Read the second part of our feature as cliff diving expert Joey Zuber talks us through the thought process during a 27-metre cliff dive.
Missed Part One? Read it here
4. During the dive
... it's automatic pilot time and the nervous energy you had at the start is not so apparent. However, if you are performing a dive you have done many times before, you are aware if you're rotating too slowly or too quickly, even in the early stages of the dive, so you will start to make adjustments in the air to adjust the speed. If you are rotating too quickly, you can pull out of the dive earlier to increase the radius of the body, which slows down the dive (air brakes), Basically, a smaller ball will spin faster and a bigger ball will spin slower.
5. Hitting the water
... can be a mixed bag. Sometimes you feel if you have made no splash because you can hear a tearing or ripping sound as you pass through the water, you also feel the way the bubbles wrap around your body, but most importantly you go deeper and quicker. But sometimes you hit the water and your body is like a rag doll, for example once at MarMeeting, I spun and twisted under the water violently and I thought I had over twisted my dive badly but then I came out with three 10s from the judges! Occasionally you don't know whether you've had a good entry but certainly if you land over (over-rotating on your back side) it's easy to feel the pressure on your back and sometimes you get water up your bum! It hurts! Landing short (short of vertical or on your face) can hurt as well; it can take the wind out of you, like a punch in the stomach.
6. Coming to the surface
... if you have completed a great dive, it's ecstasy; it makes you want to throw your hands in the air! Thats what you live for! A shit dive makes you slap your hands in the water because you are mad at your self for making a mistake.
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