Question Bad habits and what must be unlearned

[Thrutch]

I hear a lot about divers needing to unlearn or be retaught how to do certain things when starting technical and/or cave training, often/especially very experienced divers. Having just finished AN/DP (with tech sidemount) a couple months ago, I only have limited experience with tech instruction, but I didn't find that there was anything I needed beaten out of me when I started the course.

I'm curious: what are the most common habits that need to be broken and things that need to be unlearned?

 

[Norwegian Cave Diver]

Scissor kick becomes - Frog kick, Flutter kick, Helicopter turns, Backing up, Parking yourself mid water, Buoyancy, and Trim.
BWRAF will become - Right to Left and Front to Back.

 

[boriss]

In theory, what one learns in OW should be the building blocks upon which everything else is built, but we know that's not reality (typically). In the same vein all technical instruction isn't equal either and certain things need to be unlearned (that's a whole other thread! ). But the details start becoming more and more nuanced.

@Norwegian Cave Diver mentioned a few basic skills, but I'd say the biggest change is the one you can't see. It's between the ears; changes in approach. All dives become planned. There's no more winging it. Even when you are "winging it," it's within certain planned parameters.

 

[Norwegian Cave Diver]

In theory, what one learns in OW should be the building blocks upon which everything else is built, but we know that's not reality (typically). In the same vein all technical instruction isn't equal either and certain things need to be unlearned (that's a whole other thread! ). But the details start becoming more and more nuanced.

@Norwegian Cave Diver mentioned a few basic skills, but I'd say the biggest change is the one you can't see. It's between the ears; changes in approach. All dives become planned. There's no more winging it. Even when you are "winging it," it's within certain planned parameters.

Yes I agree with all of that.

You can buy great quality equipment, and get a great instructor, but ultimately its going to be your mindset that decides if you belong in that environment.

 

[Thrutch]

Thanks for the responses. I'm wondering specifically what skills are often ingrained incorrectly, not about what makes a tech diver.

I enjoy researching, practicing skills, and getting comfortable before taking a class, as I believe this puts me in a better position to make the most out of the instruction, but there are many out there who recommend against this because "you'll learn it wrong."

 

[sea_ledford]

In my experience, unlearning is primarily related to poor propulsion and poor trim.

Adding frog kick to someone with a good flutter is fine, it's a new skill. But someone that doesn't have the self awareness to do a flutter kick instead of a bicycle kick needs to unlearn that bad habit. Same thing with someone that is knee or vertically oriented rather than horizontally trimmed. They may be fine while working on things, but in stressful situations, they'll default to what they learned initially.

Other unlearning challenges happen when people try to learn to do things without instructors or mentors and they self taught incorrectly. Long hose routing done incorrectly for a while takes FOREVER to get them to fix.

 

[boulderjohn]

ame thing with someone that is knee or vertically oriented rather than horizontally trimmed.

Many divers (including me) began scuba diving learning skills on the knees. They tend to get comfortable diving in at least a semi-vertical position, and it can take a while to get truly horizontal. This can show up when doing some basic skills, including especially mask clearing.

To clear a mask properly, the bottom skirt of the mask needs to be the lowest point so the water will run out and down the cheeks. That means that when you are diving in a horizontal position, you will need to tilt the head back to get vertical, and most OW instruction the direction to tip the head back. However, if you are kneeling on the bottom of the floor, the head is already back; in fact, it might be past vertical already. That means tipping the head back is counterproductive, and most OW students learn to do it without tipping the head back. When they dive and get water in the mask, many divers bring their whole body to vertical, imitating the kneeling on the floor position, in order to clear the mask.

In tech training, then, you have to learn to do all those skills while staying in horizontal position, which can mean unlearning what you practiced in OW instruction. Of course, for those whose OW instruction was done neutrally buoyant and in horizontal trim, no changes will be necessary.

 

[boulderjohn]

To go back to the main lesson of my last post....

If you are doing skills properly as an OW diver before starting tech, I can't think of a thing you would need to "unlearn." You will need to learn new skills for sure, but you shouldn't have any bad habits to break.

 

[Lorenzoid]

Thanks for the responses. I'm wondering specifically what skills are often ingrained incorrectly, not about what makes a tech diver.

I doubt any skills are often ingrained "incorrectly"--for purposes of OW diving. It's just that while the skills are at their core the same in the rec and tech realms--buoyancy needs to be controlled, gas needs to be donated, etc.--the details of how these skils are done may change significantly. It's the details that are ingrained in muscle memory, and they may need to be "unlearned."

My guess is the biggest difference is learning to do the same core skills using new-to-you gear. While it's true that a drysuit, double tanks--perhaps sidemount--long hose, etc., are not exclusively "tech" gear and are used by many rec-only divers, the majority of OW divers are going to have to learn to do all the basic scuba skills in a new gear configuration. I had 200+ dives over a span of about 15 years when I started down the cave/tech route and had great buoyancy control in a wetsuit, jacket BC, and Al 80; it was solidly in muscle memory. Switching to a drysuit and steel doubles felt like learning to dive all over again. Having to master a stepped ascent, managing two air bubbles to decelerate to a stop at a target depth. Hovering horizontally, staying in one spot, while doing the skills. It could be said that this is about learning "new" skills rather than "unlearning bad habits," but I think divers who get onto the tech route earlier may have an easier time of replacing what's in their muscle memory than divers who have hundreds of dives in their familiar gear configuration.

 

[halocline]

I hear a lot about divers needing to unlearn or be retaught how to do certain things when starting technical and/or cave training,

A little nit-pick, once you develop a habit, you don't really 'unlearn' it or 'break' the habit. What you actually do is learn a new habit which, with enough repetition, replaces the old one as a learned 'default' behavior. I don't think this is just semantics, and I have had decades of experience training people to develop very precise habits. The main difference is that when you are concentrating on developing new habits, learning new things, as opposed to trying to 'unlearn' something, what you're doing is taking new skills and awareness and integrating it with your present level of skill development. It's just a more positive outlook, and it's more accurate in terms of neuro-muscular development, which is what habits are.

After that long-winded philosophical statement, my experience with going from recreational to cave diving is that basically you just need to improve your most basic skills and make them more precise and consistent. Breathing, buoyancy, trim, and propulsion are those basic skills. Sure it would be ideal if you learned to have great foundational skills from the start, but that's not how most people learn diving. So you develop those things later. It's no big deal, and it's one of the satisfying things about learning technical diving.