Don't know what happened

[Raphus]

hard to tell whats the problem with your kicks.You said you did use your hands? Or did i understand this wrong? Using hands if of course a big NO NO.
Give your buddy a gopro and let him film you from time to time. When you dont know it! and post the video here.

But i see a problem with the DM activity.
As @boulderjohn descriped you have a responsability for the students.
69 dives is not much, but dive numbers doent tell much. But keep in mind that a big part of your dives are certification dives, as you did all courses up to DM and you also did some specialtys(as you descriped in other threads). You say you have problems with kicks and your buoyancy is good "most of the time".
As a dive professional you have to be there 100% for your students. There is no room to have buoyancy issues or bad kicks.
I am not trying to insult you, but maybe you should first dive more and nail the dive skills, before you go in the water with students.

 

[boulderjohn]

Hi @boulderjohn

Wouldn't you think that, after 3 months of DM training, the instructor would have corrected the finning deficiency?

No, I wouldn't think that at all. It would be nice, but....

 

[Dody]

Couple of points not covered elsewhere:

The insurance that someone asked about is liability insurance not personal accident insurance (though that's great to have). If you are acting as a DM, paid or unpaid, you expose yourself to a lot of liability if anything goes wrong. As far as i can tell Dive Assure doesnt offer liability insurance.

You said "The bottom was like 50 m below but there was a reef wall going up out of the water."

Does this mean the dive was on a wall with hard bottom at 50m? That in itself seems like a bad choice for 3 inexperienced divers (not so much on your part) regardless of the current. Maybe i misunderstand what you meant.

 

[boulderjohn]

Hi @boulderjohn

Wouldn't you think that, after 3 months of DM training, the instructor would have corrected the finning deficiency?

And now for a more serious response.

When I was last working with DMs (before I refused to do it anymore), the shop where I worked took a team approach to teaching DMs. Different instructors signed off for different skills. What happened was no one took responsibility for the whole process, especially the guy who, by virtue of his position in the shop, got to send in the certification and get credit for it. Efficient kicking was not a listed, signed off skill, so taking care of that was always someone else's job. I don't know if that is what was done in this case, but it is a really bad way to do it for that reason.

 

[scubadada]

And now for a more serious response.

When I was last working with DMs (before I refused to do it anymore), the shop where I worked took a team approach to teaching DMs. Different instructors signed off for different skills. What happened was no one took responsibility for the whole process, especially the guy who, by virtue of his position in the shop, got to send in the certification and get credit for it. Efficient kicking was not a listed, signed off skill, so taking care of that was always someone else's job. I don't know if that is what was done in this case, but it is a really bad way to do it for that reason.

A more serious response, excuse me.

 

[Dody]

Couple of points not covered elsewhere:

The insurance that someone asked about is liability insurance not personal accident insurance (though that's great to have). If you are acting as a DM, paid or unpaid, you expose yourself to a lot of liability if anything goes wrong. As far as i can tell Dive Assure doesnt offer liability insurance.

You said "The bottom was like 50 m below but there was a reef wall going up out of the water."

Does this mean the dive was on a wall with hard bottom at 50m? That in itself seems like a bad choice for 3 inexperienced divers (not so much on your part) regardless of the current. Maybe i misunderstand what you meant.

I have a professional insurance. In French, it is called « Couverture de responsabilité civile professionnelle » from DiveAssure. It covers me when I dive as a DM.
We were diving around reefs and rocks very near to the shore (less than 100m). But 30 meters away, the depth was already 50 m. And the shore was a wall. Usually, I do boat dives. I have already thought of problems due to strong currents and my plan out was to surface with everyone, alert the boat (I have all the equipment including nautilus lifeline, a VHF radio and a power whistle that you can probably hear miles away and need earplugs to operate).

 

[Dody]

hard to tell whats the problem with your kicks.You said you did use your hands? Or did i understand this wrong? Using hands if of course a big NO NO.
Give your buddy a gopro and let him film you from time to time. When you dont know it! and post the video here.

But i see a problem with the DM activity.
As @boulderjohn descriped you have a responsability for the students.
69 dives is not much, but dive numbers doent tell much. But keep in mind that a big part of your dives are certification dives, as you did all courses up to DM and you also did some specialtys(as you descriped in other threads). You say you have problems with kicks and your buoyancy is good "most of the time".
As a dive professional you have to be there 100% for your students. There is no room to have buoyancy issues or bad kicks.
I am not trying to insult you, but maybe you should first dive more and nail the dive skills, before you go in the water with students.

Why is using arms a no-no? I do understand that you don’t need it normally but in case of emergency won’t using your arms propel you faster?

 

[Dody]

Why is using arms a no-no? I do understand that you don’t need it normally but in case of emergency won’t using your arms propel you faster?

Propel might not be the right word.

 

[Raphus]

Why is using arms a no-no? I do understand that you don’t need it normally but in case of emergency won’t using your arms propel you faster?

No, you would use so much energy for your arms, that you could use for your legs.
And using the arms destroys the streamlining, so it's more counter productive. If you want to progress against current, use a strong good flutter kick and be good streamlined so the current has not much surface to "atack" you.

My bet is, that you didnt do an efficient flutter kick, some people bend the knives to much. Others have the legs too streigth.
Typical is the bycicle kick,which wastes a lot of Energie and isn't going to produce much force. But I can just guess without a video.

 

[boulderjohn]

A more serious response, excuse me.

?????