Advanced Open Water Disappointment

[wetb4igetinthewater]

Actually having to watch for fish and identifying them adds a mental task, which could distract the diver from checking air pressure, depth or approaching the NDL.
It is called "task loading", and it is very useful for improving a novice diver.
Similar effect can be obtained with other tasks, such as UW photo or video making, etc.
So I do not agree that fish recognition does not provide physical skills. It provides some form of automatic actions, which should be performed while your attention is devoted to another task.

That'a bit of a stretch. Just diving and looking at stuff is the same level of task loading. Who just dives monitoring their depth, cylinder pressure, NDL, etc.. (and is still diving 5 years later)? That doesn't sound like any fun.

Adding mechnical tasks, narrowing one's focus through a camera, deploying a DSMB is at another level of task loading.

 

[boulderjohn]

Actually having to watch for fish and identifying them adds a mental task, which could distract the diver from checking air pressure, depth or approaching the NDL

Let's be serious. Diver A swims along, see's a fish, and thinks "That's a fish." Diver B swims along, sees a fish, ,and thinks, "That's a Moorish Idol." So because Diver B knows a Moorish Idol on sight, Diver B might run out of air?

 

[Eric Sedletzky]

Actually having to watch for fish and identifying them adds a mental task, which could distract the diver from checking air pressure, depth or approaching the NDL.
It is called "task loading", and it is very useful for improving a novice diver.
Similar effect can be obtained with other tasks, such as UW photo or video making, etc.
So I do not agree that fish recognition does not provide physical skills. It provides some form of automatic actions, which should be performed while your attention is devoted to another task.

I think fish ID could be as beneficial as the student and the instructor want to make it. While the student is looking for certain critters maybe they could work on buoyancy control to keep from disturbing the animals. Maybe the instructor could have an list of animals to look for which would give the student a task to perform, and as you said to keep track of tank pressure and time, etc. task loading. Vets might laugh but It’s all valuable to a new diver and I don’t think any dive is a waste if time..
There’s also the thing about “free advice is worth exactly what you paid for it” or in this case “Free things are worth exactly what you paid for them”There is a psychological phenomenon known as value perception. When someone pays for something, and depending on how much and in what form, it adds psychological value to the item. We see this in products all the time especially with luxury items and perhaps with the price of education as well.
If someone pays for a class as opposed to getting it for free, you can surely bet they will get everything out of that class because they’re paying good money, and they value the knowledge a lot more that if it was a freebie.
If someone feels they would really enjoy taking a fish ID class then I see nothing wrong with that. It’s not worthless if you don’t make it worthless.

 

[Eric Sedletzky]

It does not improve the physical diving skills.

but you knew what I meant. You were just trying to score some meaningless points.

Why can’t it improve physical diving skills?
What about learning hover and not flail so that the fish will relax and come out if their homes so you can get a good look at them and identify them?
That’s not a skill?

 

[wetb4igetinthewater]

Why can’t it improve physical diving skills?
What about learning hover and not flail so that the fish will relax and come out if their homes so you can get a good look at them and identify them?
That’s not a skill?

In theory, that is covered in open water.

I know, I know...

 

[Angelo Farina]

Let's be serious. Diver A swims along, see's a fish, and thinks "That's a fish." Diver B swims along, sees a fish, ,and thinks, "That's a Moorish Idol." So because Diver B knows a Moorish Idol on sight, Diver B might run out of air?

The few times I partecipated to a "fish identification" dive, at Maldives, and with a marine bioligist teaching the class, the divers were given a set of plastic-printed taxonomic identification cards, which had to be consulted for identifying the fish.
They were also using a plastic dashboard where they had to annotate their observations, including species, sex, size, and behaviour. This occupied both hands and was quite task-loading...
And yes, one student or two always did run OOA.
I and my wife were DMs, helping the marine biologist. We were using larger tanks (15 liters, the students had 10 liters tanks) and a complete double set of regulators (which means two first stages and 3 second stages), configured with long hoses for providing easily air to the OOA divers.
It was actually expected that, task-loading them, some of them could be OOA.

 

[boulderjohn]

Any dive can be used to improve physical diving skills. I used to encourage AOW students to make altitude a choice. There is absolutely nothing to do on an altitude dive except dive, so I liked to make it the first dive. It gave me carte blanche to evaluate the student and provide whatever help was needed. We would then work on those key skills on all the other dives. I liked to do navigation second, and the student would then have to do navigation on the remaining dives, too. That way all the dives were skill dives, and almost all were navigation dives. (Circumstances could affect that ideal plan, though,)

 

[CT-Rich]

Is the purpose of the class to build skills or build enjoyment?
If someone signs up for a class, which ones they choose is to improve their enjoyment.

 

[wetb4igetinthewater]

Is the purpose of the class to build skills or build enjoyment?
If someone signs up for a class, which ones they choose is to improve their enjoyment.

It is both. Open water courses are not boot camp. But having proper skills sure makes a difference in enjoyment, as they are not nervous due to the realization that they don't have proper control in the water column.

 

[Eric Sedletzky]

Is the purpose of the class to build skills or build enjoyment?
If someone signs up for a class, which ones they choose is to improve their enjoyment.

You can do both.