Buddy Breathing

[MauiScubaSteve]

I just don’t get the idea that you should not work on practicing skills and being prepared. I have started taking more challenging dives up here in the northeast – cold water (dry suit), dealing with currents, etc. – I want to be as prepared as possible.

I was addressing the elimination of BB from the OW training. What is wrong with moving a more advanced skill to an advanced training course? What dry suit training did you do? And how are you learning about dealing with local currents? Have you asked an instructor to teach you proper BB technique?

I learned BB from reading books and watching Sea Hunt (friend had entire vhs collection); take two breaths then blow slow bubbles while your buddy takes two breaths. Not a big deal for a fish, especially before buoyancy control devices with another fish. Guess what, the vast majority of beginning recreational divers today are not fish.

 

[DCBC]

What is wrong with moving a more advanced skill to an advanced training course?

I suppose like everything, it's a matter of personal preference based upon opinion or experience. If you feel it is a skill that may save lives, why wait until some subsequent course to teach it? The student may not take another course and therefore may never learn an important skill... If however, you feel that the skill has no purpose or is overly redundant, why bother at any level of training?

It comes down to why the skill is taught in the first-place. When it is taught, is it as an important skill-set, or just a means to increase confidence and buddy team development? If it's not required; it's not required; use the time more wisely. Again it's a matter of perspective.

 

[dumpsterDiver]

I think BB is essential skill for all OW divers simply for the confidence it provides.

This crappy video shows me and my 10 yr old practicing in open water (with masks off and before he was certified).
It ain't that hard to learn.

Skip to around 1:10 minutes

YouTube - john and me

 

[RU4SKUBA]

the Divemaster Dive Skills Evaluation for No 20 (buddy breathing performance requirement) was replaced with "Alternate Air Source-Assisted Ascent" but no parallel change to OW skill requirements were reflected... yet

I think this would be a reasonable alternative to what is admittedly an obsolete skill in BBing

 

[Mike Boswell]

One of my instructors recently told the story of how he stood on the bow of a dive boat trying to help a tired diver who was hanging on the anchor rope with a deflated BC. When he asked the diver to inflate his BC, the diver responded that he couldn't because his tank was empty. The diver didn't know - or think - to orally inflate his BC. And how many of us have practiced that skill?

Most of us don't enjoy practicing with our gear - we want to go diving! But familiarity with our gear becomes important when the unexpected happens. I don't think practicing emergency skills is so much about whether they will ever be used: Rather, it is about becoming calm, comfortable and flexible with our life support system.

 

[Jim Lapenta]

But diving is practicing with your gear. Didn't your instructor tell you that EVERY dive, even a pleasure dive, is a skills dive? I have yet to be on any dive when I did not work on at least one skill. Even if it's for a few minutes. Swimming along the reef and being careful to not touch it and stay at the same depth is working on a skill. It's called buoyancy control. Keeping a steady pace and not silting up the bottom for the divers behind you is working on a skill. Surfacing with a reserve amount of air is working on a skill. Just swimming, not thinking, not paying attention to the environment or your place in the water column is not diving.

 

[Thalassamania]

A real problem is that today's students (and a lot of today's instructors) have a very limited suite of responses to a problem. Many of the things that some of us who've been around a little longer see as the next step in a progression of responses, simply are not available to them.

 

[MauiScubaSteve]

A real problem is that today's students (and a lot of today's instructors) have a very limited suite of responses to a problem. Many of the things that some of us who've been around a little longer see as the next step in a progression of responses, simply are not available to them.

For a student (or instructor) to be able to grasp a larger suite of responses I believe it is more due to the personal history of the individual. Back in the day, most divers were also adventurous in many other environs. Now the typical recreational dive student who WILL be taking a 40 hour at the most course are coming from a sheltered life where they have never been; stuck on a cliff, or capsized in rapids, or in the middle of a point sluff, or caught in a rip, or whatever extreme problems extreme individuals have experienced.

I personally did not need to be trained on buddy breathing other than to be instructed not to let go of the hose if I am the donator; since I can hold my breath for over 3 minutes the description of the small stream of bubbles during the other person's 2 breaths was all that was really necessary. How many of today's fresh OW divers will last long enough blowing bubbles in a real emergency while the other similarly sheltered fresh OW diver takes 2 breaths?

Even with more training, if you have never had an extreme moment in your life what makes you think 17 more rehearsals in OW class will mean much when you are in the fire with a similar non extreme person? And with today's gear, how many typical recreational OOA situations have resulted in the alternate really not being operational? If you are diving in water so cold your reg might free flow due ice, should you be there with only OW?

 

[Thalassamania]

My life's experience tells me that indeed people can be rather easily trained to have a broader suite of responses. If that takes 17 repetitions as Egstrom found, or 100 hours of instruction, as I have found, it can be done and it's not particularly hard. You see, your breath-hold ability, that covers a plethora of possible errors and problems, would make you just slightly above average in our entry level programs. Keep in mind that many of the people who have taken such a program are not particularly adventurous types, but are, rather, bookish nerd types.

Given an adequate level of training, if if they have never had an extreme moment outside of class, my experience says that well trained divers can easily manage not only their own, but their buddy's crises, with a "non extreme person." There are few recreational OOA situations that will not be resolved by deployment of the primary and subsequent use of the auxiliary by the donor. My question is not, "If you are diving in water so cold your reg might free flow due ice, should you be there with only OW?" rather, it is, should you be diving anywhere without leadership, with the limited suite or responses available to today's O/W student?

 

[Nylorac]

For a student (or instructor) to be able to grasp a larger suite of responses I believe it is more due to the personal history of the individual. Back in the day, most divers were also adventurous in many other environs. Now the typical recreational dive student who WILL be taking a 40 hour at the most course are coming from a sheltered life where they have never been; stuck on a cliff, or capsized in rapids, or in the middle of a point sluff, or caught in a rip, or whatever extreme problems extreme individuals have experienced.

I personally did not need to be trained on buddy breathing other than to be instructed not to let go of the hose if I am the donator; since I can hold my breath for over 3 minutes the description of the small stream of bubbles during the other person's 2 breaths was all that was really necessary. How many of today's fresh OW divers will last long enough blowing bubbles in a real emergency while the other similarly sheltered fresh OW diver takes 2 breaths?

Even with more training, if you have never had an extreme moment in your life what makes you think 17 more rehearsals in OW class will mean much when you are in the fire with a similar non extreme person? And with today's gear, how many typical recreational OOA situations have resulted in the alternate really not being operational? If you are diving in water so cold your reg might free flow due ice, should you be there with only OW?

WOW. Who here is taking about diving in freezing water? That is completely out of context. Anyway, I can’t breathe for 3 minutes underwater so I guess I should just give up trying to become a more advanced diver? I think it is just all the more reason to learn BB. I have taken on many challenges in life and tried to live up to them. Some were physical (obviously not to your level of extreme but for me challenging) - the more difficult ones were mental. It is the ability to choose to take action that makes someone successful – not just their past accomplishments. Hey, I haven’t gone cliff diving or sky diving or whatever else you think qualifies as extreme. I have lived through 15 surgeries, chemotherapy, radiation, and lots of other horrendous stuff – and given the chance I have decided to LIVE – hence taking up diving. Nothing makes me feel more alive than diving. If you think you have overcome extreme stuff maybe you should think about what that really means.

I’m sure many others have their own experiences that make them fit for “extreme” endeavors” (crazy stuff like continuing their journey of learning to be better divers). I think you can, and should, always try to continue learning. How else do you learn to “grasp a larger suite of responses”?