Overcoming Obstacles In Learning To Diving

One time I overcame the fear of failure that still affects me today is when I took my first ever dive in the fourth grade. It happened that I was the only nine-year-old kid on my swim team that could not dive yet and I really, really wanted to learn. But, I was always afraid of going in head first and getting water into my ears and nose. When water gets into your nose, it hurts a lot. Mostly, though, I was afraid of failing to dive properly and belly flopping and embarrassing myself in front of everyone. Over time, with the inability to dive, I had developed the habit of jumping in on "all fours" and this was a major obstacle in learning to dive.
To try to solve this problem, I began to practice on weekends at the school pool with only my parents and the lifeguard around to witness my …show more content…
To be honest, I wasn't very motivated, and only by parents insisting that I go on weekends did I actually go. The hardest part had to have been getting me out of the automatic tendency to jump into the pool. My parents and I spent the longest time on this stepping stone. Hours became days, days to weeks, weeks turned into months, and after about one and a half months we finally developed a strategy to help me with my diving. I would stand at the edge of the pool in a streamline position and simply fall head first into the pool. The prospect of doing this didn't scare me as much as to that I wasn't falling from a higher level away from the water. I thought this strategy was a very good one, and I took an immediate liking to it. After I had gotten the hang of this from a lower point, I proceeded to make the “stand and fall” approach on the diving block. Many,