How To Do A Back 1½ Pike (203B): Extension, Shoulder Relaxation, and Looking Into Your Pike
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The back one and a half pike — 203B — is on the intermediate/advanced side, but to master it takes a lot of skill.
It requires patience, timing, and good form to make it look right. It's one of those dives where almost every problem traces back to the same root: rushing. Rushing the start, rushing the pike, rushing the out.
In this breakdown video, I go through five divers from early beginner to expert and show exactly what patience and proper mechanics look like at each level.
3 Key Fixes for Your Back 1½ Pike
1. Stay on the Board Longer — Arms Past the Ears, Extension Through C Position
The most common mistake at every level of this dive is leaving the board too early. Anxious divers want to get to the water fast, and the instinct is to start the flip as soon as possible. But being more patient gets you higher in the air — and higher means more time to crush the dive.
There are two specific things to stay on the board for. First: get the arms all the way past the ears before anything else happens. Divers who stop the arm swing before the ears tend to pull the shoulders back are cut off their own power.
The arms need to swing through fully.
Second: don't break at the knees early. Every time you bend your knees to start pulling into the pike before you've left the board, you shorten the lever. The board can only push force through a straight body — the moment the legs bend, it's only pushing its energy through your feet to your knees (mostly). Keep the legs straight as long as possible. Push the hips through into a C position first, then let the legs pop off the board and drive up.
Diver Guy's Tip: Think about pushing the hips forward into the C position before the legs start coming up. Divers who pull with their shoulders too much fall back. Hips through on the start keep you over the board better while still achieving the C position.
2. The Shoulder Relaxation Secret — Swing Hard Down, Release at the Bottom
This is one of the most important concepts in back optional diving and almost nobody talks about it clearly. Here's how it works.
From 12 o'clock to 6 o'clock on the arm swing — the downward phase — engage your shoulders as hard as you want. Swing hard, use gravity, get as much momentum going as possible. That downward swing is where you generate power.
Then, the moment your arms reach the bottom — 6 o'clock — go into full relaxation in the shoulders. Let the arms go loose.
What happens next is the key: the momentum you built on the way down carries the arms upward faster than they were going down. The swing accelerates through relaxation, not through effort.
If you stay engaged in the shoulders the entire way through, that's when you see divers connect and fall backward. The shoulders take over and the body leans away from the board. The fix isn't to swing less — it's to swing hard and then get out of the way. Arms and shoulders working independently is what the best divers do.
Diver Guy's Tip: If you keep falling away from the board on back optionals, this could be the issue. You don't need to swing softer — you need to swing hard and then relax. Try focusing on that release moment at 6 o'clock specifically. Once you feel the difference between shoulder-driven and momentum-driven, it becomes very obvious which one works.
3. Look Into Your Pike — Wait for the Legs to Come to You
Here's the cue that fixes the pike on this dive: keep your eyes looking toward the board and toward your legs on the way up. Do not let the head swing back early. What you're doing is waiting for the legs to come to your face.
When divers open up the pike by reaching their chest away from their legs, the pike gets big and slow. Rotation slows. There's not enough time. Instead, stay looking down, wait until the legs are coming up to your head, and then — once you've latched into a tight connection — look back to spot the board. That's your cue to press out. You see the board, you come out. That's the timing.
The tighter the pike gets, the faster this dive goes. The whole key to this dive is that tight connection, found by being patient enough to let the legs come all the way up to your face before you do anything else.
Diver Guy's Tip: A great way to check your balance on this dive: on the press out, if your legs are actually overlapping over the board slightly, that's ideal. You're still moving backward, so by the time you reach vertical you'll be at the right distance. If it looks like your legs are over the board and you panic, trust it — you're in a great spot.
Watch the Full Breakdown
In this video I go through five divers covering every level of this dive — including a detailed breakdown of the shoulder relaxation mechanic and two side-by-side comparisons of the C position extension. Stay to the end for the expert example, where the balance, timing, and pike connection all come together.
Things to watch closely:
- Compare the two beginner takeoffs — both lean back but for slightly different reasons, and both trace back to rushing
- Watch the C position extension in the third diver vs. the expert — the hip drive through is the critical difference
- The expert’s shoulder relaxation on the arm swing is the thing to study most — that mechanic is what everything else on optionals is built on
Final Takeaways: Back 1½ Pike Done Right
- Arms all the way past the ears before anything else — don't cut the swing short
- Extend into a C position (hips forward) before pulling the legs up — don't break the knees early
- Swing shoulders hard from 12 to 6 o'clock — then fully release at the bottom and let momentum carry the arms through
- Look down toward the board and into your pike — wait for the legs to come to your face
- Latch into a tight pike connection, then look up to spot the board and press out
- If your legs are over the board on the press out, you're in the right spot — trust it
If you're working on your back one and a half pike and want personal feedback, I offer virtual coaching for all skill levels. Send in your video and I'll send back drills, voiceover notes, and technique corrections.
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Got questions? DM me — I answer every one.
Good luck and I'll see you on the next dive! - DG