I’m king of the world. Well, for the next five seconds at least. Balanced precariously on a springboard three metres above Aberdeen’s Bon Accord leisure centre’s pool, the fearful novice in me remembers Kate Winslet’s blithe spirit at the bow of the Titanic. It may be the north of Scotland as opposed to a Hollywood set, but the apprehension is still intense. Arms stretched out and up, teetering on the edge, I prepare to embark on my first diving attempt in almost 10 years. An Oscar-winning performance it is not.
Blame the Olympics. Or Shane Lynch, the former Boyzone member who shared his impressive aquatic skills in the reality television show The Games. But diving is back in vogue. Not just because it’s finding its feet in the mainstream limelight, but because recent sports funding, filtering through from the government and local authorities, has put it back on the financial and social agenda. With a range of diving initiatives taking place around Scotland, the sport is open for enjoyment to all ages and abilities.
Craig MacLaren , a former professional gymnast and a regular at Edinburgh’s Royal Commonwealth pool’s diving classes, is an engineer by day and an amateur diver by night. “Joining a diving class is no different from any new class or sport,” he says. “It can always be scary, but it’s a very inclusive group considering that it’s such an independent hobby. It’s about embracing the apprehension and having the guts to try something new. The fact that I do something totally different professionally makes it even more appealing. It’s a great release after a day at work.”
While his gymnastic background affords him advantages as a diver, MacLaren insists that previous skills are not a prerequisite. “There are lots of people who love doing it as a hobby who simply saw it on the television and thought it looked like fun. It’s a very individual sport; you’re not competing with anyone but yourself. You take from the experience exactly what you want to: whether it’s appreciating it as a beautiful art form, a fun way to spend an evening, or as a professional sport.”
Mary Sless, the diving development officer at the Commonwealth, says there’s been a marked improvement in awareness of diving over the past four years. Since it set up a learn-to-dive initiative in 2001, participation has risen by 10 times, both as a hobby and competitively, and is continuing to increase.
“Figures such as these speak for themselves. The Olympics gave diving a mass of positive publicity. At the moment we can barely keep up with the demand.”
As a diver trained to professional level, Sless suggests people new to diving should take classes, instead of trying to self-teach. “Often with diving, it’s about going against your natural instinct, going against what your body might instinctively want you to do. A class really helps you to understand that.”
Sless makes a good point. Watching MacLaren take his class, there’s no comparison with my uncoached, half-hearted attempts.
Most diving boards are at heights of 1, 3, 5, 7½ and 10 metres respectively. The latter three are too terrifying to tackle on an initial outing. And without instruction, for safety reasons, you have to dive arms first off the boards: no flat foot diving (or plain old jumping feet first) is allowed.
The approach, the take-off, the technique and poise during flight, as well as the entry into the water are all intricate parts of what seems a straightforward process. In reality, it’s a lot like patting your head and stroking your stomach simultaneously. Remembering to keep your body straight, head erect, arms straight and to the sides or above the head, is really quite difficult. Until you see someone do it properly. Then it’s like poetry in motion. The desire to match that skill is enticing.
Sarah Bainbridge, a fellow Commonwealth diver and English teacher, first dipped her toes into diving waters as a youngster in Dundee, where she hoped to re-create images from the silver screen. “I used to marvel at the opening of the old Tarzan films when Johnny Weissmuller did a really spectacular swallow dive from a cliff top.” Following a two-year VSO stint in Kenya, Bainbridge decided to learn to dive properly on her return to the UK. “I had got to the stage where I had decided even if I had to hire the entire Commonwealth pool and fly in an Olympic coach, I would do it just to learn a swallow dive and a proper hurdle step.”
Half a decade later she has a set of competition dives that she describes as “fairly decent”, has been president of Edinburgh Diving Club and is now helping to develop adult diving in the city. And while she doesn’t have the gymnastics background of MacLaren, she still feels the full punch of the diving experience. “Diving combines the acrobatics of gymnastics, the beauty of ballet and the speed and thrill of bungee jumping. It is exhilarating to do and captivating to watch.”
Back in Aberdeen, a variety of incentives are encouraging people to take diving seriously as a prospective hobby. The Aberdeen City Aquatics Programme and the Bank of Scotland’s Learn to Swim syllabus supported by the National Governing Body for Swimming in Scotland are pushing for a bigger impetus on diving. Funding from Aberdeen city council is also going towards improvements to the local springboards. New classes are about to start at Bon Accord, and a diving club looks likely too.
One further attempt later and it’s clear to me that self-belief and co-ordination are paramount to success. As a slow swimmer, I’ve always felt that any sort of aquatic recreation was slightly wasted on me. Not so here. All that is really required is confidence in deep water.
Leaving the diving pool after my session on the springboards, I’m reminded of something MacLaren tells me as we part company. “There’s an element of showmanship to the whole thing. But despite the sport’s show-off factor, ultimately people come to have fun.”
I’m certainly sold. Now if someone could just sign Mr DiCaprio up for the same class, that would be a bonus.
