# @lala_the_diver on Instagram

- **Type:** Video
- **Original URL:** https://www.instagram.com/p/CVjOHOnjlx-
- **Gondola URL:** https://gondola.cc/posts/72580136-lala-the-diver-instagram
- **Thumbnail:** https://img.gondola.cc/tr:w-,h-,fo-auto/postThumbnails/e6092a754d.jpg
- **Posted:** 2021-10-27T23:22:29.000+00:00
- **Account Owner:** Laura Wilkinson🥇Athlete Mindset & Performance Coach (@lala_the_diver) — https://gondola.cc/lala_the_diver

## Caption

This probably doesn’t look like anything special from the outside, but what’s happening in this dive I’ve never been able to do before.

I started diving 28 years ago. I was starting to understand how to pick up visual cues (which we call spotting) early on in my career until I had an incident on an armstand on platform.

I had thrown my head backward and was seeing the sky instead of the water. I got increasingly disoriented, then would feel dizzy and I truly felt like I was confusing right side up from upside down. So I proceeded to close my eyes when I dived… for YEARS.

Eventually it came to a point where I was supposed to learn a more difficult dive on 10meter and I knew I couldn’t do it if I didn’t know how to spot. So I fessed up to my coach about closing my eyes, got yelled at, then we started all the way back at square one- learning how to see the water on simple fall ins and flips.

It was a long and scary process, but I tackled it on backs and reverses and it literally broke the glass ceiling for me. It was freeing and diving was fun again!

But I never learned how to do it on fronts and inwards….

Until now.

At age 43.

As a mom of four.

As long as we have breath in our lungs, we have opportunity to improve, grow, try new things, master old things, to start over.

Don’t let someone else’s opinion define what you are capable of accomplishing. Let your dreams define that for you.

#nevergiveup #onetoughmother #nevertoolatetostart #nevertoolate #athletelife #stepbystep #momoffour #momlete #womeninsport #breakingbarriers

## Stats

- **Views:** 0
- **Likes:** 1,228
- **Shares:** 0
- **Comments:** 61

## Tags

onetoughmother, athletelife, nevergiveup, nevertoolatetostart, nevertoolate, momlete, breakingbarriers, womeninsport, momoffour, stepbystep

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