b u l l e va r d
Me And My Body
Anna Bader
The 26-year-old German still gets the wobbles at the dizzying heights she leaps from as the world’s best female cliff diver, but she would rather cop a black eye or two than quit
Holding it together
“We always dive feet first from heights over 20m because the impact is so big. You’re travelling very fast, maybe 50mph (80kph), and then you slow down to zero in maybe 2m or 3m: you really feel it in your legs. You don’t need big muscles, but you have to be able to lock your legs together, using the inner leg muscles, otherwise, on impact, they get forced almost into the splits. It can be very painful. At the Red Bull Cliff Diving series, they jump from 26m. The impact increases so much, and I’m not ready for that yet.”
Words: Ruth Morgan. photography: Ray Demski/Red Bull Photofiles
Eye diving
“Once, doing a dive from just 10m, I landed on my face. The surface of the water is very hard, even from that distance, and I got a nosebleed and two black eyes. I looked horrible. It was a pretty difficult dive – an armstand back double somersault with one and a half twists. At the time there were only three people in the world doing it. I was just a little bit too slow pulling it off. When I crashed it was painful, but at the same time I was proud, as I’d learned how to do the dive: it was just a little mistake and after that I did it in the competitions. Despite the pain, it was a triumph.”
Core issues
“After diving your body hurts. Mainly your back, neck and legs. I have a limit on the number of dives I can do in a day, depending on the height and type of dives. We don’t have safety equipment, like helmets or anything, so in the end you rely on yourself, and I listen to my body. The back and abdominals are very important as, when diving into and entering the water, you have to be very stable, to protect your vertebrae. They keep you in the right position. If your landing is just a tiny bit off, you get bruised, but that’s part of the job. People do break bones, but that’s never happened to me. I have strained plenty of muscles, though.”
Mind tricks
“A big part of cliff diving is in your head. It’s almost like meditation, as you have to listen to your body and your mind. It’s like an inner voice. If you don’t feel right you shouldn’t do it. Every dive is like new. If I go to a new location it’s scary before the dive, and there are some doubts about the risk. It’s like dancing on a tightrope. I think: ‘Can I really do this or not?’ Then it’s like, ‘Yes, of course I can,’ and that’s the right moment to dive. As soon as I’ve taken off, there’s no doubt. I’m simply concentrating on the feeling of the movement and the spinning or twisting. And that’s a good moment. There’s no fear left.”
Working nine to five
“It’s hard to explain exactly how I do a high dive. It’s the culmination of years of training, learning the movements, the momentum and the twisting. It’s everything together, not only the legs or the arms – everything must move in the right way at the right moment. It’s very complex, but I don’t think about it like this anymore. It’s become a feeling and I know what I have to do. Plus, I train a lot. In the winter I do more gymnastic training indoors, but as soon as summer comes, I’m outside and diving off a 10m board five days a week. I love it. This is my passion.” Plunge into Anna Bader’s world at annabader.com
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