At Rocky Mountain Diving Club, we live to dive! And we hope you will too! To help you become better accustomed with Rocky Mountain Diving Club and with the sport of diving, we ask that you take a few minutes to read the "Parent's Page." Heck, print the page and take it with you to the pool to read when you can't bear to watch your child's first attempt at an inward 1½ on five meter platform!
Please use the following links:
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| At least once per session, we publish the RMDC Newsletter to communicate program changes and updates, registration information, a few photo highlights, and news flashes. Your
will receive a newsletter by email prior to the start of each
session. If you cannot find the email, click on the link below and print an copy for yourself and
pin it to the refrigerator door. Extra printed copies of RMDC newsletters are always available on the RMDC bulletin board located at the dive tank in Talisman Centre.
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Click here:
RMDC
Newsletter, September 2009
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- Make sure the diver is at lessons on time and ready to dive with proper footwear, shorts, t-shirt, bathing suit, towel and water bottle
- Encourage your child without pressuring them. Always show interest and enthusiasm. Diving through the fear is a major part of this sport's psychological demand, so be patient if your child hesitates to try a new "scary" dive.
- Please do not coach your child. During lessons, allow the coaches to do their job. Some coaches find that divers perform better and more effectively when parents are not present or are seated upstairs in the observation area above the pool.
- If your child misbehaves, a coach has some responsibility to discipline them, but the ultimate responsibility for discipline remains with you.
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Do not criticize coaches or other divers in front of your child.
- Let your child know that you will be there for them, even if a lesson does not go as well as hoped or anticipated.
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| The sport of diving usually headfirst into water with the addition of gymnastic and acrobatic stunts first appeared in the summer Olympic Games in St. Louis, Missouri, USA in 1904. In open competition, divers use the one meter and three meter springboards and the 10 meter platform, although the one meter springboard is not competed at the Olympic Games. In competition, divers perform compulsory and optional dives with each dive marked out of 10 points. The judges score the dive considering all phases of the performance including approach, takeoff, technique and grace, and entry into the water. Judges are not concerned with the difficulty of a dive, as each dive has an assigned 'degree of difficulty' ranging from 1.2 to 3.5. The highest and lowest scores are scratched. The remaining scores are totaled, and then multiplied by the degree of difficulty to achieve the points total for the dive. |
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The sport of diving is safe, fun and exciting. More than 25 million children participate in organized sports, but only a few thousand of the most talented athletes will become divers. Many young divers dream of the making it to the Olympic Games, others dream of making their high school teams or getting a university or college scholarship. No matter what size a child's dream, it is important that the dream be theirs. Parents should nurture these dreams and help them come true.
Through diving, and the Rocky Mountain Diving Club Program, your child will develop:
- Improved agility flexibility, conditioning, and coordination
- A positive self-image and more confidence
- Improved social skills from interacting with other program participants and RMDC coaches
- An ability to deal with success and disappointments
- Sportsmanship and leadership skills
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Many parents express concerns about the safety of diving. However, for an athlete who is properly trained by a safety certified coach, diving is an extremely safe sport. Dr. Jamie Kissick, Chairman of Sport Safety for the Canadian Academy of Sport Medicine, suggests that it is important to differentiate organized sport from recreation activities when reviewing injury statistics.
"Diving Safety, A Position Paper" published by United States Diving reports on a study conducted by the Consumer Product Safety Commission (2002) which found that there were fewer accidents related to diving and diving boards than to golf, bowling or bleachers. A second study conducted by the National Spinal Cord Injury Data Research Center (2001) found that half of all diving injuries occurred in rivers, lakes and oceans and that most diving injuries "result from horseplay and injudicious behavior."
Scott Stevenson, Executive Director of the Canadian Amateur Diving Association (CADA), suggests "the best place for a person to learn to dive safely is in a nationally sanctioned program, working with professional coaches in appropriate diving facilities. Jumping into unknown waters, in unsupervised environments is not 'the sport of diving,' and related spinal cord injury research should clearly make this distinction." Bottom line? Take quality diving instruction. |
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Diving is one of the most popular spectator sports of the Summer Olympic Games. The grace, strength and velocity of competitive diving is indeed a thrill to watch. All diving competitions are run in accordance with Federation Internationale de Natation (FINA) rules and standards which dictate the dives which may be performed, methods of scoring, board heights, water temperature, manner of judging, and number of dives to be performed. Below is a summary of the FINA Diving Rules for 2002-2005. For more complete information, including illustrations of the different dives (who's the smarty pants, now?) visit:
http://www.fina.org/divingrules.html
Currently, FINA recognizes 87 different dives. For convenience these are broken down into six categories.
- Forward Group
The diver faces forward off the end of the diving board. Dives in this group vary from the simple forward dive to the very difficult three and one half somersaults. A running approach of not less than four steps is normally used for dives in this group. The last step is termed the "hurdle" and it is from this that the diver generates height on take off.
- Backward Group
All dives in the backward group begin with the diver at the end of the board, back to the water. The direction of movement is away from the board. As there is no run up, height is harder to generate, and good technique is required to complete the dive.
- Reverse Group
These dives begin like the Forward Group, the diver moving forward to the end of the board. However, the rotation is back towards the board in a reverse or "backward" movement, hence the name "reverse."
- Inward Group
These dives start like the Backward Group with the diver at the end of the board with his/her back to the water. However, from take off, motion is in towards the board, not away from it.
- Twist Group
Any dive in which the body is deliberately twisted (rotated on the axis of its length) is included in this group. Just to complicate matters, twist dives may incorporate any of the four groups mentioned above (forward, backward, reverse, inward). Because of the large number of combinations, this group consists of more dives than the others.
- Armstand Group
This group is only used off the platform, not the springboards. Here the diver assumes an armstand position on the end of the platform before executing the dive. Steadiness in the armstand is important.
When each type of dive is being performed, the diver uses one or more of the four different types of body position:
- Straight
This position requires that there be no bend at the waist or knees. However, there may be an arch in the back, depending on the dive. As in the pike position, the arm placement is either at the diver's choice or defined by the dive done.
- Pike
The legs are straight with the body bent at the waist. The arm position is dictated by the particular dive being done or by the choice of the diver.
- Tuck
The body is bent at the waist and knees. The thighs are drawn to the chest while the heels are kept close to the buttocks.
- Free
This is not an actual body position but a diver's option to use any of the other three positions or combination thereof when performing a dive which includes somersaults and twists. However, in dives of this type the tuck position is rarely used, while a combination of the other two positions is common.
There are five basic evaluation components of a dive.
- Approach
Should be smooth and forceful, showing good form.
- Take Off
The diver must show control and balance, plus the proper angle of landing the hurdle and leaving the board for the particular dive being attempted.
- Elevation
The amount of spring or lift the diver receives from the take-off greatly affects the appearance of the dive. Since more height means more time, the higher elevation generally affords greater accuracy and smoothness of movement.
- Execution
This is most important, for this is the dive. A judge watches for proper mechanical performance, technique, form and grace.
- Entry
The two criteria to be evaluated here are the angle of entry, which should be vertical, and the amount of splash which should be as little as possible.
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