Dive Right In (2 page)

Traci sighed. “Pete says the same thing.”

“He’s right. Why wouldn’t you want to?” Valerie asked. “If it was me, I’d jump at the chance to work with a coach like that.”

Traci snorted. “If Jeff told you you’d never be a first-class gymnast, you’d just say, ‘Oh well,’ and go on from there? I
don’t
think
so.”

There was a pause on Valerie’s end. “Well, I guess I’d be depressed about it, sure. But even if I felt bad, I’d call that
coach. Just like I think you will. You’re as ambitious as I am. You know you’re good, and you aren’t going to let it all go
without a fight.”

“But you think Jeff was right?” Traci asked. “About me being too tall for gymnastics?”

Traci could hear Valerie sigh over the phone. “I hate to say it, but yeah. I mean, it’s true, all the best ones
are
built like me. And it’s true that you’ve been having more trouble lately, even on the beam—your specialty.

“And another thing,” Valerie continued before Traci could say anything. “If I hurt a knee or an ankle so that I could never
compete in any sport again, I don’t know what I’d do. That would truly be the worst. It’s hard to imagine quitting gymnastics,
but the idea of having to give up sports totally…”

Valerie trailed off without finishing, but Traci knew what her friend meant. Maybe she
was
lucky, at that. “Okay, thanks. I guess I’ll call Margo.”

“Great!” Valerie exclaimed. “It’s the right thing for you to do. I mean, it’ll be the pits not having you in class anymore,
but it’s not like we won’t see each other. After all, you’re still my best friend.”

After Traci hung up, she found the coach’s card and made the phone call before she changed her mind.

The coach answered right away. “Yes?”

Traci winced a little at the flat, cool voice, but plowed ahead. “Uh, this is Traci Winchell. From this afternoon?”

“Yes?” said the coach again.

“I was thinking and… I want to try it, if it’s still all right with you. Diving, I mean.”

“All right. Get a pencil and paper.” Margo gave
Traci an address and a list of equipment to bring along. “Please be ready tomorrow afternoon at four.”

Traci was about to say something about how she appreciated the opportunity and was looking forward to it, but before she could
say it, Margo said, “Good-bye,” and hung up.

Wonderful,
Traci thought, looking at the phone in her hand.
This should be a lot of fun.

T
raci was ten minutes early for her meeting with Margo. To her surprise, the place wasn’t a specialized diving center, but
an ordinary health club like the one her parents used. Through glass doors at the back of the lobby, Traci saw a swimming
pool but no diving board. It wasn’t what she had expected.

Margo came through another set of doors, looking at her watch impatiently despite the fact that Traci was early.

“Hello,” she said, with the total lack of warmth that Traci was learning to expect from her. “Put on your suit and meet me
by the pool with your gear.”

As she changed, Traci realized that she was rushing, though she wasn’t late. However, she wanted to make a good impression,
and rushing seemed like a smart choice. She ran to meet the coach by the pool,
carrying the gym bag with the things Margo had told her to bring.

“Let’s see your gear,” said the coach. Traci opened the bag, and Margo, after a quick check, gave Traci a jerky nod. By Margo’s
standards, it felt like high praise.

Traci held up a piece of soft, heavy cloth the size of a large handkerchief. Mrs. Winchell had picked it up at a sports store
that morning. The package it came in read “chamois”; Margo had pronounced it “shammy.” It looked and felt like something Mr.
Winchell used to wash the car. “What’s this for?” Traci asked.

“To dry off after dives,” Margo said. “Come here to the pool. Can you swim?”

Traci couldn’t help staring at the coach. Could she
swim?
When Traci failed to answer immediately, Margo snapped, “Don’t you know whether you swim or not?”

Despite wanting to make a good impression, Traci was irritated. “Sure, I can swim,” she said, knowing she sounded annoyed.

“Good,” Margo replied. If she sensed Traci’s annoyance, she didn’t show it. “Not everyone can swim,
you know. Please get in and swim the length of the pool and back.”

Traci was puzzled, but jumped in. A fair swimmer, Traci swam to the shallow end of the pool and back—twenty-five yards each
way.

Margo nodded again. “Now, swim underwater as far as you can.”

Traci went slightly more than half the length of the pool before needing air, about fifteen yards. Not bad, she thought. Margo
said nothing, so it was apparently okay with her, too.

Margo had Traci demonstrate a few other basic skills. At the coach’s direction, Traci swam down to touch the bottom of the
pool at its greatest depth, then did it again, this time picking up a coin that the coach had thrown into the water. Traci
went across the pool, using only leg kicks while holding a kick-board. She was surprised at how hard it was and how long it
took.

“Good,” Margo said. Traci wondered if she’d actually get to dive, now that she had proven that she wouldn’t drown in a swimming
pool.

Not just yet. Instead, Margo said, “Please come here,” and pointed to the side of the pool. Following
Margo’s instructions, Traci knelt on one knee at the edge of the pool.

“Good,” said Margo. “Now, roll forward into the pool, tucking your chin in and extending your arms before you hit the water.
Once you hit the water, flex your hands so your fingers point up toward the surface.”

Traci nodded and executed the move, straightening her arms so her hands cut the surface of the water before her head went
in.

When she surfaced, Margo beckoned her out of the pool. “Your chin wasn’t tucked in enough. Also, you didn’t extend your hands
properly when they hit the water, and you didn’t point your fingers up. Once again. This time, tuck your chin in tightly and
try to control your hands more carefully.”

Traci didn’t have a clue what this proved, but tried to follow Margo’s instructions in every detail.

“Better,” Margo said, though she wasn’t completely happy. “Once again. Time the extension of your hands so that your fingers
are straight just before they reach the surface of the water—not too long before and not after.”

Good grief!
Traci thought but didn’t say. She did it
again… and again. Finally, Margo said, “Enough. Now, stand at the edge of the pool and bend slowly forward from the waist—keep
your legs straight—until you fall forward toward the water. Then, tuck in your chin and straighten your arms and hands as
before.”

Traci ran through the instructions in her head and nodded. Then she did what Margo had told her, or so she thought. But Margo
had Traci repeat the move several times, making tiny corrections each time. Once it was the position of her shoulders before
she started forward; once Margo thought that Traci’s head wasn’t exactly aligned with her spine, so she used her hands to
make a slight adjustment in Traci’s posture. Finally, Margo was satisfied.

Traci couldn’t resist asking, “What was I doing just then?”

“That was what we call the ‘pike position,’” Margo replied. “When you do a dive where you bend at the waist but your legs
are straight, that is the pike position. As you approach the water, you straighten out—that’s the ‘come-out.’ Then you enter
the water with your body in a straight line and with as little
splash as possible. The other diving positions are called the ‘tuck’ and ‘straight’ positions.”

Margo paused while Traci dried herself with the chamois. “In the tuck, you tuck your body into a tight ball and do a come-out
before you hit the water, just like you do from the pike position. When you went into the water after kneeling, you were basically
doing the tuck position. In a dive done from the straight position, your body remains in a straight line. Is this clear?”

Traci nodded.

“Good,” Margo said. “There are many dives from each position. In some, you go off the board or platform facing toward the
pool. In others, your back is to the pool. Some dives require somersaults. Others involve twisting your body. Those are harder.
But don’t worry about all that. We have a lot of basics to do. Let’s get back to work.”

This time, Traci dove from the edge of the pool without bending at all—the straight position. Margo frowned.

“What you did just then would have been fine if you were swimming in a race. You jumped
forward,
as if you wanted to cover as much distance as possible before you hit the water. That’s the right idea, for a racer. But a
diver needs to jump
up,
to get the height you need to execute a dive before entering the water. Try again—and think about jumping
up
instead of
out.”

Traci thought for a moment and tried to jump higher. It felt odd, and, as she climbed out of the pool, she said so.

“It will feel normal eventually,” Margo said. Traci did several more, trying to adjust according to Margo’s constant and (Traci
thought) picky correction. She knew she’d done well when Margo said nothing. Apparently, unlike Jeff, this coach didn’t believe
in praise.

Finally, Margo said, “Please change into the workout clothes you brought. I’ll meet you in the second-floor exercise room.”

Traci changed in the locker room, used a neat little machine that dried out her swimsuit in a few seconds, then went upstairs.
The exercise room contained several mats and a large, round trampoline. Traci felt more at home there.

Margo was waiting, looking impatient again. Traci
suspected that Margo
always
looked that way. With Margo was another woman, younger, with curly brown hair and a warm smile.

Margo gestured to the other woman. “This is my assistant, Sophia Brigati. You’ll be spending a lot of time with her, especially
at first, if you continue in my program.”

“Hi, Traci,” Sophia said. “I’m looking forward to working with you.”

“With your gymnastic background, I assume you’ve spent time on trampolines,” Margo said. Obviously, chat time was over.

Traci nodded. “Sure. We have one—
had
one—just like this for Jeff’s class.”

“I think we can work without the safety harness, then. Sophia will help spot you,” said Margo.

As Traci knew, “spotters” watched while athletes worked on equipment where accidents might happen. An experienced spotter
could almost always keep the athlete from getting a serious injury.

Traci swung onto the trampoline and did some warm-up jumps, getting used to its surface and tautness. Then, following Margo’s
direction, she went through some simple acrobatics: forward and back
somersaults and flips. Margo had Traci do front and back flips in the pike position—with straight legs, bending only at the
waist. After the constant correction at the pool, Margo had little to say here. It was obvious that gymnastics had been good
training for some aspects of diving.

Margo then had Traci do some of the same moves on a mat. There, too, she had nothing to say. Traci noticed that Margo and
Sophia were making comments to each other that she couldn’t hear.

After ten minutes of work on the mat, Sophia said, “See you soon,” waved, and left. Margo turned to Traci. “Please meet me
here on Saturday morning at ten o’clock.”

Surprised, Traci asked, “We’re done for today? Am I going to dive Saturday?”

“Not until you’re ready,” Margo replied. “Remember, you’re getting a late start and there is still much to learn.”

She nodded and walked away. Traci watched her go, wondering if she should feel happy or annoyed.

S
o, do you like diving? How was the new coach?” asked Pete, as he grabbed a drumstick from the chicken platter.

Traci frowned. “I don’t know. Margo isn’t exactly Miss Personality. We were there for two hours, and she never said a single
nice word. She just kept giving me these really fussy little criticisms. And I never got to dive.”

“If you never got to dive,” Mr. Winchell said, “what was the coach correcting?”

Traci explained what she had done in the pool and in the exercise room. “It was really kind of dull, not at all what I was
expecting.”

Mrs. Winchell said, “It sounds to me like this coach wanted to see what you could do, and how you responded to corrections.
She doesn’t know you, after
all, and she’s right: You
are
new to diving, and you’re a late starter.”

“Margo sounds like my English teacher this year,” said Pete. “She can really be brutal to me and a couple of others in the
class. Most of the kids she doesn’t treat that way, but with a few of us…” He shook his head.

“At first I thought she was picking on me because she didn’t like me for some reason,” Pete continued. “But then I decided
it isn’t that at all. She wants me to do well, and this is her way of getting me to work harder. And the fact is that I
am
working harder, and writing better.”

“Seems to me that it’s way too early to pass judgment on this Margo,” Traci’s father said. “Let’s see what happens over time,
and maybe she’ll lighten up, or you’ll get used to it, or you’ll see it as a challenge, like Pete and his English teacher.
And, Trace, nobody’s forcing you to go on with this. You can always quit.”

When Traci left the dinner table, she felt a little annoyed. Her family hadn’t been as sympathetic as they should have been.
And there was no way she was going to quit—not yet, anyway.

She was doing her homework when there was a knock on the door of her room. Traci opened it to see Valerie holding her gym
bag.

“I had to stop by and see how it was,” said Valerie, tossing her bag on Traci’s floor and flopping onto the bed. “How do you
like her? Was she totally awful?”

“Not
totally
awful,” Traci said, “but I didn’t like her. She’s really cold, and nothing pleases her. She had me doing this really boring
stuff over and over, and she made a million tiny little corrections. ‘Once again, and hold your left shoulder a millionth
of an inch higher than your right shoulder.… Once again, and flex your wrists a teensy bit less…. Once again….
Once again….’ It was making me crazy.”