When I was a skinny kid, I learned one day at Susan Miller Dorsey Pool, how to do a 1 and a half. As soon as I write this, I am brought to mind of a girl who came there one day and did a 'half gainer'. I had never seen anything like that in my life. A bunch of us kids would do a couple bounces on the board (which was pretty high quality) and manage our 1 and a halfs, but she did what I later learned was called a hurdle, which is the standard way a springboard diver gets the board to flex in a continuous motion to the edge with one final bounce. And she got height, which in our own way of judgment was as important as it is in the real world of competitive springboard diving.
Like most kids my age, I hated being shown up, but I also didn't hesitate with my props. After all, it's about being the best, and she kicked all of our asses that day as well as showing us something new. One of my friends said it was a gainer, but she told me there are five categories of dives. Forward, reverse, inward, back and twist. I knew about inwards, but was never really impressed with them. We did 'backs' off the board lots of times. I couldn't get my head around the physics of a twisting dive, although I could do a back 1 and a half with a half twist. That was my best dive. In the flip-flop world of street tumbling we called that an 'arabian' which started backward and ended with a full front. I did it often enough when I wasn't confident about the doing backs, or I was just lazy. The idea of doing a reverse dive was just frightening beyond belief. How does someone move forwards and rotate backwards at the same time?
For me, the value of diving was adjunct to tumbling. While a few of us had a number of dives, the number of tricks we could do on the grass was much bigger and so were our audiences. I was one of the best divers I knew, but to climb the hierarchy of tumbling at the local parks delivered a great deal more glory. As I went around various area parks, it was good to be king or close to king. My brother Bryan and I were constantly on the lookout for good 'FFG', flip flop grass. I still have vivid memories of impromptu pickup battles at Sportsman's Park, at Centinela Park, at Dorsey and in front of the Olympic Swim Stadium at Exposition Park. Speaking of which, I did dive off the 5 meter platform back in the days when the City of Los Angeles was not so pussified to have them around. I never bothered with the 7.5 and 10 meter platforms. I did wear glasses after all.
I never became the great tumbler I dreamed of becoming. There were a couple of insurmountable barriers. The first came in the form of money and the second in terms of opportunity. The City of Inglewood had a summer program for tumbling over at Rogers Park just around the corner from their City Hall. And like their pool at Centinela, there was one fee for Inglewood residents and another for outsiders. Dorsey pool cost a quarter no matter where you were from. Centinela charged a whole dollar, and you couldn't leave the pool and come back. Similarly, Rogers Park charged an unthinkable $100 for their summer gymnastics program. It boggled my mind. Later, when I attended high school, they simply had no gymnastics team. Also, no wrestling team. Also, no band. All of the things I was decently competitive in, were not an option. My first semester, I hated the place. But there was a diving team.
I joined the AAU diving club in Santa Monica. I can't even remember if I paid much for it. But I finally picked up on all of the techniques I vaguely recalled from the good old days at Dorsey Pool. One or two nights a week, my brother and I would take the bus from Crenshaw to Pico, take the Pico bus to Sears, and then take the Big Blue Santa Monica Bus all the way to Santa Monica High School to practice under the watchful eye of Jim Wood. Jim was probably one of the best influences I had as a teen. He demanded as close to perfection as you were capable of. He always threatened to put my toes in a pencil sharpener. Sometimes it's hard to focus on pointing your toes when you're half scared to death of the stuff you're doing in midair. Carl was our best diver. Chris Horne and Chris Monaghan were my friends. Coleen McNamee was the belle of the ball. Her blonde hair would turn the brightest shade of green of anyone. I, like a flying Q-Tip left my afro at full length. I first borrowed a pair of diving shorts from Chris Monaghan and finally got a pair of my own. Most people don't know, but when you do dives to your feet, like a double front, it is not kosher to hold your balls. But if you are ballsy enough to dive in Speedos, you won't be for long. It stings like the balls of your feet when you land from jumping off a roof. These things I knew at the age of 14.
I lettered varsity in my freshman year according to the points I earned that first season. I peaked in my junior year, making the quals to go to State which was held at Beverly Hills High School. I was good enough for highschool and AAU. I won gold once or twice and I had a decent 11 dive list by that time. My best AAU meet was the Chula Vista Invitational. My first, and worst was at the Jack Kramer Club in fancy Palos Verdes. It was at that meet where I made my first fail dive. I can't even remember what went wrong. There are three horrible things you can do as a springboard diver. The worst is just what you think. You can slam some part of your body on the diving board. That never happened to me at practice or in competition, but some time after highschool I did so doing an inward dive at the pool at Val Verde Park north of Magic Mountain. It wasn't so bad that it drew blood, if I remember correctly and it got me a good dressing down from the lifeguard. I'm sure if I impressed any girls with that stunt, they were the wrong ones. The second horror is called a balk. Just like with a baseball pitcher if you start your hurdle and then stop in the middle and then start over, it will cost you half the points on your dive. I also never balked in competition. I did land a ridiculously laughable and grotesquely embarrassing fail dive at this, my very first meet. Of all things, it was a 1 and a half. This wasn't a serious meet and unlike in more serious competitions you only needed a five dive list. But to get a zero on any dive.. well that sucked.
Somewhere else on this blog, I've thought back about my diving career. The fear of diving with a boner. The days the team called my Kunta Kinte. The win at Leuzinger that made me a role model. My mentoring of Adrian Hernandez and Tremelle Jenkins as captain of the team. My first merciless sunburn at Madera. My win at the Mexico USA dual meet at SMCC. The first year banquet at the Hennebery's in Toluca Lake. The medals and trophies. My rival who smoked me at East LA College. The non-kosher slide at Camp Stevens. The day Chris Horne hit the wooden lane lines at Northridge Aquatics. The black dude with the burn on his left ankle who was an incredibly fast spinner, and of course the mutual contempt held between every diver in California and Greg Louganis. Chris Horne healed up and made the team at USC, but didn't make varsity. California has produced the world's finest divers- the competition is fierce. But I did once get a 7, at Chula Vista.
This past weekend I got up on a diving board for the first time in at least three decades. It was a crappy little joke of a board, typical of the sort you find at home pools, not the glorious and expensive Duraflex sort you find at a high quality pool or at Colleen McNamee's house in West LA. I wouldn't be surprised if more people hurt themselves on these stiff little boards than on public high dives. My inward dive suffered horribly. But I did manage a decent forward half twist and forward pike. My daughter's Instagram of my crumpled back layout got the most likes. Fortunately, or not as the case may be, she published it in a one time fashion with no remaining record. I have yet to get the original video.
There's something dramatic about approaching a diving board. All eyes are on your mostly naked body, your teammates, your coach, everybody in the stands, your parents, other divers and of course the judges. You prepare the acrobatics in your mind, clear the water from your ears and eyeball the sprayers that mark the surface of the water. You get on the board and move the wheel forwards or backwards to your ideal spot. I liked mine a touch firmer than medium for my earlier career. As I gained weight and skill that place was still good. I changed from a three step to a four step hurdle in my sophomre year. Your hurdle needs to be smooth, you have to line up your spot so that you're not staring at your feet as you land them as close to the front edge as possible to gain the maximum momentum of the board which pushes you up and out. It takes a while to feel and trust how the board pushes you forward. You should aim straight up, not out, to get the height you need. Sometimes if you have a lot of rotations, say a forward 2 1/2, you want to grab your knees too soon or throw your arms down before you reach a good top. The score depends upon three parts of your dive, your approach and hurdle, the 'top' of your dive which includes your form in the air, and your entry which as everyone knows, should make as little splash as possible.
It's during the approach where you have to rid yourself of distractions. They call your name and the dive. On more than a few occasions, they call a dive out of the order you remember submitting on your list. You have little choice once you place your foot on the board. Balking costs. As the crowd hushes and your coach gestures his last signal to remind you not to do that weak part of your dive (Jim makes a cranking a pencil sharpener gesture), you are under maximum pressure. Breathe in. Stand and deliver. Focus and perform. Once the thing is in motion, it's all practiced mechanics and then finding the right split second to reach for the bottom of the pool. Push your arms forward, left hand grasping the right wrist, palms forward, locking your elbows and punching a hole in the water for the whole of your body to pass through. Are you under rotating and short? Are you long with your legs going past your head on entry? Did you finish your twist square with the board? Did you screw up the top and let your legs and feet go limp with frustration? It doesn't matter. The dive is over, you swim over to the side of the pool, adjust your trunks and pull yourself out of the water, triumphant or otherwise. You listen you the judges but you knew what score you deserved the moment you hit the water. Shake out your hair, grab your towel and prepare for the next dive.
I was pleased to learn that Jason Statham was a springboard diver. You have to have style as well as discipline. You have to be comfortable with your body and abuse it. You need to be fearless of both pain and embarrassment. You get to show off. You get to learn the intricacies of something that takes place in seconds. And other than during the Olympic Games, you don't get to show off how well you can anticipate what a judge will score any particular dive. It's a dying art, I think. The Chinese have taken over the aesthetics of diving. They are slim and smooth and elegant. During my era, the era of Phil Boggs, Klaus Dibiasi and Greg Louganis, a combination of grace and power was what the judges liked. Then when Mark Lenzi came forward, his muscular hairy chested diving was acrobatically amazing. He could finish a forward 3 1/2 pike above the three meter board which is astounding to watch. It changed the sport. Now there were many dives that were included in official competitions with greater than a 3.0 degree of difficulty. Not so graceful but exciting in a new way. The Chinese and all divers, due to the new higher DD dives tend to be a lot shorter than those in the old school. Louganis was 5' 9" and by memory I recall Boggs and Dibiasi to be taller. But the sport moves forward, alas with fewer American world champions and contenders.
I am pleased to have recalled all of this and recognize the impact it had on my life. Getting into the yearbook sports page thanks to the drawing of Gary Suard, was one of my proudest moments as a teen. And doing well in a sport that wasn't my first choice or my second I guess taught me some valuable lessons. But I think the most important was to stand and deliver under the pressure of failure and against all odds. I think I did OK.
Recent Comments