a spin off to the dying a hero thread...

[rjack321]

Completely disagree. It is much harder to deal with a completely unexpected OOA as you have nothing to work with and that is partly why it is useful for an instructor to do. Good instructors should use many ways of training including completely unexpected things. And often by the time someone goes OOA they have lost situational awareness to notice their gas running out in my experience. 

I learned a lot from stress testing. 

Actually its much harder to deal with the fact that you has boatloads of gas but just can't figure out how to access it. See last week's thread on TDS about real life application of this.

Unexpected random OOA via an instructor shutting off ones valve has very few choices to make or thinking to apply. Hence its just stress with little capacity to learn beyond "I survived" which is really a pretty minimal level of diving capacity.

 

[rjack321]

OOA, Can't see, things don't happen fast enough. Overall, in general, rec or tec, I don't want to expire doing things that are optional. Yes I think if I had just been panicking and had the reg removed from my mouth and a doner shove in, it would have been a failure. I learned that OOA had an immediate response to wanting air. Immediate. It's not like free diving, breath holding. It unexpected and you want it. It would be a horrible way to die. I had a reg coming to me, it just seemed to take forever, and if it were real it would be horrible to die that way. (meaning a real accidental OOA)That's what went thru my head right after. And to repeat it was not random. I knew at some point in that section of the training I would be ooa in some kind of combo.

I think you did fine. Relax, repeat. It soon becomes 2nd nature.

 

[Sas]

Actually its much harder to deal with the fact that you has boatloads of gas but just can't figure out how to access it. See last week's thread on TDS about real life application of this.

Nope. I think the opposite. How would you know either way given you have not been in a situation with no gas?

Unexpected random OOA via an instructor shutting off ones valve has very few choices to make or thinking to apply. Hence its just stress with little capacity to learn beyond "I survived" which is really a pretty minimal level of diving capacity.

Well then why do posters here have a problem with it being done then? If it is no big deal.

Also what stressful situations have you been put in during training that showed you how you cope with stress? What unexpected situations were included in your training?

 

[TSandM]

You know, we've gotten off on a very esoteric discussion of how much stress is appropriate for technical training . . . but has everyone lost sight of the fact that this was the OPs FIFTH dive in doubles, ever? Do we all think that one should be able to shrug on a set of doubles and begin to handle compounding failures out of the gate? Maybe we should. I can't. I couldn't. I spent quite a bit of time learning to balance doubles, and practicing valve shutdowns, before I ever had to do one in anger, so to speak.

And I have never had the supply I was breathing shut off, but I HAVE had an instructor shut down my left post, so that I donated and went to a dry regulator. The idea was to simulate a rolloff, and I had the entirely appropriate response of reaching up to turn on the gas. It was an adrenaline spurt, for sure, but didn't override the rational reaction.

To me, to have a student on her 5th doubles dive, carrying a deco bottle as well, and having a post shut down suddenly while she was breathing it (which really doesn't simulate any failure I know) with a flooded mask and a dangling, partially secured deco bottle, is an example of too much stress applied too soon. Start with single failures -- make sure the diver is smooth and confident in handling those, and THEN add compounding failures.

Stress, intelligently constructed and applied, builds competence, confidence and capability. Stress, created without thought and without a plan, can destroy all of the above.

 

[DevonDiver]

How many dives total were there on the OP's course?

Given that most tech courses only consist of 12-16 dives, and that repetition is essential... it should be needed to start with failure drills in the first 1/3rd of the course. This allows further development as the course progresses.

As Lynne states, 5 dives in doubles is an early stage to start adding consecutive/simulataneous failures.... but sadly, there is no 'doubles experience' pre-requisite for most tech courses/agencies. I personally think there should be..

 

[Sas]

To me, to have a student on her 5th doubles dive, carrying a deco bottle as well, and having a post shut down suddenly while she was breathing it (which really doesn't simulate any failure I know) with a flooded mask and a dangling, partially secured deco bottle, is an example of too much stress applied too soon. Start with single failures -- make sure the diver is smooth and confident in handling those, and THEN add compounding failures.

If you show up to a course like this, with five dives in doubles, then I think tough luck, you deal with what the course expects (as it appears the OP has done).

More practice is ideal, of course though and I think most people do better with practice.

 

[LiteHedded]

Oh yeah, and if I find out you an heroed while diving, I'll be pissed and make you a special fail poster. So don't do it.

I also recommend you don't become an hero.

 

[Blackwood]

Well then why do posters here have a problem with it being done then? If it is no big deal.

Other than a few posts at the beginning, I don't see most people posting as having a problem with it. Many, like myself, don't understand the point or don't agree with the premise. That's different from having a problem with it.

If you learned something from it, fantastic. I just don't know what it is intended to teach (aside from 'this can happen if your dip tube ingests a flake of rust') that can't be equally or better taught otherwise.

If in a future class an instructor turns off my gas, I don't expect I'd particularly care. I'd deal with it, or not, depending on the accompanying stress levels.

A singular failure (blown left post or out of gas or whatever) isn't stressful. It's when failures start cascading (blown left post after having donated or out of gas without your bailout) that it becomes stressful. The more fit that hits the shan, the more stressful it will become. How it gets there is really of little consequence to the stress itself, as I understand it.

This thread seems to demonstrate that those people who have been put through the sort of extreme stress that I and some others have been advocating felt it to have been an (in)valuable part of their training. Most of those who haven't experienced it are opposed to it.[/-]

The only thing in this thread that I would consider as 'being put through extreme stress' is the ditch all your gear and swim away from it at 170 feet scenario from your instructor course.

There are limits to what I'll willingly put myself through under water. That one is across it.

 

[PfcAJ]

Leaving aside the erroneous suggestion of "needlessly endangering the student's safety", I disagree with the initial statement. A drill practised in sanitised surroundings is just that, a drill, and is no preparation for the adrenalin rush when it's for real. As IANTD philosophy says, "in a crisis, it is the poorly learned skills that are forgotten first".

Dumping fake problems on a diver with 5 dives in doubles, while futzing with a flooded mask and a deco bottle isn't teaching anything.

Teaching proper procedures FIRST prevents a "crisis" from happening. Building on that foundation, you can add issues incrementally over the course of multiple dives while serving at least 3 purposes: 1) teaching resource management, 2) upping the stress level of the student, and 3) instilling the proper responses for each issue presented.

"Surprise" out of air situations are silly and dangerous. I had that done to me in one of my classes, and I didn't get much out of it. I got much more out of being air-gunned and responding appropriately to it.

 

[ucfdiver]

You seem fixated on a fixed 'issue-resolution' model of training. If XXX happens, then apply solution YYY.

I'm all for addressing realistic failures in training and allowing the diver to think through them. If you present, let's say, 10 realistic failures and they handle all those correctly, what makes you think they couldn't handle additional ones?