Creating new habits-overcoming reflexes

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tonka97

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Location
West Virginia; Seattle and SF 20 yrs.
# of dives
I'm a Fish!
As divers we must replace instinctive reflexes with sound and reasoned responses. Creation of a new physical habit may take hundreds, and frequently thousands of repetitions to instill.

This is often ignored in activities such as SCUBA, where we perform a task a few times, with the presumption that this skill is available when and where we require it, even in a life threatening emergency.

Please suggest ideas and techniques to create better habits and responses, whether diving or at home. This is a good way to keep our minds focussed on the fun of diving!

Here are some:

Use your safety stop time as an opportunity to practice OOA (out of air) and mask clearing skills. Take your gear off, and then don it. Extend safety stop as your gas permits.

On the surface, practice visualization and breathing exercises. Time your longest exhalation. Try long exhalation with your face in a bucket of cold water or pool. Feel the mammalian diving reflex: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mammalian_diving_reflex
Aim for 1 minute exhalation.

Practice in the pool breathing with snorkle and no mask. Get used to water on your nose and eyes. (contact lenses out).

Walking or exercising, count each right foot cycle, to make this automatic when you are uw navigating. Treadmill and elliptical trainer are very good. Multi-task while counting, such as listening to an audio book or watching a movie.

Don/doff your diving gear with eyes closed.

what are your ideas?:coffee:
 
tonka97:
Walking or exercising, count each right foot cycle, to make this automatic when you are uw navigating. Treadmill and elliptical trainer are very good. Multi-task while counting, such as listening to an audio book or watching a movie.

That sounds more like an OCD in the making... :P
 
Many people think that situational awareness can not be learned. Either you are born with it or not. I tend to disagree.

Try paying attention to the things in life that you normally do not notice and quiz yourself afterward. For example I like to take note of the vertical clearance signs ahead of highway overpasses then ask yourself a few miles down the road what it was. Discretely take note of what the person in front of you at the grocery is purchasing then try to remember as many as you can a half-hour later. There are unlimited number of possibilities.

I don't know if there is any scientific validity behind this but it seems to have trained my brain and raised my overall awareness which is one of the most important (but often overlooked) "skills" in diving.
 
krcollins:
Many people think that situational awareness can not be learned. Either you are born with it or not. I tend to disagree.

Try paying attention to the things in life that you normally do not notice and quiz yourself afterward. For example I like to take note of the vertical clearance signs ahead of highway overpasses then ask yourself a few miles down the road what it was. Discretely take note of what the person in front of you at the grocery is purchasing then try to remember as many as you can a half-hour later. There are unlimited number of possibilities.

I don't know if there is any scientific validity behind this but it seems to have trained my brain and raised my overall awareness which is one of the most important (but often overlooked) "skills" in diving.

Great ideas for situational awareness! :coffee:
 
krcollins:
Many people think that situational awareness can not be learned. Either you are born with it or not. I tend to disagree.
Some simple things I do to improve awareness and decision making under stress:

1. Before looking at my SPG, depth gauge, or computer I make a specific conscious guess as to what it will read for pressure, depth, time or deco status. Similarly, if I either sneak a peek at my buddies gauge or we exchange air pressure info, I have a number in mind as to what I think he has. Even on first dives with insta-buddies, if you have compared air pressure both before the dive and then 10 or 15 minutes later, then you should have a pretty good guess.

2. The first step in buddy awareness is making a conscious decision that you intend to know at all times where you buddy is and what he is doing. If he keeps being someplace else other than where you expect him, then you aren't looking often enough, and/or you and your buddy are using awkward relative positions.

3. The natural instinct in case of a problem is to bolt for the surface. As you are swimming along on a dive, you should repeatedly be asking yourself "If my reg died this instant, what would I do?" See #2, above. Was you buddy where you thought he was? Would you be able to get to him to share air if your reg died after your last exhale? While I'm not advocating swimming over to your buddy every two minutes, you can easily mentally rehearse the OOA drill every two minutes. Sometime when the two of you are swimming at full speed, go ahead and try to swim over to him as if you were OOA. You will quickly find that acceptable buddy distance varies dramatically according to relative position and speed, and a buddy just 10 feet in front of you is effectively a really, really long distance away if he is swimming at full speed away from you.

4. Just generally do the "what if?" game.

What if my buddy's mask pops a lens out? Can we safely abort?

What if his tank o-ring blows and we need to share air. Do we have enough to make it to where we need to be?

What if the current is stronger than I can handle and we get blown off the wreck. Do we have the right surface signalling stuff? How long do we fight the current before surfacing?

Mentally playing the "what if" game as you go through the dive helps to highlight potential problems, and helps in getting potential solutions/responses worked out before the excitement of a problem.

Charlie Allen
 

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