Friday, December 21, 2012

Busy Ryan

Hey guys its Ryan here! Its been a while since I have blogged and as I have been busy with school work, sports and a new job.   

This fall I got a job at Sprouts, it's a farmers market and they've got some great deals! You should definately go check em out. I have to go get carts from the parking lot and bring them back to the store, I bag groceries, sweep the floor, help little old ladies out to their cars... oh  and I clean up barf too... That was a fun day.  Tons of fun. 

Anyways, school has been going good! I am talking some hard classes and earning some college credit.  It makes for lots of homework.  But, I guess it is better than watching TV or texting with girls (but I do that anyway). It's great that we are finally out for winter break. But enough about gross school and work, lets talk about dive.

This semester I was on the Desert Vista High School Dive Team. I joined at the beginning of the school year because my friend said it would be fun. I came in with no previous diving experience, just a can do attitude. This attitude kind of changed after my first splat. A splat is like a belly flop but it can be your chest that "flops" or your legs or your back. It is just a painful experience in general. I once had a very bad splat, on my thighs. I was trying to learn a backwards dive, where you jump off the board facing back towards the steps of the diving board, and you dive straight back into the water.  In diving, the entry into the water is the part of the dive that can determine if you have a big splash or not. My coach wanted me to work on my backwards entry so she had me get up to the top of the high dive and stand at the edge of the board with my back to the water. She had me stand with my hands clasped above my head and and she told me to not move at all and just fall into the water. She said if I stayed straight as a board I would be okay. Me being a little new diver I just hopped up there and tried it. Bad idea... I forgot to keep my body straight and my legs bent so they were parallel with the water when I landed. Essentially I did a "Thigh Flop". Very painful, and very loud! The whole swim team that was swimming in the other pool looked over to the divers wondering what the loud smack sound was. Yeah, It was painful but I swam a couple laps and I was fine. Coach told me that I forgot to stay straight so I hopped up there again, intently focused on staying straight. Once again I forgot to keep my body in line and I smacked again. Well by the 4th or 5th time I was losing interest in this drill so I took the rest of the day to work on some other dives. After getting out of the water I noticed that my thighs were bright red.
Normally after a splat or two, the redness will go away in a couple hours... my legs stayed like this for a week...But I'm all better now.

Anyways, it was nice catching up guys! I cant wait to see you all again.

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