I started diving when I was 16. My family built a pool in the backyard with a little 6 foot board. It was only about 12 inches above the surface of the water, but I practiced on that little board nearly every day during the summer. I figured I was the world champion on the 0.3 meter board. I would practice jack knives, dives with half twist flips, back flips, 1 and 1/2's, gainers and half gainers, and even double flips.
That was some 20 years ago, but I again have a pool - this time with a 1 meter board. But I've lost some of my fearlessness (unless my peers are around to goad me on), so I don't do the double flips without a wet suit. I can pretty much do all the old dive though.
When I was at MIT, Charlie Batterman was still giving diving instruction (though I wimped out joining the team). You may have seen the photographs of him diving into the MIT pool that were taken by Harold Edgerton in the early days of high-speed photography. I also found that Charlie wrote an excellently illustrated diving book. I made this AVI from one of the pictures in his book.