It’s important that you always remember that coaches will never ask you to perform a dive you are not ready to do.

If you make that your starting point, it will help you to build confidence.

As well as trusting your coach, you also need to trust yourself! If you are being asked to perform a new dive, then it means all your earlier progressions are in place and are good enough to move on.

A new more complicated dive, is just several more simple dives added together and if you think of a new dive as a “process” of going through each of those easier skills one by one, it can make the new dive much less scary.

So our advice – think of the dive as a process, A to B to C to D to E, not as a whole skill.

For example, a back dive tucked is:

Armswing back jump tucked 1m

Armswing back pike sit poolside

Back tuck roll 1m/3m

. . . . all added together.

A back 1½ is:

Back somersault tucked

Back tuck roll (or back dive tucked)

. . . . all added together.

Every skill, is made up of a number of different easier skills, so your new skills aren’t really new, or difficult (just a bit scary!).