bad habits to avoid?

[terfmop]

I read the "most important lesson thread" posted earlier and it made me think of a question I had wanted to ask some experienced divers...

Are there any 'bad' habits that you've acquired as you gained experience?

What do you percieve as a common 'bad' habit you see in new divers?

 

[chrispete]

One common problem that I've seen is a failure to continue learning/honing bouancy control after being certified.

 

[BabyDuck]

45 degree trim. usually with bicycle kicking added as a garnish.

 

[almitywife]

bad habit i see is MOF... not only does it look ugly you will loose your mask or be presumed as a panic diver

seriously.... its a bad look and i notice so many sydney dive shops (think tourist market) that allow it because they are too lazy to stop the divers from doing it

a bad habit that ive aquired though.......i think im still overweighting. im now down to 14lbs and descend very easily and need a fair bit of air in my BCD.

im sure i can drop another 2lbs at least but i just cant let go of it

 

[terfmop]

45 degree trim. usually with bicycle kicking added as a garnish.

I'm not familiar with "45 degree trim"....what does it mean?

 

[Averill]

Using your hands to manipulate yourself in the water column.

 

[BabyDuck]

being at a 45 degree angle to the surface instead of horizontal. horizontal takes less effort to get through the water column.

 

[RJP]

Bad habit to avoid:

Spreading your gear out on the boat deck like you're having a freakin' YARD SALE!

 

[jeckyll]

Good thread.

Here's a short list of things to avoid:

- getting in the water without knowing how much gas you need at a minimum, for the depth you are planning to dive to.
- using your hands
- getting complacent about skills (not practicing air shares)
- skipping predive planing
- touching the bottom with a finger or fin to stay in place
- Not checking on your buddies remaining gas when you check yours
- diving deeper 'just because'
- straying from your buddy (ask yourself: how far could I get if the next breath I took from the tank simply wasn't there?)
- letting you light 'drop and spin' for night dives when needing your hands. Looks like you're signalling that you are distressed.
- not testing your backup gear before getting in the water (reg, lights etc)

That's it off the top of my head, there are probably many more

 

[Leejnd]

GREAT thread!

I'm at the point in my diving where I'm in serious jeapardy of developing bad habits. I've been certified since August, and have completed 60 dives. I worked really hard during the first 25 or so dives to focus on my basic skills, but after that I have to admit to a bit of complacency -- spending more of my mental energy just enjoying the dive, and not giving quite so much thought to all the important stuff I need to be thinking about to be a solid, safe diver.

And then I had a couple of minor incidents that could have gone the wrong way...and I realized that I'd kind of forgotten some of the stuff that I learned in my OW and AOW classes that I don't use on every dive -- especially emergency measures. So now I'm back to mixing in some skills & drills dives along with just-for-fun dives.

It's too easy to forget the things we don't use on every dive. But we sure don't want to realize we've forgotten them at the moment we truly NEED them!

Oh, and I have to echo the thing about using your hands. That's something that my experienced dive buddies harrassed me about to no end at the beginning, and I worked hard on learning to keep my hands quiet. I recently went to a diving resort where I saw lots of divers, and I realized I could pick out the inexperienced divers from the experienced ones in a heartbeat -- the new divers were waving their hands all over the place, while the experienced ones mostly kept their hands or arms clasped beneath them. It's hard to accept at first that you really don't need to move your hands in the water, and that they are pretty ineffective anyway in terms of moving you...it's just something that takes some work.