Synchronized diving

Question
As a commentator at the Israeli TV on diving I was asked several times: how do you teach synchronization between two divers?
I have no personal experience with synchro. only individual diving
thank you for your kind reply

Answer
Hi Naftali -

I will give you a condensed version of how two divers become synchro partners for the 3 meter springboard event:

1. The coach has to find two divers of similar height, weight and build. The reason is that if they are dissimilar, they will not appear as 'one diver'. In synchro diving, the whole idea is that when a judge watches the dive from the correct angle, he or she can only see the diver closest to them.

2. These two divers need to have the same list of dives and be doing them the same way. This is part of being able to do dives in competition where there is the illusion of only one diver seen. These two factors of same size and ability make synchro a difficult event. It is why the Chinese are so good at this event. Same build and exact same dives done the same way.

3.Once the coach finds two athletes that fulfill the above two requirements, the coach then takes the athletes through the following drills:

A. The two divers practice their front approach on the deck until they do them the same way.

B. They then take the same steps and hurdle to two side by side trampolines to further become synchronized.

C. Next step is to do the front approach on two side by side 'dry boards'. These are springboards that are not over water. They have a large landing pit in front of them. They only do basic front jumps into the pit until they are synchronized.

D. Now they go to the pool and practice the same front jumps they did on the dry boards on the 1 meter springboards. They perform the jumps in the straight , tuck and pike positions until they are synchronized.

E. Finally, they then go to the 3 meter springboard and do the same jumps until they match. After that they can then choose competitive basic dives to do until they are synchronized. When they can do fundamental dives in synchronization, they then choose the harder optional dives to perform.Women need to do 2 basic dives and 3 optionals and men need 2 basic dives and 4 optionals. Synchro teams need to cover all five groups in their list.

F. The coach then has the divers go back to repeat the same process all over again only this time they are practicing the back take off that is used for the back, inward and back twisting groups. They need to figure out a back press that is identical so they take off at the same time. This can sometimes be more difficult than the front approach and requires more timing and practice.

G. The coach and divers also use video playback after every dive so they can see where they were not synchronized. This is done with TIVO's or DVR's that constantly replay a dive every 45 seconds or so.

I hope this helps you with your TV commentating at this summers London Games. Good luck.