Many of the failures are attributable to the varying con ditions as to the take-off. At one entertainment the competi tom may be asked to plunge from a point four or five inches above the surface ; at another, some three feet from the water ; and it therefore frequently happens, especially in a strange bath, that a plunger is not really able to judge the angle at which he should enter the water to enable him to gain the greatest possible impetus from his dive.
Another reason is that, although the body should be fully inflated with pure air before entering the water, this process is not often completed, and the buoyancy of the body is lessened, a bad plunge being the consequence. Again, the spring may be well taken and the lungs properly inflated, yet a plunger may enter the water with one of his legs lower than the other, and this will cause him to deviate from the straight line in which the plunge should be made, the leg which is lowest acting as a rudder and sending the body round to the side of the bath nearest the lowered leg.
The foregoing are three special points of which practised plungers at once become cognisant, and they are particularly careful to remember them in their second plunge. There are, of course, other points in plunging which have to be picked up, the most important among them being the management of the breath ; but those just noted arc the little details which, for gotten for the moment, but quickly remembered when a miserable plunge is made, so often cause an improvement in subsequent plunges by the same man in the same competition.
When in the water a good plunger can at once tell whether he is doing well or not. He feels pressure against a given point in the body—perhaps the shoulder, or the arm, if the latter be not fully extended—or in rising to the surface the body assumes too perpendicular a position, and, slowing down directly after he reaches the surface, is not carried forward by the receding water, which although perhaps not noticed by on lookers, or even the majority of plungers, has a marvellous effect on the floating body. If those who take an interest in the art will watch a slow plunger, they will observe that immedi ately after he rises to the surface, the water, which is constantly in motion owing to his own and previous plunges, begins to splash slightly against the body, and this resistance can only be lessened by the plunger first learning to make a clean and well-judged dive.
It is absolutely useless for a man to stand on the side of a bath and indulge in strained respiration, as so many do, if at the take-off he does not accurately judge the angle and the possible resistance of the water. When practising, or in com petition, a towel should first of all be laid down on the spot from which the take-off' is to be accomplished, a portion of this towel being allowed to overhang the edge of the bath so as to pre vent the plunger from slipping.
The plunger should stand erect on this start ing base with the toes slightly overlapping the edge of the bath and the ball of the foot resting firmly upon the diving base. When prepared, the whole of the atten tion should be devoted to the inflation of the lungs, and to effect this he should be perfectly calm and unmindful of the spectators. The knees should be kept 'together, and the body poised upon the ball of the foot. Then the arms should be swung slowly backward and forward and a few short inspirations taken, the heels being raised from the ground at each forward swing of the arms. The inhalations should be short and the expirations long.
As soon as the lungs are well cleared a spring forward is 'made and a deep inspiration. taken.. As the feet leave the diving base the hands are thrown above the head in line with the body, which in the spring forward should be directed so as to enter the water some ten or twelve feet from the starting. point. The actual angle to be observed can only be arrived at by continual practioe, but at no time should the body be more than two feet or two feet six inches below the surface of the water. When the body has once entered the water the palms of the hands should be flat, the fingers kept perfectly straight, and thumbs locked. The feet should be turned well back, with the soles as nearly as possible facing upward. At the same time the body must be kept rigid in as straight a line as pos. Bible, and perfectly motionless.