level ten gymnast who is now diving in college.

Laura Wilkinson was a Karoli gymnast who won an Olympic gold medal and competed in 2 or 3 Olympics. Current elite gymnast Trinity Thomas also competed in diving with her high school.

 

[jamieintexas]

I went straight onto the varsity diving team from gymnastics. It was a pretty easy switch.

 

[CLgym]

I think there is a social group dedicated to diving, right? "The Diving Board" maybe, or something cute like that. Not sure what the requirements for joining are though.

 

[cp13]

My daughter is a L6 gymnast but she dives for our neighborhood dive team in the summer. She started 3 years ago. It's so much easier than gymnastics I am sure high school is more competitive but the girls who were former gymnasts do very well in comparison to kids that have never done dance or gymnastics because they have good form and they have good air awareness. She loves it. The kids can learn dives pretty quick if they are really motivated.

 

[Deleted member 18037]

2 of our gymmies moved directly to varsity diving. Both qualified for sectionals

 

[LouLou]

I’ve seen quite a few girls transition well, however they were all at a level quite a bit higher than Xcel bronze. If she has any interest in trampoline and tumbling that may help her a lot more at this point. Tumbling not so much, but trampoline and double mini could provide a lot of flipping, twisting and air awareness.

 

[B&M's mom]

anyone can move to diving from gymnastics, especially if they are only interested in doing high school. Gymnasts do seem to have an edge because of their training but there are some differences thwart they need to overcome (different hurdles and twisting). If she’s interested, contact a dive team and see if they do lessons. That’s what my daughters did One is now diving on D1 team while the other is happy just doing the high team and no other competitions. .

 

[Madden3]

I suggest ask around/do some investigating into how large/competitive/intensive your high school’s dive team is (is it cut or no cut? What off season training is required? What are the diving experience expectations (if any) for incoming Freshmen, etc.) And definitely find out whether or not there are pre-high school dive programs in your area and do they act to feed many experienced divers onto the HS team.

I do not know anything about diving. I would make this suggestion to anyone whose young gymnast intends to switch or has the backup plan to switch to a different sport in high school.

Some high school coaches esp. at larger/more competitive schools have plenty of athletes going out for their sport who have been doing that specific sport for many years. Often in that case the coach already knows of many athletes or may have even coached them, and if it comes down to it, they are likely to give preference to those athletes.

I am not saying diving is not an obvious match for a gymnast. I am just saying that a gymnast is a gymnast and not a diver. We are now living in a time where early specialization and intensive training in many sports is much more common - making high school sports very competitive in some areas. It just depends a lot on the individual school/district.

 

[SophiaPD]

Thanks! I found a local dive league that does AAU competitions but has a lesson-only group that sounds perfect. We'll see how she likes it. I'm not sure how competitive our high school dive team is, but I do know cheer and dance are very competitive. We don't have high school gymnastics teams and cheer seems to be where the gymnasts tend to go (and she has no interest in cheer or dance).

 

[Podlet]

My DD did a season of diving with the HS team, and it was a very low-key and inclusive environment. No cuts, and not all of the girls came in with a full list of dives. There were a handful of kids we saw at meets that were very talented and may have been early specialists, but that was the exception and not the rule in our neck of the woods -- we saw lots more beginners. YMMV, of course. The lesson group sounds like a great place to start!

 

[bookworm]

My daughter started diving, literally, the October of her Freshman year in college..she really wasn't much of a swimmer even before that. She's done pretty well in her 3 short years in the sport, even qualifying to zones this year (I equated it to Regionals in gymnastics) ...initially started with the 1 meter , then last year added the 3 meter. Her teammates are 1 former Level 9 gymnast, 1 lifelong diver and 1 athlete who took up the sport as a freshman with no prior experience in diving or gymnastics...so it can be done.

 

[B&M's mom]

First, want to apologize for my post. Apparently I cannot type on my cell phone. So, from now on, I'll wait to post until I have a full sized keyboard and can see what I'm doing.

Lessons are a great way to start. Some tips on diving that took me a while to understand. Diving at the high school level is just from the 1 meter springboard. If your daughter loves the sport and wants to do 3 meter or platform then she'll likely have to join a club. In high school (at least in our state) the divers need a dive from every type of dive group(I believe that there are 6 groups but it could be 5)in order to be an official diver who can score points for their team. As long as they have at least one, they are good to go. That being said, our coach has competed kids who don't have all their dives but have 3-4 just so they get the experience. Every dive has a degree of difficulty (the DD) which is multiplied by the average of the judges' score (usually 2-3 judges) to get the score for the dive. Scores from the judges usually fall between 2 and 10 with 5-6 being considered competent and anything above a 7 as very good with 8-10 being great. Most dives can be done in one of three different positions: legs tucked, legs piked or open. The letter at the end of the dive number indicates which position the dive will be performed in. Divers can fail a dive even if they do it well if they do not do the dive called (my youngest did that). They all know their dive list ahead of time and have to sign off on it so its usually just a mental error. There's just no partial credit. Judges look at the form leaving the board, in the air and entering the water. Divers enter either head first or feet first and there's no penalty for feet first.

To get to sectionals and states, in our state, they have to get two qualifying scores plus have 11 dives where they received a 5 or better from all judges. AAU and USA Diving have their own competitions but you need to be part of a club to do those.

High school diving is really much more laid back than gymnastics. The meets can be hour or less depending on the number of divers. Longer if there's also swimming.

Hope she has fun!

 

[Tay's Mom]

My daughter - 6th grade - was "recruited" by her middle school's swim coach this year to join the dive team, because he knew she is a gymnast (JO Level 5). She did very well - lol, except against the school that had a Level 9 from her same gym on their team! She plans to do it again next year. I did notice that all of her dives were feet first - guessing it was hard to come to terms with trying to land on your head...

 

[SophiaPD]

First day of lessons went well -- a lot of the motions are similar to gymnastics. I've been having a hard time finding a good online resource on diving, though. The AAU website explains the dive groups, but doesn't explain what counts for them (is a tuck jump a dive?). I was finally, almost understanding enough about gymnastics to not feel completely lost... so I guess that means it's time for her to pick up something new to render me completely clueless again...

 

[Uppity]

The AAU website explains the dive groups, but doesn't explain what counts for them (is a tuck jump a dive?)

OK- as simply as I can

Firstly shapes:
A- straight
B- pike
C- tuck
D- "free". so usually for twists where you may twist straight but somersault tuck/pike.

Dive numbers:
First number is direction:
1- Forward
2- Back
3- Reverse (so "gainer" in gym terms, forward take off but back somersault)
4- Inward (back tack off, forward rotation)
5- twist
6- handstand

Next is usually 0. This number is ignored- harks back to the days when they did the "swan dive" type dives so is no longer needed.

Then it's number of half somersaults.
0- jump
1-dive from feet to head.
2- single somersault
3- 1.5 somersault
4- double somersault......etc.

So there you pretty much have the basics and you can put dive numbers together:
100c= tuck jump
101c= tuck dive
103c= 1.5 somersault in tuck
405b- inward 2.5 somersaults pike.

Some novice dives "line ups" can be slightly different- 10B is a pike fall- where they stand on the board in pike and fall in to practice entry.

Then it can get complicated as you increase difficulty
5132 for example: 5, so it's a twisting dive. 1, take off is forward, 3, so 1.5 somersaults, and 2, full twist. forward full twist, 1.5 somersaults.

Clear as mud? It's a relatively straightforward system. Everything will "count" and has a set DD.

 

[SophiaPD]

Thanks so much! That's incredibly helpful!

 

[wandrewsjr]

The rules for high school diving can be found on the NFHS website. Link Removed
If you like reading all the technical stuff here is the officals rule manual: https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct...l-final.docx&usg=AOvVaw3V5L1ugs6uqO70UNRFruYI