Twisters Diving Team Newsletter

February 20, 2012

First of all, congratulations to Payton, Olivia, and Caroline for diving so well at the KU Presidential Invite this past weekend! I was so proud to coach all of you! Payton dove great on both boards (and she hasn’t practiced on 3-meter since July!), Olivia has been showing a lot of improvement on her jumps off the board, and Caroline dove like a champ in her first meet! All three did a wonderful job representing our team at the meet - great work, girls!

I hope that everyone is gearing up and getting excited for our April/May session! Beginning April 2, we will add a third practice to our practice options: Sunday afternoons 1-3pm at the Gladstone Community Center! We are very excited to be back at the Gladstone Community Center because we have a 3-meter (high dive) in addition to the 1-meter (low dive) to use at this facility. Diving 3-meter markedly improves 1-meter success, and I hope that all divers will take advantage of the 3-meter practice option.

Because we are adding this third practice option, I know that there will be some of you who would like to adjust your practice times. If you are interested in diving during our Sunday afternoon practice, please let me know as soon as possible. The fees for diving will be as follows:

• 2 hours per week: $120 for the 2 month session
• 4-6 hours per week: $240 for the 2 month session

Please take note that whether your diver will be diving 4 hours or 6 hours per week, the price is the same. This is to allow for flexibility and choice in your child’s diving practice options.

With that said, I hope that you will consider adding an additional practice to your child’s week. Everyone has been making great progress, but adding an additional practice will allow for your diver to make even more gains and to progress more rapidly. Diving more than once a week (even 1 hour at a time) improves learning capacity because of "muscle memory" and there is less time spent relearning skills from the last practice.

The annual TigerTown Invitational will be held in Columbia, Missouri at the Mizzou Aquatic Complex the weekend of April 21-22. In the past, it has worked well to arrive in Columbia on Friday night to practice at the pool prior to the meet, and then to compete Saturday and Sunday. The meet is already posted on divemeets.com, and I will send the official information for the meet to you as soon as it arrives. This meet has always been fun and a great experience for the divers. I would like to see as many of our divers attend as possible. If you are interested in diving in this meet, please let me know as soon as possible so we can begin to make travel and lodging arrangements.

We are excitedly anticipating the approach of summer (hooray!), and with that will come the MOKAN Diving League that our team has participated in alongside the Clayview Country Club diving team. In the past, fees for the six meets that occur from the beginning of June through the middle of July have been $80. Meets are on Wednesday evenings (with the exception of the last meet - MOKAN Championships - which lasts all day) with warm-ups beginning at 4pm and the meet lasting from 5pm-around 9pm.

I encourage all divers to compete in these meets as they are meant to be fun meets for both beginning and competitive divers. The other teams in this league are summer country club teams that have divers of all levels, so this provides an excellent chance for our divers to learn how to compete while showcasing the benefits of year-round diving!

Checks for diving in this league should be made out to Clayview Country Club for $80. MOKAN includes both 1- and 3-meter events and is a great value when you consider $80 for 1 skills meet, and 5 meets each with 2 events. A comparison to AAU meets would be 11 events at $20-25 each! I have attached last year’s MOKAN league schedule to this email for you to get a feel for what the meet schedule will be like for this year. I will get the MOKAN schedule out to you as soon as I receive it, but please let me know if you will be diving in the MOKAN league by Friday, May 11.

We will plan to complete our team swimsuit order prior to the beginning of our summer diving season so we will have our suits for the meets. I will be bringing suits to try on at practice during April and we will make our order at the beginning of May!

As always, I know that we will have a fantastic session! I am looking forward to preparing our divers for the upcoming competitive season and hope that they are getting excited as well! Please email me with any questions at our team’s new email address as cited below.

See you at the pool,

Mary :)

email: twistersdiving@yahoo.com

phone: (816) 679-4708

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