Humans of Blair: Facing Fears is Key

Ruby Borzekowski: A national team diver and student at Blair.

Photo: Ruby Borzekowski: A national team diver and student at Blair.

Ruby Borzekowski: A national team diver and student at Blair. Photo courtesy of Ethan Zajic.

“The most scared that I've ever been is probably when I was learning to dive off 10-meter for the first time because it was so different compared to what I was used to.”

Every day, after school and even on weekends, Borzekowski makes the trek from Takoma Park, MD to Alexandria, VA for her intense practices. 

Ruby started diving at age 10 and fell in love with the sport immediately. She learned at an impressive pace and began diving with the national team at 13. This was before she started with her 10-meter platform journey since it's not recommended to start diving from that height until you're in the 14-15 age range. 

For obvious reasons, diving from 10-meters up is scary, but to put that in perspective for those that don't dive, it's about 33 feet high. Her experience differed from some others due to the fact that the coach she was working with “is really mean”, so she felt more pressure to launch herself and resist the urge to let fears consume her. Ruby says “this was probably the biggest fear I had to get over with diving,” and she has been on an upward trajectory ever since, improving her dives and mentality each practice.

Ruby Diving

Photo: Ruby performing a dive - courtesy of Ruby

Ruby performing a dive - courtesy of Ruby