Diving is supposed to be "fun" but we are also supposed to do our part to minimize calamity. Training and practice does not/should not end with the last class taken. I have encountered people who spend every dive as a platform of dedicated practice for an upcoming class; people who don't practice ever; and everything in-between.
When prepping for classes I'll usually throw in a few practice-only dives but I try to minimize it as I don't want to lose sight of why I dive to begin with, but sometimes skills just need to be refined.
This year alone I've put in roughly 150 dives so far and less than 20 of them have been dedicated practice dives. But I dive a lot so I have ample oppurtunity to refine. People who dive less frequent may have more practice dives. But during every dive I may throw something in, in the sense that I pay more particular attention to the execution of the skill than usualy (ascents, descents, positioning, team awareness, holding stops, keeping the line, whatever). Things like lost mask, reg exchange, mod-s or full s-drills, valve drills, etc. less often but only with agreement of team in advance and usually it's something we'll all do for a few minutes at some point in the dive, usually the beginning or end.
When preparing for an upcoming class I'll throw in a few dedicated practice-only dives but try to keep them to a minimum unless I need the practice.
