Cavern To Full Cave Pace

[rjack321]

What I realize in hindsight was that doing the same dives over and over between C1 and C2 reached a point of diminishing returns. I probably had done about 50 C1 dives when I took C2, but they were all along the same three or four main lines. GUE's stated minimum of 25 dives between C1 and C2 is probably about right as a minimum, and doing some more beyond that is worthwhile--from what I've heard others say, around 50 seems pretty common. But if you find yourself doing the same dives over and over and feel like it's getting repetitious, like handling the reel is no longer a big deal, and you have played around with various routes to run the line into the main line, then maybe you're ready for the next course. Sure, there are still more things you can do if you're determined to really take your time and are a bit of a masochist. For instance, someone told me a mentor had them run the reel hundreds of feet into the cave, in high flow (Ginnie), before tying into the main line (at the Lips, if you know Ginnie), just to push their reel skills. Impressive, but I'm not sure that would have helped me that much in preparing for C2.

This is less common for those of us who did C1 and C2 in MX where you have a vastly larger number of systems and dives to choose from at the C1 level to gain experience before taking C2/full

 

[Rilelen]

Every time this kind of discussion comes up, I'm perplexed that the perspective of learning is not more emphasized. Of course some divers will learn faster, be more comfortable and skilled, while others need more time to meet the minimum requirements for passing the course standards. I'm sure some divers are able to complete the full cave course in one go without failing or killing themselves. However, I'm quite certain that everyone will LEARN MORE in the second class if they have time to gain experience, let the knowledge acquired mature and have time to reflect on what they learned in the first class. After internalizing the knowledge and gaining more experience, you know what to ask and what you need help to work on, giving a completely different learning outcome.

This 100%. I’m local to Florida cave country, and took about nine months (25-30 dives) between intro and full. Full was pretty easy for me, and I think I probably could have done it right after intro, but am really glad I didn’t. I got so much more out of the course taking some time in between to get out and dive.

Totally agree that the role of practice is very underrated - doing something in a class once or twice is very different from rehearsed practice that really engrains what you’ve learned. We got to do some fun stuff in my full cave class because I had the bandwidth to do more.