Margaret Charnin '26 Recruiting Profile

I was unable to compete in the 2023 or the upcoming 2024 USA Diving Junior Competition season due to my recent diagnosis of hip dysplasia.  This spring I will be having surgery to preserve my hip and I am hoping to be back to diving in the fall of 2024.

As an athlete and someone who drives for perfection, I have always looked up to ‘experts’ in whichever field I was focusing on. As a small child who loved competing in gymnastics, I was completely enamored with Ally Raismen who had practiced at my gym when she was young like me. When I was fascinated with Rubik’s cubes, I was in awe of Max Park who was the current speed world record holder at the time. As I grew in my love of diving, I became obsessed with watching Sarah Bacon, Kristen Hayden, Andrew Capobianco, Lyle Yost, and other world-class divers. I watch their dives on repeat to see how they hold their hands or where their shoulders are during dives, analyzing the small details and bringing my observations back to my coach to discuss their technique. I am always looking to find the experts not only to celebrate their accomplishments but more than that, I am trying to become an expert by learning through observing them. As I look toward a college diving career,  I hope to find a coach who is excited to partner with me on the journey to become an expert. 

Recently I did a report on deliberate practice, and it changed the way that I look at my own training, and how I can work to become a more skilled diver.  One of the things that I’ve learned by reading, Peak by Anders Ericsson and Robert Pool, is that you cannot participate in deliberate practice, let alone become an expert, on your own.  You need a coach who is an expert in their own right, who can share the techniques they have gained in their own path towards success along with the techniques they have devised to add onto what they were taught. I would love to have a coach that would partner with me in this way.

 I experienced this kind of deliberate practice at the 2028 and Beyond camp at Moss Farms Diving Club in October 2022. At this skills clinic, each dive was broken into key steps, we were given instructions on what we should be doing in each of these steps, and then we were given drills to practice and improve our technique. I arrived at the clinic feeling discouraged because in the weeks prior I had begun to hit my heels on the board on my back dives and back twisters. During the clinic the coaches taught me about opposition, even getting on the board next to mine and practicing the rhythm of the bounces with me. Since then, I haven’t hit my heels on the board again. Experiencing this type of coaching and having each element of a dive broken down changed diving for me, not only in improving my back approach but also in opening a new way to think about learning diving techniques. I hope as I continue to pursue diving, to find others who are as fascinated with analyzing the small details of diving and expertise.