How to find your own style?

[cb5150]

I was already worn out by the time I finished reading your post.

The best advice I ever received in life...and diving...was "Slow down and truly open your eyes, you'll be amazed at what you see."

Apply this advice on your quest for your own "style" and you'll find it in no time.

 

[hroark2112]

Don't let anyone push you into a dive you're not comfortable with. If you have to, just thumb the dive. I've stayed on the boat for the second dive because i didn't feel "right" after the first dive. There is no shame in it.

It is a great idea to want to understand what your computer is telling you rather than blindly following it. Most computers are good for planning your next dive if you know how to set it and understand how to read it.

You will evolve into the style you are comfortable with. Just have fun!!

 

[divad]

My training so far has been an exercise in contrasts: I took my classroom and pool lessons with an ex US Navy diver and avid techie, who is certified as a trimix instructor. The classes were no-nonsense, we had to remember at all times, for instance, when our cylinder was last hydrostatically tested, and went through lots of drills assembling an disassembling the rig for time, etc. The classroom training exceeded the guidelines, for instance, we learned how to use nitrox tables, or about virtual (decompression) ceilings.

Then I did my checkout dives in Costa Rica, with am easygoing young instructor on a dive boat that seemed to run on Pura Vide. The instruction appeared to be sloppy, certainly compared to what I was used to.

Chris

Here is your question: "Do I go with rigorous, or do I go with sloppy?

---------- Post added April 3rd, 2014 at 11:05 AM ----------

I have looked around online a bit, and the GUE philosophy resonates with me a bit,QUOTE]



Here is your, pretty good, answer.

 

[TSandM]

It's so interesting to read the responses here: "dogmatic", "all or nothing".

GUE diving uses a standardized equipment setup. It's an equipment setup that works pretty darned well in 99.9% of diving environments, and around here, a lot of people choose to use that equipment configuration even if they never take a GUE class, simply because it works.

GUE divers do dive plans and buddy checks. We were actually talking about this last night, that EVERYBODY gets taught to "plan your dive and dive your plan", and to do at least a BWRAF or the equivalent. The difference is that GUE is adamant about doing them, and the culture enforces it.

GUE recreational divers dive Nitrox wherever it is possible to do so. I think there are a lot of other people who do this, too, for safety's sake.

GUE divers practice their skills, both the basic ones of buoyancy, trim, position, propulsion and awareness, and the emergency skills you might need when Murphy goes diving with you. I don't think there is anything wrong with that.

The perception that GUE divers are a humorless, inflexible, dogmatic group that take all the fun out of diving is so sad, because it is so untrue.

 

[divad]

I have looked around online a bit, and the GUE philosophy resonates with me a bit, although it seems to overdo it on the other side by being too dogmatic. Aren't there situations where one might indeed be just fine with cutting a few corners, like on a shallow reef dive with an experienced divemaster? And taking a GUE course seems out of the question at this point for me, though, as I don't think I can get anywhere near their exacting standards, no matter how hard I try.
Chris

They don't turn you into a mindless robot, you can dive however you want; you'll just be better at it. GUE students progress at their own pace; like water, they find their own level.

 

[kafkaland]

First of all, a big thank you to everyone who replied here - lots of good and useful stuff.

Let me tell you a bit more about where I'm at and where I see myself going with this. I started diving with a Discover SCUBA experience while on a surf trip on Hawaii, when there were no waves and I was bored. And enjoyed it so much that I decided to get certified, and even if it's only for similar situations to have something else to do in the water. But now it's so much fun that I want to do more of it, and not just on vacation in tropical waters.
.
I live in Michigan, so local diving will mean quarries and the Great Lakes. Wrecks in cold water is pretty much what we have around here. Our LDS offers a triple pack AOW, Nitrox, and Dry Suit, which seems like a good idea. I'm doing the Nitrox now, but AOW and Dry Suit will have to wait until it's a bit warmer - we still have plenty of ice. I'm not quite ready to purchase my own full gear yet, but my hunch is that I'm best off with a modular BP&W set-up, even if it's a bit more cumbersome in the beginning. What I hear, most local divers moved to doubles very quickly to have redundancy in the cold water, and a BP&W set-up would allow me to do the same quite easily when that time comes.

Since some of you commented on my disappointment with the total reliance on the dive computer in the PADI Nitrox course, it's mostly that I prefer to have a plausibility check on what the computer tells me. You read once in a while that some genius drove his car into the ocean because his GPS navigation system told him to do so - and I don't want to do the SCUBA equivalent by relying too much on what my computer tells me. Right now, I don't have the experience to intuitively know when something it tells me is wrong (perhaps because I set the wrong gas mix, or whatever), so I like to look at the table before the dive to roughly know what the computer should be telling me. And if it's not, I know I have a problem instead of perhaps being blissfully ignorant and suffering the consequences later.

 

[diver 85]

Again I'll say OP, you should have done this 30 years ago..............

 

[TMHeimer]

so I like to look at the table before the dive to roughly know what the computer should be telling me. And if it's not, I know I have a problem instead of perhaps being blissfully ignorant and suffering the consequences later.

********************


That's what I do. I don't use the computer on my usual shallow (30') dives. On deep dives I use it plus the watch and analog depth gauge. I know the Air tables by heart but have to check out the Nitrox ones. We were only taught tables way back in 2005... A lot of my deeper dives are square profiles, so I know I'm in pretty good shape if I'm well within the NDL. Then I check out the computer for remaining bottom time, which is interesting.

 

[theskull]

. . . I live in Michigan, so local diving will mean quarries and the Great Lakes. Wrecks in cold water is pretty much what we have around here. Our LDS offers a triple pack AOW, Nitrox, and Dry Suit, which seems like a good idea. I'm doing the Nitrox now, but AOW and Dry Suit will have to wait until it's a bit warmer - we still have plenty of ice. I'm not quite ready to purchase my own full gear yet, but my hunch is that I'm best off with a modular BP&W set-up, even if it's a bit more cumbersome in the beginning. What I hear, most local divers moved to doubles very quickly to have redundancy in the cold water, and a BP&W set-up would allow me to do the same quite easily when that time comes. . .

Redundant + Wreck + Drysuit = Sidemount! Just skip the whole Backplate to Doubles to Sidemount route.

theskull

 

[Laurent Pilotte]

Just keep breathing!!!

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