Training On A Diving Board

you may be limited sometims because you are always traveling forward

I dived for 12 years I can triple front of a one meter dub back dub gainer and 1 1/2 with two twists. off 3 I can do 3 1/2 inward doubles (I know none of you belief me now so when I get home I'll post the video up I'm in school can't do it now) the only thing diving really helped me with is flips and flips with spins I don't I repeat do not through a rodeo or a cork like you would off a diving board it would not work.

for gainers i first learned how to run and jump straight, turn 180in the air, and then start a laid out backflip. then i started to turn less and less, and eventually i learned straight up gainers. theyre simple onece you commit. especially of a 25 foot, i do them off about a 4 foot lol.

and personally i think boards are best for learning rodeos. i can rodeo 9 off  a 4 ft one. and i took them straight to the mountain this year

I don't get to use diving boards very much, but when I get the chance I still can do gainers.  It's kind of spooky when you haven't done them for awhile.  If you can get on a tramp, you can practice gainering a little on the tramp.  If you are going straight to the pool, just make sure you are jumping out.  If you under rotate a gainer it's just a reverse dive, or you can reach down and grab truck on your toes; that's like a Hawaiian Suicide.   You don't splat when you hit the water that way.  You can also try jumping out to one side to make sure that you don't smack the board.  When I am teaching guys to BF on skis, I always tell them "Look for the ground, you'll get around; look at the sky, you're going to die.  Later you cann learn to stall out, but at first you just want to figure out how to get all the way around. 

A misty 180 in gymnastics terms is a branny.  It's like a round off without touching your hands.  McConkey was one of the first guys I ever saw throw a branny on skis.  Another great trick that you can learn on diving boards is both variations of a lincoln loop.   The way Eddy Lincoln threw it, it was like a sideways cartwheel.  I can do those on a diving board and they're pretty fun.  Practice doing some cartwheels on the grass and then when you feel like you've got that down, try it off the diving board.  Visualize that there is a pole that goes straight through your stomach and you are just rotating around that.  The other thing that everyone calls a lincoln today is a barrel roll.  You throw that completely different.  Basically it starts like you you are jumping on to a bed and landing on your back.  You sort of dive forward at the same time that you start rotating onto your back.  Then just reach for a safety grab or something and that will usually bring it around.

Have fun.

it's hard to explain but you need to learn the proper diving approach just YouTube it will show up their one thing your suppose to do on flips jump up wait get up in the air a little before you throw your flip, if you through your flip right off the board you will lose a lot of height. then through you arms down to you legs. (not do not bring you legs to your chest bring you body down to your legs if you bring you legs up to your chest it will stop your rotation and make you flip slower.) once you through the flip get in to a canon ball and squeeze the harder you squeeze you canon ball the faster you flip. Ok This gets hard to explain the kick out at 1 1\4 of your flip kick out the only way I can put this in skiing terms after bang or kick out (the harder the after bang or kick out the more your flip will stop) as your body becomes strait look down spot your landing or water then with your arms and hands put them over your head (one hand should be on top to break the water) stay tight and don’t bend. Yea it would be easier if I could talk and you could see me and what I was doing with my hands and legs.

Training for diving and/or Gymnastics can only help to a certain point and then is becomes a liability.  How many off axis tricks do you see in competitive diving or gymanstics?  That would be a big fat 0.  So both will help with your air awareness, and your ability to flip and rotate on axis. At some point "on axis" gets locked into your brain and it is tough to learn how to go off axis.  For divers, gymnasts and oldschoolers like me, if you went off axis, it was because you fucked up royally.  Your brain goes into panic mode and starts trying to figure out a way to save it. 

One and a halfs are fun off a diving board, but you don't want to get so comfortable with them.  When you over rotate a front flip on skis, you don't want your brain to go into panic mode and say "no worries, I'll just do a one and a half".  You want your brain to be thinking tuck, duck, fart; anything you can do to keep from lawn darting. 

If you do want to do front one and a halfs, the main thing is that you have to be thinking one and a half from the get go.  It's the same reason people learning to spin have a tough time making it past 180.   If you land at 180, it was because you were thinking 180.  If you are landing on your face in a canonball position when you try a one and a half, it is because you did the flip at the same rotation speed that you normally do a front flip; you just stayed in a tuck.  Think faster rotation and you will have it.  Sometimes it helps to count out the rythm of it in your head.  Do a front flip and count to two in your head for instance while your doing it.   So it would be like 1 = you're inverted, 2 = your right side up again. Once you've got that locked and feel that rythm, try a one and a half by counting to 3 in the same amount of time it took for you to count to 3 before.  At 3, you will be inverted again and diving.  I have had success teaching skiers how to 3, 5 and 7 using this technique.  It works, if you at least have some rythm pigs.