Are we diving or swimming?

[fran2bo3]

A question I have often heard asked but have never heard a definitive answer to is why all dive training organisations require that you must be able to swim a certain distance within a set time and why the distance is increased and the time reduced as you progress through the "ranks" of scuba professionals.

I understood that it started in the distant past with YMCA, one of the original SCUBA training agencies, that had its origins in teaching young men to swim and therefore swimming, being seen as good discipline for young men was included in the training requirements. This was in the 50's and 60's, this is now 2015 and in over 30 years scuba diving I have never seen or needed to swim at any time on a dive trip unless I wanted to pass the time during a surface interval.

Does anyone have any comments or justifications why it is still in the training manuals or does it just keep slipping through because it has always been done that way and agencies don't want to move with the times(heaven forbid!).

 

[highdesert]

No intellectual, thought-out response here ...

But if passing a swimming requirement does nothing more than ensure that a candidate is comfortable in the water, then, in my opinion, it's justified.

 

[TSandM]

GUE has a timed swim test for every level, and it gets significantly more demanding as you go up the levels. Their position is that fitness is a cornerstone of the system, and instructors should demonstrate high levels of every attribute, from diving skill to knowledge to fitness. It is not a perfect proxy (and we even discussed that in my recent Cave 1) but it's better than nothing. Personally, I'd rather have a swim test than a run, because I can't run.

 

[DaleC]

And a diving course is supposed to prepare divers for a wide variety of conditions, not just floating beside a boat. What happens when you hit current or a situation calls for you to surface away from the exit point. Consider that doing away with the skill of swimming makes a diver completely dependent upon equipment.

 

[KeithG]

A question I have often heard asked but have never heard a definitive answer to is why all dive training organisations require that you must be able to swim a certain distance within a set time and why the distance is increased and the time reduced as you progress through the "ranks" of scuba professionals.

I understood that it started in the distant past with YMCA, one of the original SCUBA training agencies, that had its origins in teaching young men to swim and therefore swimming, being seen as good discipline for young men was included in the training requirements. This was in the 50's and 60's, this is now 2015 and in over 30 years scuba diving I have never seen or needed to swim at any time on a dive trip unless I wanted to pass the time during a surface interval.

Does anyone have any comments or justifications why it is still in the training manuals or does it just keep slipping through because it has always been done that way and agencies don't want to move with the times(heaven forbid!).

Through the ranks? Heretic! Hang on, what's this?

You say that being able to swim is a bad thing. As a vacation diver, I aspire to one day being able "to swim". Marilyn Bell is us! I am a bad swimmer, but a competent diver in my chosen (very benign) conditions.

I claim the majority of "vacation divers" simply need to be able to be comfortable in the water. I have achieved that. But it is a very, very low bar. I am not a swimmer, I am a warm water diver. This bar is not sufficient for many divers.

I believe that I would be incompetent in a wide range of every day North American conditions. Swimming ability would be just 1 of my short comings.

A simple example is current: 98% of the time I expect that that I dive with or against the current. i have only twice experienced a shift of the pretty feeble current during a dive.

So my swimming skills have never been really challenged.

Please do not confuse being fully competent to dive under really nice benign conditions with the need to being able to swim in nasty currents.

 

[NAM001]

Having certed in the late 60's with ymca, I had to swim sonmthing like 30 laps on an olympic pool in a given time. Not complaining it was no biggy I was 15. however it seeemed justified because We had a hosere colar for the surface. somewhere around 40 ft our 1/4 and 3/8" suits started drastic compression and you got heavy fast, and we had no bcd's. We had horse collars for the surface. Any one who knows what one is knows it is not the most rugged item made for scuba . Fortunately we strapped our rambo knife to our leg. Another aspect to those days was teh course covered rescue so i suppose it was a strength/endurance test in event you had to swim for 2 divers.

 

[knotical]

another take: Divers by definition hang out around water. Divers do not always wear flotation devices (wet suits, etc) when on the pier or boat. Sometimes they fall in. I did.

 

[Damselfish]

This has come up in the past, and it's always been beyond me why anyone would question the idea of someone showing they can swim before they learn to dive.

Maybe you personally haven't run into a situation (yet) where you needed to swim. But diving and generally being around the water more increases the odds you will for many reasons. And there's that comfort in the water thing. New divers tend to get stressed out by all sorts of things, even experienced divers have bad days, and knowing they can't swim is certainly not going to help matters. Or say you take a course like Rescue, which is a really good idea for most divers - I can't imagine someone who can't swim taking that class.

People often complain about watering down of standards. Can you imagine how much an agency would get dumped on if they decided it was no longer important for someone to show they can swim before getting certified? Or didn't care if DMs or instructors could swim well? Would you really want a dive instructor that couldn't swim?

 

[pjhansman]

Oh good....the semi-annual ScubaBoard "if you aren't a good swimmer, you can't be a good diver" thread

 

[Lorenzoid]

I think swimming skills lack much relevance to diving, but I have embraced the idea that physical fitness can improve one's diving.