Are there people who just CANNOT dive?

[SlugLife]

The idea of thinking of all the steps I must take carefully and slowly before doing something souds great. In fact, my only qualm about the courses I've made is how rushed everything seems. Before we jump into the swimming pool, we're in a big hurry, because there's not much time and we cannot waste it. I acknowledge I'm in a slightly nervous attitude until I'm in the water, and even when I'm with the snorkel listening to instructions. But once I get underwater, everything seems so calm that I feel completely relaxed (except when I'm neither wearing a mask nor holding my nose with my fingers).

The fact that you do feel rushed in class is actually very important. Students should not feel rushed, especially in their initial Open Water class. Rushing will cause students to make mistakes, and increase anxiety.

In normal scuba-diving, there's almost never a reason to rush. Even if a regulator is knocked out of your mouth, so long as you remain calm and don't exert yourself, you'll have an entire minute before the lack of air starts to become a problem, and about 2 minutes before you're in trouble. If you start flailing around, suddenly that 2 minutes gets reduced to 30 seconds. Same applies to most other scuba-problems, like being entangled. Stop, think, slowly try to diagnose the entanglement, make sure you're cutting the right hazard & not your hose, potentially carefully remove your harness, etc. If you rushed it, suddenly you're entangled much worse, or damage your equipment. The slower you go, the better your air-consumption, and more time you have.

As far as your class, I'd again encourage you to be slow and deliberate. Whether you are rushing yourself, or your instructor is rushing you, I'd suggest you ignore that pressure. You may be likely to fail for doing skills incorrectly, but you're unlikely to fail for doing skills slowly.

 

[Esprise Me]

Best of luck! I admire you for persevering and hope it pays off for you.

 

[Shasta_man]

Unless they have a physical disability, everyone is physically capable of diving, with only their mind holding them back. Anybody can go rock climbing, it's only their fear that holds some back. There is nothing disgraceful about that fear, it's just our life experience that results in how we think. Whether it is fear or lack of patience, there is some complex combination of things that affects how you think and the same things affect whether we can overcome our fears or concerns.

You can certainly learn to dive and find someone willing and capable of working with you to do that. And hobbies are supposed to be mostly fun so you can take your time to learn it.

But you are certainly affected by lack of self confidence which makes it harder for you to even try something because you are already prepared for failure and set yourself up for that failure with your mindset. Your first post was a long list of lack of self confidence partly based on inaccurate assumptions. For example, the skills of a sports athlete come from training their body and literally their muscles to fire and move the way they need to. You literally have to train your muscles to move that way. You can certainly walk but you have to train your muscles to move the way they need to and together to do sports tasks. My posture was bad because I did not use my upper back muscles to pull my shoulders back. One leg wasn't as coordinated as the other because I used my dominant leg for everything. It took recognizing that and doing exercises and stretching to get them moving correctly. So your inability to move how you want is partly that your brain and muscles are not firing to move as you need to. You can fix that with deliberate training.

You have to improve your self confidence and train your body to move as you want. What would likely make a big difference and start to change that mindset would be some successes or accomplishments in some of these physical activities. Setting a goal, planning what skills you need to work on to achieve it then completing that goal is very self empowering and sparks you to think that yes some activity is tough but I can do it which then makes the next goal more likely.

 

[TMHeimer]

Unless they have a physical disability, everyone is physically capable of diving, with only their mind holding them back. Anybody can go rock climbing, it's only their fear that holds some back. There is nothing disgraceful about that fear, it's just our life experience that results in how we think. Whether it is fear or lack of patience, there is some complex combination of things that affects how you think and the same things affect whether we can overcome our fears or concerns.

You can certainly learn to dive and find someone willing and capable of working with you to do that. And hobbies are supposed to be mostly fun so you can take your time to learn it.

But you are certainly affected by lack of self confidence which makes it harder for you to even try something because you are already prepared for failure and set yourself up for that failure with your mindset. Your first post was a long list of lack of self confidence partly based on inaccurate assumptions. For example, the skills of a sports athlete come from training their body and literally their muscles to fire and move the way they need to. You literally have to train your muscles to move that way. You can certainly walk but you have to train your muscles to move the way they need to and together to do sports tasks. My posture was bad because I did not use my upper back muscles to pull my shoulders back. One leg wasn't as coordinated as the other because I used my dominant leg for everything. It took recognizing that and doing exercises and stretching to get them moving correctly. So your inability to move how you want is partly that your brain and muscles are not firing to move as you need to. You can fix that with deliberate training.

You have to improve your self confidence and train your body to move as you want. What would likely make a big difference and start to change that mindset would be some successes or accomplishments in some of these physical activities. Setting a goal, planning what skills you need to work on to achieve it then completing that goal is very self empowering and sparks you to think that yes some activity is tough but I can do it which then makes the next goal more likely.

Agree. Unless prevented by a disability, everyone is physically capable of diving. Not everyone is mentally capable of diving.

 

[wetb4igetinthewater]

Or a sinus issues. Some people cannot equalize.

However, there are people who do not have the use of their legs who tech dive.

 

[OTF]

It may be more useful for you to work with a personal instructor one-on-one for a while rather than trying to blast through a normal group style open water course.

 

[wetb4igetinthewater]

. In a recent webinar, Mark Powell of SDI/TDI said that all SDI instructors MUST teach that way.

You got a link? This is news to @decompression and me. I mean, I'd like this to be true. Just looked over 2021 and 2020 training updates.

 

[Julius SCHMIDT]

Even if a regulator is knocked out of your mouth, so long as you remain calm and don't exert yourself, you'll have an entire minute before the lack of air starts to become a problem, and about 2 minutes before you're in trouble.

If you're not talking seconds here then you really should take it easy on the AquaMarvellous comics

 

[Raphus]

I am having trouble finding where in my statement I said that 99% of instructors teach neutrally buoyant. Could you point it out for me, please?

What I did write was "most of the best instructors." Let me explain that phrase to you. The term "the best instructors" is intentionally vague. What percentage of all instructors would be considered "the best"? Well, let's start by identifying "the best instructors." Since I wrote that phrase, what I meant by that is my opinion, is it not? It has now been a decade since the world's largest dive agency first published an article in its professional magazine on teaching that way, and it has been promoting it with increasing fervor ever since; it has just decreed that new DMs must demonstrate skills that way. In a recent webinar, Mark Powell of SDI/TDI said that all SDI instructors MUST teach that way. The subject has been mentioned many times in many contexts, and it is hard to believe that any instructor who cares about quality instruction has not heard of it. Since the difference in producing students is so huge, I would have to assume that anyone who has investigated the process honestly will have made the change. Consequently, I conclude that anyone who in this environment is still teaching on the knees does not care much about perfecting the craft and so is not among the best.

So what percentage of all instructors would be among the best? Well, I will agree with you that the percentage is sadly far too small. I have no idea what it is, but it is decidedly in the minority.

So my phrase "most of the best" refers to an unquantifiable minority of instructors--certainly not 99% of all instructors.

Finally, let's have a quick logic lesson. The "straw man fallacy" occurs when you attack someone by summarizing their position inaccurately. By misstating their position, you can make it appear ridiculous, and you make yourself seem oh-so-much-wiser because you do not hold the ridiculous position you pretend they hold. I am not sure why you decided to attack and even ridicule me for something I never said, but it makes me sad that you would have the enmity to do that. I am not sure what I did to offend you so. Can you tell me your motivation?

OK first I did not mean to attack you.
I am not a native english speaker.
What you write in other posts is always good and I respect you and your experience.

I don't pretend to be so much wiser, because I know I am not. Compared to you and other people on SB I still have to gain much more experience. Especially when it comes to teaching, because I am kinda new at this.

So please don't take my post as a attack, it was more a question.
I never saw any instructor teaching a course neutral from start.
And I wonder if, this might be the case where you are from.

What a good instructor is, is of course personal opinion, I didn't question that.
And neutral buoyant is a good indicator.
I am a bit sad you act so defensive, because I didn't mean do say anything bad or offensive

I don't know what agency your instructor is using, but what you are describing is NOT what is done by probably 99% of the instructors in the world.

This sentenced made me think you mean 99% teach neutral, because you were talking about neutral buoyancy teaching the sentence before.

 

[Vicko]

I once did a discovery dive with a couple, the guy was a natural and very comfortable in the water. The girl on the other hand was very determined to dive but not very capable of it. I spent 2 hours in the water trying to get her to float straight on the surface, whatever I would do she would paddle with her hand until she got tipped over and did a very convincing overturned turtle impression. No matter how I tried I could not get her to hold that hand still. So after 2 hours of me giving her lighter and lighter tanks, removing and adding weights, grabbing her by the valve/hand and trying to get her straight I had to give up.
She went to all 5 dive centres on the island and had the exact same problem with 5-6 other instructors.