Divemaster - Time to complete and commitment

[DivemasterDennis]

I want to speak to the issue of commitment- not of time, or money, but commitment to becoming and maintaining a professional level proficiency in scuba diving. That is the commitment you need to become a competent divemaster. You need to invest in learning the theory, to honing skills to demonstration quality, and to being an active diver. You need to commit to broadening your own sphere of experience, diving in a variety of conditions, and you need to commit to knowing enough about equipment to effect repairs when needed. You need to commit to more than wearing a divemaster hat. You can do the course in a 2 week intensive, but to be and do what a competent divemaster does, you need to dive and train and read and polish skills (including people skills) constantly. If you read many forums here on scuba board you know that members have encountered a lot of "marginal" divemasters. As you do your planing, plan not to be one of those. I take being a divemaster very seriously, and as a result I make time to be active in the water, both pool, lakes and ocean. I read constantly, and hang out at my local dive shop to learn about new equipment, and hear of others experiences with students and trips. That's the commitment I think you should be considering.
DivemasterDennis

 

[pixiefish]

Your profile says you live in London.....have you considered the option of undertaking DM (or equivalent) training in the UK? Either through one of the London-based scuba shops, during evenings and

weekends​

or going a totally different route via your local BSAC club?

 

[philmayer]

If you're expecting to make any money as a DM, you might want to rethink your retirement plan. :shocked2:

 

[halocline]

My DM course was about 6 weeks; I had rescue before I started, a couple hundred dives, and I studied enough to pass all the written exams within the first few days of my course. So virtually all of it was internship. It might have been possible to do it a little faster, but spending 6 weeks diving every day in the bay islands for the price of a DM course was a pretty good deal, even with some of the crap a few of the instructors tossed our way. I even made a little money fixing regulators. One thing I liked about my experience was the length of time I spent, and most of the DMTs went for a couple of months or longer. We did a lot of guiding, lots of class assisting, it was a decent experience. There is no chance that a 2 week internship could compare in terms of the amount of experience you get.

I have basically no interest in trying to generate any income as a DM, I did it for fun and the dive training.

 

[ttew]

Thank you very much for all your advice.

I got my books and I am studying, the exercise are not that difficult, in the end.

Now I am approaching the water skills part, and started working on stamina.
Any training tip to improve swimming?
By now I am brute forcing on 100 yards with 1 minute recovery at the beginning, then reduce.

Thanks.

 

[supergaijin]

For starters... Don't 'brute force' anything. You don't have to be an olympic swimmer to be a good DM. Of course all things being the same, an olympic swimmer would make a darn fine DM, but the goal is to be able to swim 400m in a good time. The 'good time' is under 6.5mins.

A DM needs stamina- if you end up working, you'll need it

Swimming like diving is about efficiency of movement. Extend your arm stroke, focus on power when your palm is facing towards your legs as opposed to when it is flat to the water. Personally I'm a pretty crap swimmer, I don't have a good technique, but I still can do the 400m in under 6.5... well maybe now under 7

 

[syntaxerrorsix]

Thank you very much for all your advice.

I got my books and I am studying, the exercise are not that difficult, in the end.

Now I am approaching the water skills part, and started working on stamina.
Any training tip to improve swimming?
By now I am brute forcing on 100 yards with 1 minute recovery at the beginning, then reduce.

Thanks.

Swim more.

Pace yourself. Steady is better than sprinting.

 

[halocline]

Now I am approaching the water skills part, and started working on stamina.
Any training tip to improve swimming?
By now I am brute forcing on 100 yards with 1 minute recovery at the beginning, then reduce.

Thanks.

I'm not sure exactly what you're describing by 'brute forcing with 1 minute recovery' but assuming your swimming technique is okay, the unfortunate truth is that its all about putting in the time and effort. It wouldn't be a bad idea to find a swimming coach for a session; sometimes there are some simple stroke technique things that you don't realize you're doing wrong. Mostly though, you'll find regular grueling training to be the answer; doesn't that suck!

I hate pools, and I'm not the swimmer I used to be, but during my DM course I swam 1200 yards minimum every morning in the bay, usually more, mostly because it was so much more enjoyable than a pool. Despite being a couple of decades older than most of the other DMTs, I finished right at the top in the water stamina exercises. I was pretty happy about that. Of course I was the only one getting up at 6:30 to swim....

 

[TMHeimer]

Things that helped me with the 400:
--regarding the crawl: It's mostly technique. Exercising out of the water does help to generally get you in shape, but swimming as much as you can is 10X better.
--You get 75% of you power from arms, 25% from kicks. Everyone is physically different, so you must find what works best. Arm power comes obviously when they are in the water, so don't waste energy taking them high out of the water. As mentioned, "cup" hands when in water and keep the stroke very close to your sides, if not touching occasionally. Give a big "push" when hands are deepest.
--Find the best ratio of arm strokes to kicks. Keep that "regular". Don't kick a whole lot--it's tiring and not worth the extra speed. Obviously fins change that.
--breathing: The correct amount--too few OR too many breaths doesn't work. Some swimmers breathe every other arm stroke, I believe a majority do every stroke. Most lift head out the same side each breath, some switch. Some keep head in water every other stroke and breathe on the other one.
--most of this I got from my brother, who has swam competitively for 40 years and still does 2 miles in the ocean winning medals in his age group (he's 70 next year).

 

[ttew]

Thank you very much for the cool tips,

I am a kind of slow swimmer, I can swim 1000yards in less than half an hour, but I need to get faster on the 400 yards.

@halocline

I spoke with an assistant at the pool and she told me to try the best I can do on 100 yards, take one minute to recover and then repeat.
I can do it 3-4 segments before my performance decreases sensibly. When I am comfortable with the pace I can reduce the recovery time till I will merge the segments.

It wouldn't be a bad idea to find a swimming coach for a session; sometimes there are some simple stroke technique things that you don't realize you're doing wrong.

Sometime trivial tipps are better than gold!
I'll check if a coach can take a look at me and figure out how can I smooth my style.

@TMHeimer
Your check list is amazing

--regarding the crawl: It's mostly technique. Exercising out of the water does help to generally get you in shape, but swimming as much as you can is 10X better.

Noted

-

-You get 75% of you power from arms, 25% from kicks. Everyone is physically different, so you must find what works best. Arm power comes obviously when they are in the water, so don't waste energy taking them high out of the water. As mentioned, "cup" hands when in water and keep the stroke very close to your sides, if not touching occasionally. Give a big "push" when hands are deepest.

--Find the best ratio of arm strokes to kicks. Keep that "regular". Don't kick a whole lot--it's tiring and not worth the extra speed. Obviously fins change that.

I do not kick very much, on long distance legs do not give much propulsion and they get heavy quite fast, I almost tow them. I will try to kick a bit more.

--breathing: The correct amount--too few OR too many breaths doesn't work. Some swimmers breathe every other arm stroke, I believe a majority do every stroke. Most lift head out the same side each breath, some switch. Some keep head in water every other stroke and breathe on the other one.

I usually breath every third stroke switching side, breathing a bit ofter could help increasing the pace, I will try it out on friday.
I am laughing at myself how awkward I'll feel and look

--most of this I got from my brother, who has swam competitively for 40 years and still does 2 miles in the ocean winning medals in his age group (he's 70 next year).

My very compliment to your brother I wish I ll be able to do the two miles even without winning medals, in thirty years

Thank you again,
I will keep you posted.