Dangerous psychology- Diving beyond one's training

[ajduplessis]

The problem is not training, self study or skills. It's more about experience. Divers believe that you do a couple of deep, cave or deco dives that have gained experience. The argue that they have exceptional situational awareness and life is great. Then ask that same diver to remove his mask and complete the remainder of the 20 min left on his own and the whole thing falls flat!!!! Doing a little swim in the shallow without a mask with no overhead/deco is EASY!!! Do this within more serious conditions and they will quickly hurt themselves at best.

Experience is about practicing worst case events to firstly understand how you as diver will cope and also understanding that your equipment/configuration and use thereof is seriously lacking. Once you reach this point will you understand what the more experienced divers here are trying to relay.

Doing dives outside of your ability (read within worst-case events) is where people end up hurt or dead, even "experience" seasoned guys because the have never simulated these and don't know how to handle these stresses.

Yes, life is great and easy if all goes to plan!!.

 

[tstormdiver]

I'm under the belief that we are talking about diving beyond ones formal education level in general and not cave diving in particular. Perhaps the OP can clarify.

The original post is mostly referring to those who go (mostly) into the technical realms,... several steps ahead of their current levels of training without training. As I said earlier, yes, I do agree, there are some recreational courses that could be forgone, but there are other recreational specialties in which it would be the wiser road (especially for some) to to have the training. Personally, I don't care if someone has a piece of plastic, I care about the training, knowledge & skills of the divers matching the dives they are trying to do.

 

[BDSC]

I do agree, there are some recreational courses that could be forgone, but there are other recreational specialties in which it would be the wiser road (especially for some) to to have the training.

So in your opinion, which recreational courses could be forgone and which ones should a person take to be able to safely do those types of dives?

 

[DaleC]

Well, you said yourself you are AoW. Are these Instructors and Instructor Trainers taking you into caves? And I wasn't just speaking to YOU but to the masses.

No caves. They don't do anything for me and they are to far away anyways. And my friends don't take me anywhere. I suspect one reason they enjoy being with me is that I appear to have my act together so they can just be divers and enjoy themselves.

________________________________________________________________________


I've mentioned before that I value formal education when there is a paradigm shift that needs to occur. Where or when that occurs is not something I would cast in black and white.

For me that was OW/AOW as I transitioned from non diver to diver. Nitrox as I transitioned from viewing air as something I breathed to a combination of elements with varying effects. I don't know where the line is drawn between tech and rec but I didn't personally need formal education to begin solo diving, single gas decompression, using multiple gasses (for additional safety, not accelerated deco) or to begin simple wreck penetrations (single room). YMMV.

Formal education is not the only means of learning but other avenues requires a certain type of person and a certain maturity of approach. The others are individual in that way and cannot be adopted "en masse".

Formal education is probably the best means of moving a mass of people through some activity but, as a non professional diver, I am not interested in doing that. My focus is personal. I don't promote so much as explain. If the board is to represent a broad spectrum of divers and approaches that is just as valid as the someone else who thinks they need to wear their instructors hat 24/7, whether they are being paid or not.

The problem with blanket statements is that someone always comes along to do the exact opposite. Then we either have to vilify them, dismiss them as an artifact, diminish them... or accept that one size does not fit all.

I don't think formal education is for everyone, all the time; I also don't believe informal education is for everyone, all the time.

 

[Superlyte27]

The problem with blanket statements is that someone always comes along to do the exact opposite. Then we either have to vilify them, dismiss them as an artifact, diminish them...OR RETRIEVE THEIR BODY or accept that one size does not fit all.

There, I fixed it for you.

 

[Jim Lapenta]

Rescue is a must.

AOW? Not necessary if it's the by the book, more experience with an instructor type class. A good one should be more like an "Intro to Tech lite" type. Then I say go for it. It should contain core skills dives. Not fish ID, boat, altitude, or other dives that don't introduce real new skills. It should include detailed gas management, dive planning, and some rescue skills.

UW Nav? A must. In fact this is the second course I most often suggest. After the diver takes a rescue class.

Deep? Only if taught properly with thorough discussion of Gas Management and Emergency Deco procedures. Over stay your NDL and add time to the safety stop is BS. Overstay your NDL and it is no longer a safety stop. It's a mandatory deco stop. Better know how to calculate it.

Buoyancy and Trim are essential for these dives and should be emphasized and required on every specialty in the first place. You can't do sucessful Nav with out them. Deep dives are just plain stupid if one can't control their rate of descent/ascent.

 

[Colliam7]

This thread is being started as I am trying to understand what goes through the minds of people, when they decide they are going to go beyond their level, without appropriate training. . . . I'm talking about inexperienced divers going massively beyond their training & into what is considered technical levels.

You answered your own question, and that answer probably captures many if not most of the cases and causes.

First was curiosity. I just wanted to know. Next & the biggest was ignorance. . . . I did cave in to peer pressure.

So, if you did it for those reasons, why do you wonder why others do it, for the very same reasons? I don't mean that as a criticism, rather a summary of reality. It doesn't mean that others are right, they are just human, like you.

Perhaps something I have not thought of?

There is another possibility I will add - as sarcastic as it may sound. The comedian, Ron White, says, 'You can't fix stupid.' And, there are a lot of stupid people walking this earth. I don't necessarily mean, 'unintelligent'. Many of these people appear to be reasonably intelligent. I don't mean, 'uneducated'. Many of them are also well educated (and/or, well-trained). And, I am not even sure I mean 'ignorant'. Rather, stupid is a mentality that informed, deliberate and maladaptive.

I was struggling with the debate about training in this thread, seeing both sides of the issue as discussed, and seeing a continuum of methods that allow people to learn, extending from activity with no formal training whatsoever, to no activity without prior formal training. But, I think that the following post cleared some of the mist that has been clouding the discussion.

The problem is not training, self study or skills. It's more about experience. Divers believe that you do a couple of deep, cave or deco dives that have gained experience. The argue that they have exceptional situational awareness and life is great. Then ask that same diver to remove his mask and complete the remainder of the 20 min left on his own and the whole thing falls flat!!!! Doing a little swim in the shallow without a mask with no overhead/deco is EASY!!! Do this within more serious conditions and they will quickly hurt themselves at best. . . . Experience is about practicing worst case events to firstly understand how you as diver will cope and also understanding that your equipment/configuration and use thereof is seriously lacking. Once you reach this point will you understand what the more experienced divers here are trying to relay.

I agree. It is not simply study and research and planning, although those actions are important. The planning has to include a series of 'what if' questions (about worst case scenarios). And, as a general principole, experience allows people to appreciate that need. The ability to engage in the planning comes from comprehensive study, so you know what the possibilities are and what remedial actionjms are available if they occur, and practice. Formal training can conspicuously accelerate that study, hence the pervasive advocacy for formal training that we see on SB. (Yes, I am an instructor, and I believe that, so it is probably a vested interest. I am not sure it is a selfish interest.) It allows those who have had the experience, and understand the range of 'what if' possibilities, to distill knowledge and skill and convey that in a time-efficient manner. That doesn't mean that you cannot learn without formal training - many people learn most of what they know by study, trial and error, and repetition. This is true in diving as well as any other form of risk-associated endeavor. There is a balance struck by each indivisual between how much they are willing to do through self-directed learning and experience acquisition, and formal training. What works for some may not work for others. So be it.

If someone would have spoken to me, encouraged me as to why not to go, with examples, I would have certainly heeded.

OK, I can't read your mind, I have to accept at face value what you state. But, permit me to savor just a wee bit of skepticism - Would you really have heeded advice and not gone, just because someone spoke to you, with examples? Maybe, you would have. But, there sure are a lot of people out there who would not have.

 

[Superlyte27]

I don't think formal education is for everyone, all the time; I also don't believe informal education is for everyone, all the time.

I don't think formal training is necessary for EVERYONE on every class. But in an overhead environment, it is paramount. It's been shown time and time again from before Sheck and beyond. Do you need to take a class to learn to dive a drysuit? Probably not. Get in a pool, find yourself upside down, right side up, air in your boots, etc. etc. You'll probably get through it. Do you need the Peak Performance Buoyancy class offered by PADI? I hope not. I teach buoyancy (and not the Mickey Mouse fin pivots) in OW. I also don't teach the boat specialty course. I don't teach fish awareness. I for the first time ever taught a Double's course this week. These are things you can learn on your own. What you can't learn on your own is how to get yourself out of zero vis in cave with a total gas loss. You need training for that.

Anyway. I'm beating a dead horse. Usually there's two different arguments. It's like Dem's vs. Repubs. No one is ever going to change sides. So, I'm wasting keystrokes now.

Have a great weekend guys. And Dale, I apologize again if you thought I was trying to insult you. Peace.

 

[boulderjohn]

I am really confused about the point of the argument here. The issue raised by the OP was about divers diving beyond their training. The main argument in the thread, it seems to me, was on an entirely different question: how do you get your training?

Some people argued that you don't have to have a formal class--you can train yourself. Of course that is possible in many cases. People can get some math books and teach themselves calculus. That doesn't happen very often, though, because most people prefer to have an instructor active in the process. If the person who chose to self-train in calculus is effective in that study, then that person knows as much as those who were formally trained.

But that was not the issue. The issue was divers diving beyond their training, however that training was obtained.

Some have argued that there is a difference between teaching yourself really easy stuff (like Nitrox) and technical stuff like cave training. I firmly believe they are right. People who have not been in cave training have no idea how difficult that training is, and how important the instructor is in that training. I can read in a book how to find a lost guide line in a total zero visibility silt out, but that is no substitute for having an instructor put a blackout mask on you and place you in a spot far from that line to see how you find it. I can read all I want about the danger of a blind jump, but the need to have all senses working at all times in the dive comes when your instructor blithely leads you into a wrong tunnel on a short jump that you didn't notice because your brain was in the "lah-di-dah" casual mode of thinking you learned in OW diving. You can read all you want about buddy awareness, but when your instructor hides his light while following you to simulate a lost buddy and you don't turn to look quickly enough, you truly learn another lesson in situational awareness.

I could fill the page with such examples.

In the thread that inspired this thread, the OP argued that he had read enough to be able to take a difficult trip through a cave system. He thought he had trained himself adequately. Going into that cave as he planned might well turn out to be the self-taught lesson that proved he was wrong.

 

[lloyd_borrett]

G'day,

Okay, so I'll put my hand up and say that I have regularly dived beyond my training. However, I will qualify when and how I do this, and the nature of my motivation.

I don't do such dives unplanned. I read voraciously all of the available information about what I'm planning to do. I practice the skills I learn about. I understand the risks, evaluate them and do everything I can to minimise the risks. But I also accept the risks, which with diving always include the danger of personal injury or death. And almost always, I do such dives with a dive buddy who does have the training and/or experience, although they may not be an instructor, and I'm not using them as an instructor. Fortunately, through various dive clubs and on diving expeditions, I've been privileged to dive with some of the most highly qualified and experienced people there are, and I take every opportunity to learn from them.

I'm not a foolish adventurer, or some neophyte out to prove how macho they are. I'm interested in learning all of the nitty gritty details and I do the preparation that the fools ignore. And if I'm at all uncomfortable, I'll call the dive.

I like to think of myself as an explorer and I try to approach dives beyond my training as an explorer should. Yes, I may only be breaking new ground for myself, which means I'm able to learn from those who have been there before me. Some might call this self-training, but I think it's personal exploration.

I doubt that I'll be in a situation where as an explorer I'll be truly breaking new territory for the sport of diving. But should such an opportunity happen, I hope I'll have the proper mindset to evaluate the challenge accordingly and prepare properly should I decide to go ahead with it, just as an explorer should.

And as for those foolish adventurer types who are candidates for the Darwin awards, well at least I get the opportunity to learn from their mistakes.

In my early adult life, gliding was my sport. I took the same approach to that as I do to diving. Exploring limits as I ventured further cross country, or performed aerobatics. At the time, hang gliding was relatively new and more popular. I was amazed at how regularly people would kill or injure themselves hang gliding, while they were pushing the boundaries for their sport. It seemed to me that few of those people were explorers. If they were, then they'd have learned the lessons from the early days of gliding and flying, where all of the same mistakes were made and avoided them.

Best regards, Lloyd Borrett.