Hey, DMs...share your eye-opening experiences

[Doc]

Should it not be assumed that all eye openers are negative?

I was doing an HSA dive and a (previously certified) lady showed up who was born without arms. I thought there would be a lot of assisting with the gear.

I watched as she unpacked her gear, rigged it, turned on the tank, put on her mask, she needed a bit of help with the belly buckle. That was it.

She did this with her feet.

Then she took me diving.

 

[Josh the diver]

Not as a boat DM, but doing 4 years assisting on OW courses---
I found the odd student taking OW blew my mind regarding their comfortability in water. Ie.- If you haven't been in a plane before and may have a fear of heights, don't jump out of one.
Learn to swim, put your head underwater before signing up!

I did a discover scuba for a guy that was afraid of water. apparently his bother bought him the discover scuba as a gift cause he thought it would help his fear. I felt that he was going to bolt to the surface at any time in the pool. lets say he did not come back for a OW class. I think it was for the best.

 

[jadairiii]

Years ago, DM'ing a diving class with a couple other DM's in the Keys. We are on the reef and one of the students gets sea sick, rather than puking over the side (which he was standing right there) the student turns and pukes all over one of the other DM's! Guy was covered in a nice Keys lunch. I laughed my ass off!

 

[TMHeimer]

I did a discover scuba for a guy that was afraid of water. apparently his bother bought him the discover scuba as a gift cause he thought it would help his fear. I felt that he was going to bolt to the surface at any time in the pool. lets say he did not come back for a OW class. I think it was for the best.

Yeah, I'm not a fan of DSD anyway because of the 2:1 and 4:1 instructor/DM to students (as well as the stories you read about where these are even violated). I read once on SB of an instructor who had an OW student who did the same thing-- took the course to overcome her fear of the water. Maybe AT LEAST a little time in the deep end fooling around in a swimming pool to solve this beforehand?

 

[ofg-1]

You want an eye opening experience? Go and ask to get paid.

 

[yle]

I didn't know it at the time, but DM candidates can learn a lot from bad instructors... My dm candidates have no idea how good they have it LOL.

Thanks for your post, brought back so many memories. My son (also an instructor) and I would take any chance we got with our students to just watch the students and instructors in other classes, especially at the beach. It was a great learning experience for our students, because we could quiz them in real time about what the other students were doing well and what they should be doing differently.

 

[yle]

She told me that she thought that after the safety stop, you could go full speed to the surface because all the risk was over at that point, when in reality, that last 15 feet is the most dangerous time to ascend too quickly. She was otherwise a really solid diver, but that little bit of information just got crossed up at some point.

Kudos to you for taking the time to talk to her about it. As a solid diver, I'm sure she appreciated the advice. Unfortunate that so many others likely watched her do the same thing on her previous dives and never said anything.

 

[Belzelbub]

Nope nope nope. I plan to start issuing OW certs at the end of this summer (just finished ITC last weekend, doing IE in August) and both of my kids want to get certified when they are old enough. I have a long way to go (my oldest is 4), but there is no way I'm doing their class. I'll send them out with my favorite instructor whom I know I can trust to take care of them, but I'll wait nervously on the shore.

I can understand that. First, I’m not a DM. I did, however, get to dive along sides both my daughters during their OW checkouts. I kept my distance, and just watched for the most part. Watched while they did their skills, but acted as a buddy on the fun parts of their checkouts. I’m glad I did.

Should it not be assumed that all eye openers are negative?

Yeah. That’s a good point.

First, that’s awesome with how much the diver you spoke of did on her own. One question, did she use some kind of HUD to monitor depth, time, gas?

I had a positive eye opening experience on my oldest daughter’s checkout. As I was watching them do the skills, I started wondering how effective some of the drills were. Specifically, I was thinking about the regulator retrieval. It’s one thing to do a regulator retrieval on command, and something else to do an unplanned regulator retrieval. In the former, at least you could time it when you are ready. I considered the muscle memory aspect, but still wondered.

On one of my daughter’s last checkout dives, I got the answer. I was buddied up with her, and there were many other students in the class. I was just behind her when another student accidentally kicked her and knocked her regulator out of her mouth. It went into free flow behind her. It took every ounce of my willpower to hold back just a bit. I got close enough to help if needed, but wanted to see what she would do. She attempted to retrieve her primary, but was initially unsuccessful, she then grabbed her secondary, purged and resumed breathing. I then helped her with her primary, and she swapped again. That answered all questions I had regarding her ability to handle herself.

 

[TMHeimer]

I can understand that. First, I’m not a DM. I did, however, get to dive along sides both my daughters during their OW checkouts. I kept my distance, and just watched for the most part. Watched while they did their skills, but acted as a buddy on the fun parts of their checkouts. I’m glad I did.

Yeah. That’s a good point.

First, that’s awesome with how much the diver you spoke of did on her own. One question, did she use some kind of HUD to monitor depth, time, gas?

I had a positive eye opening experience on my oldest daughter’s checkout. As I was watching them do the skills, I started wondering how effective some of the drills were. Specifically, I was thinking about the regulator retrieval. It’s one thing to do a regulator retrieval on command, and something else to do an unplanned regulator retrieval. In the former, at least you could time it when you are ready. I considered the muscle memory aspect, but still wondered.

On one of my daughter’s last checkout dives, I got the answer. I was buddied up with her, and there were many other students in the class. I was just behind her when another student accidentally kicked her and knocked her regulator out of her mouth. It went into free flow behind her. It took every ounce of my willpower to hold back just a bit. I got close enough to help if needed, but wanted to see what she would do. She attempted to retrieve her primary, but was initially unsuccessful, she then grabbed her secondary, purged and resumed breathing. I then helped her with her primary, and she swapped again. That answered all questions I had regarding her ability to handle herself.

Grabbing your own secondary is an obvious easy solution if you can't easily retrieve the primary on the first try. Perhaps that was mentioned in her pool sessions. I witnessed a couple of instructors mentioning this during the pool drill, but most did not.
Anyway, kudos to her.

 

[Belzelbub]

Grabbing your own secondary is an obvious easy solution if you can't easily retrieve the primary on the first try. Perhaps that was mentioned in her pool sessions. I witnessed a couple of instructors mentioning this during the pool drill, but most did not.
Anyway, kudos to her.

Yes, it was mentioned, and practiced. She definitely practiced both primary retrieval, and breathing from the secondary. So I think the instructors did their job. When this happened, she was a couple weeks past her 10th birthday. It was definitely great to see her handle an unexpected situation with no panic.