How do you teach basic skills like mask removal & replacement and BC removal & replacement to your brand new OW students. Are they learning these fundamental skills in mid water while neutrally buoyant?
Both of these actions (mask R&R, and scuba unit R&R) are only 'fundamental skills' if seen in the context of when they might need to be done while actually diving. Once they are seen in that light, they are both basic self rescue techniques so of course they need to be able to be done neutral mid-water, because that's what and where divers are when actually diving.
When actually diving, needing to be negatively bouyant, or in contact with the bottom to do
anything is being unable to perform basic self rescue. Also known as being unfit to be considered a certified diver, in my book. Both skills should be able to matter of factly performed mid water, neutrally buoyant,
in motion. Like how divers are actually diving.
If instructors thought about what certification training is supposed to result in, rather than in how skills are to be taught/evaluated/demo'd in a given course, then most rationales for
anything but mid-water neutrally buoyant 'skill' performance /demonstration/evaluation falls completely apart.
The first time other instructors see my class of eight open water divers all swimming around on top of their gear under water matter of factly, they tend to have two responses (Where's your control?, and How do you expect open water trainees to be able to do that?). Both responses come from those instructors projecting their own lack of confidence in their basic skills onto students.
In fact, in a 'workshop' I sat in on for a bunch of PADI shop instructors run by the PADI shop CD on how to work the new PADI OW course stuff into an OW course, I watched the CD just completely unable to perform any skill neutrally buoyant. He basically lost completely control of his scuba unit when he tried to do a swimming scuba unit R&R. And that is right in line with the 'skill' level of his OW students, and unfortunately enough even of his IE candidates. One of his IE candidates confided to the fellow candidates (one of whom I was translating for) that she hoped she was not given hovering as her skill in the IE since she knew she could not demo hovering.
Also known as why I only teach AOW to people who took OW from me, and why DM candidates have to complete my OW course as a students before we do anything else.
A few fellow Japanese instructors who have interned in my OW courses and seen what kind of divers come out of neutrally buoyanct mid-water courses, have taken it further, and even found that intro divers can do most skills hovering mid-water. One even noted that she jokingly did a scuba unit R&R swimming along and was amazed that the three intro divers just matter of factly joined in the fun.
It could be called high expectations. But it is really just basic competence expectation in the terms of the OW course as far as I am concerned. When we instrcutors don't program failure in by using/allowing negative buoyancy and bottom contact, then we don't force some instrcutor down the line to have to fix the errors we programmed into out divers.
---------- Post added March 2nd, 2015 at 11:09 AM ----------
After reading one too many articles about people coming to the surface around here, floundering and then sinking back and drowning without dropping their weights, I tried a new approach to the weight drop -- try to stress them a bit (hence the yelling) and have them drop their weights. I have no idea if this will help them in the long run (to my knowledge no one of my students who has been subjected to this terror has been in such an emergent situation) but I can't help but think it couldn't hurt.
It does seem that NOT stressing students during emergency procedures might not be the best way -- so I'm trying this.
To modify Dive Training Magazines motto -- A Good Instructor Is Always Learning (and Evolving)
But aren't they getting themselves into trouble by being sloppy with airway control, rather than failing to drop weights? If instructors made divers keep their airholes filled/covered anytime they are in the water then the flailing at the surface would not happen. That flailing and near drowning comes from the ingrained pattern of uncovering the airway once the head hits the surface, which comes from instructors failing to enforce proper in water behavior (which is: In water, mask always on, mouth always plugged with something till standing on the boat deck or dry land.)
I believe that TSandM and I have had some back and forth about this very issue. (Not to assume you share all beliefs with her, but I think this one is fair to assume.) To quote one such exchange:
TSandM:
requiring instructors in Puget Sound to insist that their students "protect their airways" is overkill.
It seems like you trying to prevent the end result of a chain of failures by trying to get students to react when they are already in a panicked state (drop weight belt when choking), instead of simply teaching simple methods (always protect your airway in the water) to not get into that situations to begin with.
I have made this point on numerous occasions, and from the various reactions each time, I think there are far, far too few people who have any experience with actual mortally panicked divers in the water. Choking divers panic because we as human beings are hard wired to react when in mortal danger. Panicked choking divers are so far from rational thought that it is silly to think that any training will be of any use to them.
Some Navy divers are trained to not panic when going unconscious underwater for operational security reasons, by having them repeated go unconscious underwater. No one else should be expected to not panic when choking, or react appropriately once panicked. Rather they should be trained to prevent choking and panicking. (Or be using enough excess bouyancy by a rescuer to get their head well clear of the water so that they cannot aspirate any more water, even after losing lung buoyancy from coughing.)
