A tip for teaching valve drills for back mount doubles

[CCRMichael]

A couple years ago I was teaching some tech courses and the students were learning the motions of a valve drill but they were not understanding why or when the drill is over based on which side is having a problem. I realized that by just doing the motions and not actually experiencing a failure behind their head they were fully understanding the purpose. So I came up with this little trick and have been using it for the last couple years and wanted to share it in case it might be of any help to anyone else:

This can be done above or below water. I really like doing it above water so they learn what a valve drill really accomplishes.

• I connect a low pressure inflator hose to each regulator.
• I connect an inflator mechanism that is not attached to a corrugated hose to each inflator hose and run those behind the diver.
• I can then hold down the inflator button making a plethera of bubbles behind the divers head (Simulating what a real failure would be like)
• I hold the button down until they make the bubbles stop. This allows me to simulate a failure on each side which will change how many steps of the valve drill you actually do and show them when and how you know to stop etc. They do not know what side is having the problem until they fix it.

I filmed one of my Intro To Tech students doing this drill and you can see me using the inflator mechanism.

[video]https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=10155015903905436&l=143947966635913561[/video]


It has really sped up the understanding process for my students over the last couple of years.

 

[rongoodman]

Air Nozzle, toward the bottom of the page.

 

[tomfcrist]

Air nozzles work great....they are nice for shooting bags as well.

 

[CCRMichael]

Air nozzle would also be a great option I just happened to have a whole drawer of inflator mechanisms.


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[TSandM]

One of the points JP Bresser made during my recent redo cave course was to tell the students, "There is no need to panic when you hear a leak. Remember, it's MY gas that is being lost, not yours." He wanted to reassure the students so that they would move slowly and effectively, instead of rushing and creating problems. In addition, for safety purposes, it's probably better if it's the instructor's gas that is used, I think.

 

[CCRMichael]

One of the points JP Bresser made during my recent redo cave course was to tell the students, "There is no need to panic when you hear a leak. Remember, it's MY gas that is being lost, not yours." He wanted to reassure the students so that they would move slowly and effectively, instead of rushing and creating problems. In addition, for safety purposes, it's probably better if it's the instructor's gas that is used, I think.

That is true in an open water environment. I was using this above water and in the 4 feet of water in the pool. Since it uses their inflator I wouldn't use it swimming around. The idea of using their gas was to hold the button down the entire drill so that it quits bubbling when they have fixed it not when I let go. Not even saying it needs to be used every time. I have found it helps them understand what the drill is for and how to do it. Once they understand that you can practice in trim in the water without real bubbles to practice speed, buoyancy etc. I just got sick of students going through the motions without understanding what it was accomplishing on each step.


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[kr2y5]

She's turning a lot of knobs at once, though... for me, what worked best to understand the sequence was a slow and deliberate procedure taught by my TDI instructor that involved doing only one thing at a time: first starting with closing the isolator, then closing the right post, running OOA, doing a switch, opening right post, closing the left one, running OOA, doing a switch, opening left post, opening the isolator. Every time when one runs OOA and has to switch, it serves as a useful reminder what has just been accomplished.

 

[Patoux01]

I think it's a good way to teach it like that "in a real situation", even though I'm a bit surprised as to how people wouldn't understand the reason of the v-drill.

However, that being said, I have a few questions about the v-drill itself. Though I am not experienced in it. Maybe this is only for the sake of demo, but I'd assume that when you're doing a demo you want to do it "like real".
- She's turning 2 valves at once. This can induce 2 problems to me: poor coordination (you know, that thing of "close your eyes, circle one hand above your head, circle other in opposite direction in front of your stomach" ?) can actually slow it down, and the light communication is gone. Even worse, it might blind a teammate or send wrong signals. Or you have to take time to clip your torch off (and thus potentially also sending wrong signals).
- No checking if the regulator she'll be breathing actually works before closing down the valve she's breathing off. I'm not sure this is done in real situations, but it seems safer to me to do it.

Any opinion on that?

Do you also do "surprise failures" using this? Basically telling the students to dive with a reg you've given them that is equipped with this inflator (or add this to their reg if they're fine with that) that you just start bubbling at some point in the dive? (Of course you can't be part of the team then, because they'll know something is wrong if a team member is missing anyway)

 

[TSandM]

There are different approaches to the drill. Some agencies put a time limit on how fast you have to be able to do it. We talked about that in my recent class; JP said it's incredibly unlikely you will ever be dealing with a massive, disastrous leak, and it's counterproductive to inculcate in the student the tendency to rush. He has quite literally thousands of dives in deep and overhead environments, and told us he's had three significant leaks that have had to be dealt with underwater, and two of those were when he repressurized stages. At least in the cave environment, it's far better to move a little more slowly and keep awareness and platform, than to rush the valve closure at the expense of those things.

GUE teaches the drill in Fundamentals, as a drill. The physical skill of closing valves and switching regulators is then taken into an appraisal of the nine failures when you get to the next level of class. A lot of the Cave 1 and Tech 1 classes consists of working through failure scenarios.

 

[PfcAJ]

I think it's a good way to teach it like that "in a real situation", even though I'm a bit surprised as to how people wouldn't understand the reason of the v-drill.

However, that being said, I have a few questions about the v-drill itself. Though I am not experienced in it. Maybe this is only for the sake of demo, but I'd assume that when you're doing a demo you want to do it "like real".
- She's turning 2 valves at once. This can induce 2 problems to me: poor coordination (you know, that thing of "close your eyes, circle one hand above your head, circle other in opposite direction in front of your stomach" ?) can actually slow it down, and the light communication is gone. Even worse, it might blind a teammate or send wrong signals. Or you have to take time to clip your torch off (and thus potentially also sending wrong signals).
- No checking if the regulator she'll be breathing actually works before closing down the valve she's breathing off. I'm not sure this is done in real situations, but it seems safer to me to do it.

Any opinion on that?

Do you also do "surprise failures" using this? Basically telling the students to dive with a reg you've given them that is equipped with this inflator (or add this to their reg if they're fine with that) that you just start bubbling at some point in the dive? (Of course you can't be part of the team then, because they'll know something is wrong if a team member is missing anyway)

I'm not a fan of turning two valves at once. Imo, its best to shut off the offending post (you can hear it if its behind you and you can see it if the 2nd stage is leaking) while signaling your buddy.

I do see value to being able to turn the valves off quickly, though. A motivated reader might want to look at the experiment done by the guys at Advanced Diver Magazine a few years ago. Bottom line is that a cut hose (while admittedly unlikely) can empty a full al80 in like a minute and a half.

Checking the reg for function is a smart move during a drill, but in real life you don't have that luxury. It either works or it doesn't. If it doesn't, you'll be glad you were signaling your buddy.