I think the real reason for my improvement is because I had such a long period in the off-season just working as hard as I could on all my new dives; making sure I did lots of repetition to get them consistent.
To me, the extraordinary aspect of martial arts lies in its simplicity. The easy way is also the right way, and martial arts is nothing at all special; the closer to the true way of martial arts, the less wastage of expression there is.