The minimalist movement

[DaleC]

And I thought I was just devolving.

I agree with you about it being more than just equipment reduction. In fact, I would say that's the least part of it. I would say that relearning how divers in the past planned and executed dives with minimal gear (the actual strategies) is far more valuable and important and why most modern era divers struggle with the idea. They have not been taught skin diving, neutral weighting, intuitive gas planning or situational awareness to the same degree.

Telling someone without neutral buoyancy to go without a BC is a recipe for disaster. As is telling someone who only knows to return to the surface with 500psi to do without an SPG. Someone with no skin diving experience will be far less likely to be comfortable in the water without a device for maintaining positive buoyancy. Someone who just jumps off the boat and follows a DM around may struggle putting all the pieces together if what they are doing is different from the crowd.

Of course these sorts of things can be learned, I did so as a modern trained diver, but you have to seek out those ideas as they are largely ignored or even denigrated by today's dive culture.

 

[dmoore19]

With the common availability of things like an SPG, BCD, Octopus and other advances why would a new diver want to enter the water without these pieces equipment? There is a reason these things have become standard equipment, they add to safety. Me thinks some would romance the old days a bit too much.

Don't get me wrong, skin diving and other training surely make a better and safer diver. Omitting the use of things like an SPG, BCD and alternate air source don't make a dive safer, regardless of the diver's training and abilities they only add to safety.

 

[Nemrod]

I stick with my post number 10.

A BC is not a safety device.

There is a distinction between equipment dependent safety and watermanship that is being misunderstood.

I am not against using basic but essential equipments per the soecific dive and diver. Minimalism is not a configuration, but a distillation to what is absolutely needed. And that is a variable.

And safety is way over rated.

N

 

[DaleC]

I don't think a new diver should enter the water without those pieces of equipment. They have no training or even understanding of the skillsets behind minimalist diving. It would be dangerous for them to do so. But that is not to say this style of diving is, in itself, dangerous.

To dive without a BC you need to have a working knowledge of neutral buoyancy and comfort in the water. Today's diver is not taught the former in OW and skin diving (which teaches comfort) is marginalized. But with both, and an understanding of proper conditions, there is really no issue with forgoing the BCD.

To dive without an SPG you need a real understanding of your own consumption rate, how that relates to your tank and how both are effected by depth and time. You need to know how to plan dives correctly and how to abort dives in a fast but safe manner when needed. Many new divers are just taught to follow the DM and surface with 500psi (how you plan that is a mystery though).

To dive without a computer one needs to have a working knowledge of dive tables and how to better pre-plan dives. Today's courses don't mandate tables and new divers are completely computer dependent.

To remove the octo one needs to practice sharing air and be comfortable in the water. This goes right back to skin diving where you develop a sense of how little it takes to get to the surface from moderate depths. Today's new divers are dying on the bottom because they can't even remember to dump weights when they are in trouble. Diving is so stressful that one incident overwhelms their capacity to act with what little skill they possess.

I could go on but I think one can see that, while adding devices appears to make divers safer it also has the unintended consequence of making them more reliant on those devices and less inclined to learn or remember previous strategies. This decrease in inclination then translates into subjects being thought unnecessary and removed from training (ie. CESA training) and then future generations are left to believe that previous methodology was unsafe, because they don't have any training or even understanding of the skill sets that went along with it.

Minimalist (or in my case vintage) diving acts to reconnect a diver to those past skill sets. No one suggests one simply remove everything and jump in. You have to learn how to do that. But, once learned, you then can enjoy diving in a much freer and unencumbered way and have additional skills added to our overall toolbox - win/win.

 

[Nemrod]

Speaking of plates and a concurrent thread. A heavy steel plate is certainly minimalist for cold water by reducing clutter and carried weight but in a warm water condition, speaking for me, it could leave me seriously over weighted with insufficient jettisonable weight and dangerous and dependent upon a BC to offset. Dangerous and not minimalist.

N

 

[Texasguy]

Speaking of plates and a concurrent thread. A heavy steel plate is certainly minimalist for cold water by reducing clutter and carried weight but in a warm water condition, speaking for me, it could leave me seriously over weighted with insufficient jettisonable weight and dangerous and dependent upon a BC to offset. Dangerous and not minimalist.

N

"jettisonable" weights really are for beginners. Those who have some experience should be able to use fins to lift themselves up without a problem, unless they carry like 50 pounds in lead... Hopefully one wears proper fins. I never heard experienced divers really care about ditch-able weights. I guess, maybe, they don't overweight themselves... and they can manage what they got... In the end, you can always use your sausage to give you some bouyancy.

 

[Nemrod]

"jettisonable" weights really are for beginners. Those who have some experience should be able to use fins to lift themselves up without a problem, unless they carry like 50 pounds in lead... Hopefully one wears proper fins.

You can think that as you want and we can agree to disagree. Even a few pounds can be an issue on a long surface swim. In fact I am at work and attempting not to laugh out loud.

A BC is not to be counted upon, is not life support or a safety device, can and do fail and to top it all, a minimalist may not have a BC in some circumstances. Do not attempt to apply your slice of diving experiance to all conditions.

And to be clear we are not talking about dumping weight on the bottom to swim up but to jettison weight on the surface to establish significant positive bouyancy.

N

 

[Texasguy]

And to be clear we are not talking about dumping weight on the bottom to swim up but to jettison weight on the surface to establish significant positive bouyancy.
N

Just have a sausage or a lift bag ready for that. A lift bag might not do well in big swells, though. If all fails, a full wetsuit can be fashioned to hold some air.

 

[DaleC]

It also depends on the conditions.
In warm water up here I wear a 3/2 one piece wetsuit with a whopping 2 lb's of weight for a steel 72. Ditchable/not ditchable? It don't matter.

But in my drysuit I wear 32lb's with that 72. If all goes well I can use the suit only for positive lift and forgo the BC but if (blank) happens and I get a major flood of that drysuit, I will be more seriously over-weighted. The worst flood would be a zipper failure but I have also seen a guy put a 2/3 inch tear right between the shoulder blades due to a backplate bolt. A displaced neoprene or torn latex neck seal will also make trapping air difficult because of the odd orientation needed. I either wear a BC (even if I don't use it) or, as TG says, take a sausage or lift bag.

32 lb's of non ditchable weight is also a lot to lug around on a plate when you're transporting/setting up.

 

[dumpsterDiver]

"jettisonable" weights really are for beginners. Those who have some experience should be able to use fins to lift themselves up without a problem, unless they carry like 50 pounds in lead... Hopefully one wears proper fins. I never heard experienced divers really care about ditch-able weights. I guess, maybe, they don't overweight themselves... and they can manage what they got... In the end, you can always use your sausage to give you some bouyancy.

BS....The old divers were very much dependent on ditching lead in an emergency. They placed a high value on ditchable and functional weightbelt and their harnesses often had buckles and/or could slide open allowing the diver to ditch their lead and scuba tank in literally 5 seconds. Ditching of lead and gear was a huge part of the training as was buddy breathing.

If you ain't got a BC, you damn sure will be glad you have some ditchable lead if you have a scuba failure.