A Glance, Flying Over the Water Swing

I love watching the diving competitions at major sporting events. Diving moves are graceful, the technical skill is impressive, and it's a pleasure to watch. Most importantly, our athletes have a clear advantage in this sport: China is an absolute powerhouse when it comes to winning diving gold medals. China has a long history in the sport. I haven't looked into where modern diving originated, but I do know that people in ancient China were doing something like it long ago. There are many theories about the origins of diving in China. I once read an article on ancient diving that said the earliest mention of diving in Chinese classics appears in the Biography of Zhou Chu in the Book of Jin, which says, “Chu plunged into the water to fight the flood dragon...” The article claimed that Zhou Chu used a diving technique when he jumped into the water to battle the dragon. I think this claim is debatable. How do you know Zhou Chu actually dived? What if he simply strolled into the water? Or jumped in with his legs held straight, like a “popsicle”? If those count, then Qu Yuan, who drowned himself in the Miluo River, could also be considered a pioneer of diving. So that line in the Biography of Zhou Chu isn't a reliable reference. Zhao Can's Record of Conversations, from the Tang dynasty, says that Cao Zan of Hongzhou could “leap from a hundred-foot mast without taking off his clothes, then sit on the water as if it were a cushion... and beneath the surface, spin and dive, changing his movements in a hundred different ways.” That doesn't count as diving either. Leaping down and sitting on the surface without sinking is more like the kind of light-footed skill known as “Iron Palm Gliding on Water,” while spinning and diving beneath the surface in a hundred different ways sounds like underwater swimming or synchronized swimming. The earliest written description of ornamental diving appears in the Song dynasty writer Meng Yuanlao's Record of the Splendors of the Eastern Capital, which recounts the bustling scenes of Bianjing, the Northern Song capital... Theme: