Question Bad habits and what must be unlearned

[Norwegian Cave Diver]

PADI OW was how it began for me. I really learnt trim in my IANTD Cavern cert. Here is where PADi OW could easily make a small change to that course and turn out a diver with better trim...
When I took my OW in 2009 you learnt to hover with your legs crossed. Zero value in the water but perhaps makes a diver feel successful. They also taught fin pivot. Good to learn how adding and dumping from your BCD changes your buoyancy. PADI could remove the Hover and from the fin pivot add one or two more shots of air to your BCD and now you have a diver in a horizontal position and learning to be neutrally buoyant.

If you look at a typical diver (OW - AOW - ETC) in the water, the majority swim in a heads up position.
Im not an instructor - but this is how trim works from my perspective...
Sometime in you life you may have been in your parents vehicle and put your arm out the window with your hand and arm horizontal in the wind. The wind flowed evenly above and below your arm, and then for some fun you raised your arm and now felt the wind pushing on the underside of your hand and arm. That created resistance. To use scuba terms for that experience your arm was "in trim" for the first example and then your arm was "out of trim" in the second example.

Now lets apply that to your typical diver that swims in a heads up position...
Diver descends - begins to swim forward (in a heads up position) adjusts their BCD and are now neutrally buoyant. They slow down or stop to look at something - and now find themselves sinking. Natural thing to do is get yourself in a more vertical position and kick to keep from descending any more. This was a natural opportunity to rest, bringing the heart rate down, bringing the breathing rate down, and bringing the air/gas consumption down, all while enjoying what your wanted to see.

All you (whoever you is) need now is someone to tell you when you're horizontal (in Trim) in the water. It will most likely feel a bit strange at first.

A habit that was created because a new diver was never taught about your position in the water.

 

[boulderjohn]

PADI OW was how it began for me. I really learnt trim in my IANTD Cavern cert. Here is where PADi OW could easily make a small change to that course and turn out a diver with better trim...
When I took my OW in 2009 you learnt to hover with your legs crossed. Zero value in the water but perhaps makes a diver feel successful. They also taught fin pivot. Good to learn how adding and dumping from your BCD changes your buoyancy. PADI could remove the Hover and from the fin pivot add one or two more shots of air to your BCD and now you have a diver in a horizontal position and learning to be neutrally buoyant.

A habit that was created because a new diver was never taught about your position in the water.

How you hovered in the class was not dictated by PADI then. That was the choice of your instructor.

Two years later (Spring 2011) PADI published an article in their professional journal, The Undersea Journal, showing instructors how to teach the OW class with students neutrally buoyant and in horizontal trim from the very beginning of the class. Soon after that, PADI revised all standards and put significantly more emphasis on both neutral buoyancy and horizontal trim. They also began to promote teaching the class in horizontal trim and while neutrally buoyant from the start, as described in the article. In our annual annual meeting about then, the regional rep strongly recommended it. They did not, however, require it.

Since then they have increasingly emphasized that approach. Some of the biggest instructor trainer operations in the world teach it exclusively now. If you talk to people at PADI headquarters about it (and I have), they will tell you that they have done everything reasonable to promote that approach to teaching the OW class.

Unfortunately, that is clearly not true. On FaceBook I regularly see courses being advertised using videos or still pictures of students on their knees. In a recent exchange I had with one of those operations, they clearly knew little to nothing about teaching that way. They had no idea PADI was promoting it.

Since then, other agencies have also been promoting that approach, and it is sometimes puzzling how they do it. In a Webinar about the topic a couple years ago, Mark Powell of SDI/TDI said that SDI instructors are required to teach that way. That is clearly not true, and I have encountered SDI instructors who barely know a thing about it. In a thread only a few weeks ago, an SSI instructor said SSI instructors are required to teach that way, but when challenged by another SSI instructor to show proof, he refused. No one else supported his contention.

So change is occurring--too slowly. When I switched dive shops years ago and tried to promote neutrally buoyant instruction, my efforts were thwarted by their most veteran instructor, who fought it all tooth and nail. I no longer work for that shop. Earlier this year, I did a pool session with a tech student in the same pool that shop was using for two OW groups. One was led by the veteran who had stopped the shop from changing years before--he was now teaching the students neutrally buoyant. The other instructor was new. He was teaching on the knees.

 

[Norwegian Cave Diver]

Was on a liveaboard last week in the Bahamas. Family on board had a son - perhaps 16-17 taking his AOW. He was doing the crossed legs buoyancy skill for fun I assume. I didn't say anything to him as to why he did that - not my place to question - but it did make me realize that it must still be taught.

 

[wetb4igetinthewater]

I wonder if the impact of being on the knees leads students to be "trained" to be bent at the waist and contributes to bad trim & bicycle kicks. I suspect yes.

 

[sea_ledford]

The SDI standards now require Divemaster candidates to demonstrate everything neutrally buoyant. Doesn't say anything about trim though.

Last May I went on my first dive vacation in a while. We went to the Caymans, and stayed at Compass Point, so catering to divers on vacation not vacationers who dive every once in awhile. During the dives I was watching the other divers, most of them older (50 plus at least) and all in traditional recreational gear (jacket bcs, short hose regs with octos, maybe some air twos, maybe some split fins). Every single one of them was neutrally buoyant, in horizontal trim. None of them were new divers, so if people dive enough, they seem to eventually figure it out anyway.

 

[boulderjohn]

I wonder if the impact of being on the knees leads students to be "trained" to be bent at the waist and contributes to bad trim & bicycle kicks. I suspect yes.

Watch enough people swim outside of scuba diving and you will see more than enough bicycle kicking to make you realize scuba is not responsible for it.

I started classes having students swim around on scuba on the surface just to get the feel of things before actually starting the class. I stood watching while they swam around me. I would pick out the bicycle kickers and work with them on better form.

 

[wetb4igetinthewater]

Watch enough people swim outside of scuba diving and you will see more than enough bicycle kicking to make you realize scuba is not responsible for it.

I'd buy that.

I started classes having students swim around on scuba on the surface just to get the feel of things before actually starting the class. I stood watching while they swam around me. I would pick out the bicycle kickers and work with them on better form.

Great idea. I like to start out against the edge of the pool where I have them kick but obviously not go anywhere. That allows me to talk to all of them and get them comfortable with the feel of kicking from the hips. I also teach frog kicks on the back (not against the wall of course) so they get the feel of being straight through the waist. If their knees break the surface, then they know they are breaking at the waist.

I try to use the surface for as much instruction as possible.

 

[boulderjohn]

After I got them comfortable swimming around on the surface, I showed them how to dump just enough air from the BCD so that they were doing exactly the same thing but under water in the shallow end of the pool. This enabled me to take care of any weighting issues. Once I had everyone swimming around in mid water, I would have them surface. I would then say something like, "All right, you now know everything you need to know to scuba dive. Thank you for coming. Please put your gear...." I would stop as they laughed, and then I would tell them that what they had just done was, in fact, everything they needed to know to scuba dive. After that, everything we did would be practice and learning what to do when something goes wrong.

Then the actual class would start.