roughie:
It's your choice. Personally, if someone missed killing me once, I'm not in favor of giving them a second chance.
Panic
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It's your choice. Personally, if someone missed killing me once, I'm not in favor of giving them a second chance.
SkipperJohn
Contributor
If it's any consolation, your course sounds like the one I had. I finished the online book stuff in 3 days and all the pool stuff in 1. And yeah, when I took the mask off I felt more than a little tense. But the first time I did it in the pool I did surface and my instructor explained to me how people get through this all the time and asked if I were weaker. I took command of the situation instead of letting it take command of me. Then my OW was done in 2 days. 1 dive 1 day then 3 dives 2 days latter. Do I feel unprepared? You bet! But now I can practice at my own pace.
Also, my brother-in-law had the exact same experience you had, his wife is certified, he isn't.
Get-er done! You will not regret it!
Also, my brother-in-law had the exact same experience you had, his wife is certified, he isn't.
Get-er done! You will not regret it!
cdreamer
Contributor
The word "rushed" has been tossed around in this post, but I wanted to address something different realted to "rushed"...
Scuba diving is not a race. There is no reason to rush through any of the skills. I am not talking about the instructor nor the class, but instead, the student. Many times when the student feels rushed, s/he is prone to making mistake.
To the original poster, when it is your turn to demonstate the skill, take your time. It is not a race. All of the skills are easier if you actually take your time. From your post, it sounded like the instructor was rushed, you were rushed, now your skills are rushed, and that led to a mistake.
Scuba diving is not a race. There is no reason to rush through any of the skills. I am not talking about the instructor nor the class, but instead, the student. Many times when the student feels rushed, s/he is prone to making mistake.
To the original poster, when it is your turn to demonstate the skill, take your time. It is not a race. All of the skills are easier if you actually take your time. From your post, it sounded like the instructor was rushed, you were rushed, now your skills are rushed, and that led to a mistake.
Excellent advice.
If you are just starting to learn the skill, take the time to visualize yourself doing it before you try it the first time. After a number of repetitions it will start to become more automatic, but you have to teach your muscles some new skills at first.
When your instructor deomonstrates a skill, hopefully he is doing it at super slow motion, pointing out the key attributes of the skill in the process. You do not have to do it that slowly, but that should tell you it does not have to be done fast. As DBailey said, doing skills in a slow and relaxed manner makes it easier. That is especially true with mask skills. People who have trouble clearing their masks are often trying to do it too quickly and too violently.
fisheater
Contributor
In fact, one of the traits that good instructors and experienced tech divers have in common is slow and efficient movements underwater. They just never seem to be in a hurry.
Licensed to Creel
Contributor
Do not rush this regardless if your wife is already certified or the class seems to be moving faster than you. Diving is an extreme sport. No less dangerous than skydiving or bear wrestling. Move at your own pace and get comfortable with it. Hang in there! Many of us have gotten a little anxiety and still do. The rewards are tremendous once you get to your comfort zone.
John_B
Grasshopper
I'm having a hard time keeping up with all of the things that I, a greedy American, am responsible for. Could you maybe keep a list of all I'm to blame for? You know, so I could refer back to when necessary?
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Now let's forget about the course format and the Instructor and focus on how to deal with your panic reaction. Panic kills and you will need to learn to get it under control. The Zen thing about three long slow breaths changing the universe is true, try to make that your reaction to the rising feeling of panic and it will flee from you.
Definition of Panic: A sudden strong feeling of fear that prevents reasonable thought or action. From the Greek woodland god Pan who was a frightening figure, part human, part goat, and whose pet caprice was to terrify people who ventured into rural areas, particularly at night.
Panic is an amazing thing; I once came across a new diver that was trying to pull himself up out of the water (in full gear) on the bowline of a smallish boat. There was a swim platform not twenty feet away, but he was going to keep pulling on that line until he was exhausted, fell back into the water and drowned. We quietly took care of him and got him first onto a surf mat and then onto the Swim platform of his boat. It is amazing what a full-blown attack look likes. And folks always say, I don't know why he drowned, he had air in his tank and I yelled at him to put his regulator in his mouth. People die because they panic, because they are incapable of performing actions that they had no problem doing when they were in the pool, something as simple as ditching weights, sticking their regulator in their mouth or making a controlled ascent with air in their tank.
As I see it there are four programmatic ways to reduce panic within diving courses:
The first approach is over learning critical skills. Take buddy breathing (even though we no longer do it). Back in the days when it was a "normal" skill it was demonstrated by Glen Egstrom (Chair of the Department of Kinesiology at UCLA) that 17 training repetitions were required to have 95% confidence that a pair of divers would ÅÔuccessfully perform buddy breathing. If we assume that the critical skills take a similar number of trials a course would have to be a damn sight longer than it is today. The industry routinely rejects longer classes and favors more classes, each with a card and patch (and a fee).
The second approach is restricted certifications e.g., may dive only with a partner certified at the level of Divemaster or above. This could work in conjunction with the current industry approach of more courses. There should also be realistic names, rules and recommendations. What does Open Water Diver mean, how about Advanced Diver, or Master Diver? Do these terms have any connection to the actual product of the course? The ski industry has no trouble referring to beginner, intermediate and expert, but then the skier is looking down the slope from the top! In diving our entry-level title implies that the diver is ready for open water with a similarly trained buddy (ah the joys of the club system or academic program where there are many experienced buddies available). The industry doesn't even really meet it's own specification, which usually reads something like, able to dive under conditions similar to those encountered during training and routinely rejects proposals for restricted or even location specific certification on marketability grounds.
The third approach is to shorten the 17 trials required to over learn a skill by adding a level of harassment to the performance of the skill. This is a proven technique within the military (and other organizations). I do not favor it in a teaching situation because I feel that it breaks the trust that is required between staff and students for proper training to occur. The industry routinely rejects harassment training as old-fashioned and militaristic.
The fourth approach is really a modification of the 17 trial where learning is enhanced through a careful progression of skill and confidence building exercises, each of which ratchets up the task load and is, so to speak, self-harassing. This is the approach that I favor and use, but it requires several things that current courses don't have. More time is required, maybe not as much as 17 trial, but much more than in today's courses. More staff is required; self-harassing exercises introduce a level of risk since students are operating closer and closer to the psychological limits of their performance. This needs to be closely watched, monitored and modified as needed by leadership personnel who have been very differently trained than the average instructor today. To make this approach work our training team is a buddy-pair of staff to two buddy-pairs of students. The industry strongly resists increasing the staff to student ratios, not to mention making the other changes that this approach would require.
So where does that leave you? As they say in Vermont, You can't get thar from here. Perhaps there are other solutions that are more amiable to constraints of the industry. If there are, I'm sure we'd all love to hear them.
Panic is an amazing thing; I once came across a new diver that was trying to pull himself up out of the water (in full gear) on the bowline of a smallish boat. There was a swim platform not twenty feet away, but he was going to keep pulling on that line until he was exhausted, fell back into the water and drowned. We quietly took care of him and got him first onto a surf mat and then onto the Swim platform of his boat. It is amazing what a full-blown attack look likes. And folks always say, I don't know why he drowned, he had air in his tank and I yelled at him to put his regulator in his mouth. People die because they panic, because they are incapable of performing actions that they had no problem doing when they were in the pool, something as simple as ditching weights, sticking their regulator in their mouth or making a controlled ascent with air in their tank.
As I see it there are four programmatic ways to reduce panic within diving courses:
The first approach is over learning critical skills. Take buddy breathing (even though we no longer do it). Back in the days when it was a "normal" skill it was demonstrated by Glen Egstrom (Chair of the Department of Kinesiology at UCLA) that 17 training repetitions were required to have 95% confidence that a pair of divers would ÅÔuccessfully perform buddy breathing. If we assume that the critical skills take a similar number of trials a course would have to be a damn sight longer than it is today. The industry routinely rejects longer classes and favors more classes, each with a card and patch (and a fee).
The second approach is restricted certifications e.g., may dive only with a partner certified at the level of Divemaster or above. This could work in conjunction with the current industry approach of more courses. There should also be realistic names, rules and recommendations. What does Open Water Diver mean, how about Advanced Diver, or Master Diver? Do these terms have any connection to the actual product of the course? The ski industry has no trouble referring to beginner, intermediate and expert, but then the skier is looking down the slope from the top! In diving our entry-level title implies that the diver is ready for open water with a similarly trained buddy (ah the joys of the club system or academic program where there are many experienced buddies available). The industry doesn't even really meet it's own specification, which usually reads something like, able to dive under conditions similar to those encountered during training and routinely rejects proposals for restricted or even location specific certification on marketability grounds.
The third approach is to shorten the 17 trials required to over learn a skill by adding a level of harassment to the performance of the skill. This is a proven technique within the military (and other organizations). I do not favor it in a teaching situation because I feel that it breaks the trust that is required between staff and students for proper training to occur. The industry routinely rejects harassment training as old-fashioned and militaristic.
The fourth approach is really a modification of the 17 trial where learning is enhanced through a careful progression of skill and confidence building exercises, each of which ratchets up the task load and is, so to speak, self-harassing. This is the approach that I favor and use, but it requires several things that current courses don't have. More time is required, maybe not as much as 17 trial, but much more than in today's courses. More staff is required; self-harassing exercises introduce a level of risk since students are operating closer and closer to the psychological limits of their performance. This needs to be closely watched, monitored and modified as needed by leadership personnel who have been very differently trained than the average instructor today. To make this approach work our training team is a buddy-pair of staff to two buddy-pairs of students. The industry strongly resists increasing the staff to student ratios, not to mention making the other changes that this approach would require.
So where does that leave you? As they say in Vermont, You can't get thar from here. Perhaps there are other solutions that are more amiable to constraints of the industry. If there are, I'm sure we'd all love to hear them.
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I think you nailed the root problem right there.
From your description it's not surprising that you're uncomfortable. In fact, if you *weren't* uncomfortable with that approach I'd worry more about you.
I strongly suggest you get a referral from your instructor and go elsewhere to find an instructor with more time to train you the way you deserve to be trained. The approach you're being subjected to is borderline insane and you don't need to put up with that. A typical scuba course involves a minimum of 5 separate dives in a pool and 4 dives in open water. I'd have to look it up but I'm not even sure if agency standards allow for the approach you're instructor is taking.
Your new instructor may need you to start over from teh beginning depending on what agency standards say but as a minimum ask your new instructor to give you the final exam again and repeat all of the in-water work with you from the beginning
R..
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