Diving skills need help??

[StraitsdiverGeo]

From time to time I dive with someone who's diving skills stink! Good Guy but his skills need work. Over weighted, poor buoyancy control,air hog, prone to panic attacks,etc. When we dive, we stay shallow and close to a bail out point. He has a real ugly time diving but won't give up. This person has been diving for more than a few years and has gotten lots of instruction.
I've tried to be vary tactful and always considered his feelings and never spoke of this to him in front of any one. Or to anyone about this till today. I like this person but it's made me uncomfortable and I'm getting to the point where I don't want to dive with him any longer. I really hate the idea that some seems to have a love for this sport and would be miss out on diving. I know every diver has hit bumps in the road during his or her diving Carrier God knows, I have but with time and practice you gain more skill.

Well I guess, I hoping for the magic answer to fall out of the sky and make all well in the world once again. I've only been diving for couple seasons myself and I'm unsure on how to proceed from here.

 

[shakeybrainsurgeon]

This isn't a diving problem, but a diplomacy problem (the art of telling someone to jump off a cliff in a way that makes them look forward to the fall). Seriously, if someone is putting themselves or others at risk, he should be told.

 

[spectrum]

I doubt that this individual does not realize he is having a hard time or that they are limiting the scope of the dives you share. Shakeybrainsurgeon's ascertation that they are putting others at risk is also right one. If this person is persistenly having incidents, requiring attention and distracting you then it is a matter of time before you need to face the hard facts of rescue diving. So the bottom line is the the status quo is not the answer.

The way you are wracking up dives (per your profile) you should be feeling quite competent but do you consider yourself up to mentoring this fellow? And if so do you feel up to dedicating some dives to making this happen?

Spending some chow time after diving to process the experience can help a lot. He may have unexpected concerns that they don't teach to in dive class.

I certified in June of 2005 and fell in with a bunch of peers that started at about the same time. I can tell you without a doubt that each of us has progressed at an individual pace. Breathing underwater and all that is associated with it does not come easy to some. I suspect ( and I may be way off base) that your buddy is preoccupied with concerns unrelated to the skills you are frustrated with. Only when he is at ease will he master those skills and move forward.

As a last resort nobody is bound to dive with anybody in this sport so if you are at risk and improvement is not forthcoming then start getting creative with dodges. If you have a dive with planned objectives and other buddies involved there is nothing wrong with limiting the partcipants based on ability and experieince. It still means saying "no" but it gives you a good objective reason.

Pete

 

[rakay]

Is this person occasionally diving? Some people need to dive every weekend for months to get confortable. Sounds like the diver has not built up any confidence yet.
He(she) needs mentoring and patience. I see all those issues with students all the time.

It took me awhile before I was comfortable and now I am a divemaster. But it took diving most weekends for a couple of months when I started diving to reach my comfort zone.

 

[WesTexDiver]

If someone is as uncomfortable as you say they are, then #1 they should have never made it past OW, and #2 should not be diving. If I were in your position i would be extremely up front with them and tell them that I would not dive with them anymore as a friend. It would be much easier to tell them to their face that they are a danger to themselves diving than to have to explain to their families why you couldn't...Just my 2 cents.

 

[boat sju]

Straitsdiver,

I'm not all that experienced but maybe that gives me another perspective on this.

When I learned to dive in the 80's it was with a very good friend of mine. Our wives then got certified together as "buddies". Most of my diving was done with this group so we were very aware of each other's comfort levels. I always felt at ease and in "control" but I think my buddy did too. Now that I'm getting back into the sport I'm diving with a friend who's skills and knowledge are more up to date. At this point he's clearly a more advanced diver than me. I find this makes me a little more nervous at times. I feel like I'm holding him back. I could spend an hour playing on the plane wreck in the scuba park, working on buoyancy, etc. and just relaxing, but I feel like that would bore my buddy to no end.

Maybe you could tactfully offer this up to your friend. Tell him it's his dive and you'll just follow along. Make sure he knows that you want him to stay well within his comfort level and that's just fine with you. Let him decide the objectives. Maybe a few dives like this would go a long way towards his skills improving.

 

[TheWetRookie]

I know I am a new diver but just from my own life's experiences and what I have learnt, it sounds like it is time to be straight up with him and find a new dive partner. Based on what you have said I would not dive with this person. It will not be easy but it is nessasary.

I am a former superintendant of St. John Ambulance, If he was doing first aid, this person would not be doing first aid for us any more based on what you have mentioned and I would say that he should not be diving either. No disrepect but he sounds like an accident waiting to happen.

Also, If you are not enjoying your diving then what is the point in doing it? This is suppost to be fun. You are also putting a fair amount of money into this.

Yes people learn at different rates but it does not sound like he is learning. Time to move on.

 

[Marvel]

Some excellent suggestions:

Spending some chow time after diving to process the experience can help a lot. He may have unexpected concerns that they don't teach to in dive class.

Maybe you could tactfully offer this up to your friend. Tell him it's his dive and you'll just follow along. Make sure he knows that you want him to stay well within his comfort level and that's just fine with you. Let him decide the objectives. Maybe a few dives like this would go a long way toward his skills improving.

I'm going to be totally honest here. A few months ago I went through a period of time where I felt an impending sense of doom on EVERY dive that I made. I envisioned myself not just having an accident or getting bent but actually dying while diving. It was totally irrational & based in large part on having just read all the books out there that talk about extreme dives & divers- i.e. "The Last Dive," "Shadow Divers," etc. This, despite the fact that I do not do any of that type of diving, nor even come close. I was even experiencing the issue when diving in my side yard- a beach dive where the max depth is less than 20 feet. So, I told my friends & regular dive buddies about it &, with their help & through my own persistence, I've worked through it. Perhaps if you give your buddy the opening, he will be able to articulate something that he is keeping hidden & is causing his issues.

As to the poor skills, I've had success two different ways- sometimes a combination of both:

I encourage them to think about their own diving skills by pointing out other divers that we both dive with who I consider exceptional divers. I let the one with poor skills know that I have modeled my dive style to emulate the good diver & tell them specifically what I mean. You know you've gotten to them when you see their eyes go out of focus as they visualize the other diver & his/her actions & diving.

The other way is to, as tactfully as possible, let them know where their skills are lacking. That's a tough one but I find myself diving with so many new divers due to where I live that I've had to learn how to do it. For the most part, they make it easy because they ask. I always try to find something positive to say about their diving at the same time. It gets more difficult when you are dealing with someone who's been diving a long time & is still totally clueless.

Sometimes the issue is so severe that it really HAS to be addressed- as it sounds as if your situation may fall under. Recently, I went out with two other divers, one of whom was lobstering. That diver was so intent on the lobstering that they had no clue that they were tearing up the reef every time they went after a critter. When we came back from the dive, the other diver blew up on the lobstering one. After he walked away, I was able to take the opportunity to let the culprit know (much more tactfully, I hope) that, in fact, they were causing a lot of harm to the reef. Hopefully, the lobster catcher took it to heart & started paying more attention to what the rest of his body was dong while he was reaching under a rock for his lobster. Only time (& another dive with him) will tell.

Only you can decide if your relationship with this buddy is worth the effort of helping him improve his diving. I've had to mae the decision not to dive with one or two people & I know how hard it can be. Good luck.

 

[StraitsdiverGeo]

Well' I think that I'm getting the picture here and most of you are right. I always respect when people are tactfully honest with me.

Regards, George

 

[Melicertes]

This person has been diving for more than a few years and has gotten lots of instruction.

Just the fact that this guy's been receiving lots of instruction doesn't necessarily mean very much. I have assisted some instructors on their training courses before where I have to admit the instruction was, well...err...C.r.a.p.; in fact one that particularly comes to mind leaves a very dry taste in my mouth just thinking about it. It's not so much how much instruction as it is perhaps the quality of instruction he might need. By this time I'm sure there might perhaps be some bad habits that would need breaking and a relearning process to follow to get this guy to feel more comfortable, and perhaps every instructor he's been training with thus far just wanted to get the cert and couldn't be bothered with actually mastering the skills?

I met a guy a few months ago who was just about to complete his DM cert with a LDS here in the area. My wife and I went diving a few times with him and since he wanted to show us a few places we've not dived before we let him do the DM thing. He never did any predive briefings; he was finning up sand from the bottom so it looked like Katrina made it to the west coast and went underwater; he lost track of the group a few times as he was rocketing ahead flitting from place to place. On one dive he and his buddy managed to simply loose track of all of us and decided to continue the dive without looking for us or surfacing to regroup. I had already led the group practically ashore after an exhaustive search we've launched to find the two missing idjits when they surfaced all smiles and jabbering about how great a dive it was. I was real upset and gave him a good piece of my mind about not doing predive briefings and certainly not sticking to protocols and resolved there and then that we'd rather not dive with them again. He is incidentally doing predive briefings since the incident occurred, at least the e-mails we get reflect planning times for a pre-dive brief on the weekly dives they plan. I can only hope that my blowing my lid had something small to do with it suddenly appearing on the logistics for their dives.

What I'm starting to think now, however, is that it's too easy to say "Bah! $cr3wit! We'll just not dive together again." Who is going to be an example to this guy if it's not going to be me? His instructor, whom I also know, is the guy that gives me dry mouth, so it's really no surprise at all. I'm not saying I'm the better, just that assisting someone to get it right is sometimes harder work than simply walking off - something most ppl would rather do. Of course there is a limit, and if you've done your best to assist and make him/her to feel more comfortable, working to improve their diving skills, and it still persists, then perhaps they just are an unsafe diver, someone who'd be better off doing something else - this is something you should then tell him openly and honestly. I'd rather have you as a buddy and friend who'd be honest with me and try to help me work through it until I get it, than someone that isn't too interested in making the effort.

I'm resolving to start diving with DM HellBoy again since this thread did make me rethink my decisions about him.
Just a thought.