“Real courage is when you know you're licked before you begin, but you begin anyway and see it through no matter what.”
- Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird
Courage is a unique trait was has to aspire and achieve. Not everyone is born with courage. I know I wasn't. Diving is an amazing sport and I love it. I have been diving for a full year now. Being a diver has definitely helped me grow in my courage and strength, both mental and physical. Diving is very much a head game. Every time you get on the board and attempt to learn a new dive, you are pretty much guaranteed to smack. That takes a lot of courage. There have been two dives in particular that took immense amount of courage because I had failed so many times. That is a reverse dive and front double. A reverse dive is when you jump forward off the board then flip backwards toward the board. I can't even count how many times I hit the board on this time. I don't even care about the water, hitting the board is way worse. I remember one of the times I hit was in warm up at a meet. I was practicing it and I did something odd and I ended up slamming my foot into it and breaking my toe nail off. It really shook me up but I got back up did it again in warm up then in the competition and got 6's on it. I also slammed my arm into the board and almost dislocated my shoulder but I did it again after that. The other dive is a front double. That is when you jump off the board and do two complete somersaults back to your feet. I literally spent a month just trying to make this dive. I kept on kicking out of my tuck too soon and would smack my butt and thighs every single time but I kept on trying and got back on the board no matter how many times I smacked, and it was just this summer I was able to master it. It was a long process on both dives but I did it. It took insane amounts of courage, I knew that a lot of people on the team wouldn't do what I did. They would just give up after a couple tries but I did it. I saw it through to completion. Not only did I gain more confidence and pride I try more things and this quote reminds me to get on the board even if I know it isn't going to go well, just do it anyway.