How long before it's all really dialed in?

[rmorgan]

Sometime in the past year, a capable but newish diver said to my wife, who is closing in on 900 dives, "I don't understand how you can stay so still and use so little air," or words to that effect. For my once-upon-an-air-hog bride, it was a moment of arrival.

 

[wlecyt40]

I started to figure it out around 150ish. Every once in a while, I have to re-dial it in. Depends on the BCD (I have two) and if I'm recreational diving or instructing. I always make sure that I do a weight check before each dive trip/instructional session. It might be just me and I'm good with that. Even though I instruct doesn't mean I can't keep learning.

 

[bshmerlie]

If you're a vacation diver like me....forever.

 

[KenE]

I believe that the answer has been provided by a couple posts. The frequency of diving is a better metric than the number of dives. For example if you dive two tanks every week or every other week, then in 50 dives you should be comfortable and proficient. If, however, you do 24 dives in a week and then come back two years later, I don't think you will ever be comfortable. I use the word comfortable or proficient instead of dialed-in or perfection because I believe that there is always something to learn. Just as I think I got it dialed in some young "expert" designs something that makes the way I dive obsolete, and I have to learn again. So, instead, I just keep learning and adapting to ongoing changes in the industry. I am more than comfortable with the diving that I do, but in no way an expert. Dive often and keep diving is the key to proficiency.

 

[The Chairman]

More experienced divers have different advice about how long it takes before everything is internalized to the point it's just natural and you don't have to think about it. I'm curious to know what people here say about it and what it means.

It depends on how you were taught. Indeed, an OW cert is a license to learn, but not enough instructors clue you in on the physics of diving in regards to trim and neutral buoyancy. They expect you to figure it out the hard way, because that's the way they learned. They can't teach what they don't understand.

 

[MacDuyver]

One thing I found that helped was to focus on a specific technical shortcoming in each dive up through dive 50 or so (purely subjective number)

An example would be:

(Dive 10-15) FOCUS: weight/buoyancy.
- keep gear the same and find the minimum weight I need to sink and hold hover. Dive buddy will nav and I’d just look to hold a steady depth. The goal is +/- 1ft at the safety stop and no bobbing up and down/crashing into the reef or the ocean floor

(Dive 16-20) FOCUS: trim and maneuverability. Following buddy’s gopro and being scolded on the internet, spent time in the pool working on keeping my body flat in the water. I could be navigating on these dives, but the focus is on keeping head/hips flat, with dive sites selected to provide lots of opportunity to work on maneuvering through large terrain features without using my arms to turn my body. Learning to frog kick can fall into this

(Dive 21-30) FOCUS: gas consumption. Focus here is keeping an even good breathing rate but adjusting the depths of exhales and inhales to adjust buoyancy as well as cutting down gas consumption

(Dive 31-35) FOCUS: Underwater navigation. I’m driving the bus. Focusing on all aspects of getting us from A to B to C and back.

(Dive 36-50) specialty courses Deep, Drift, Wreck

51-75 putting it all together.A focus means that it’s a theme highlighted. It does not mean you’d stop working on those particular aspects during follow on dives. This list is an example of selecting something to be your theme for the dive and doesn’t exclude other activities like looking at fish, exploring, enjoying yourself etc. it’s a way to prioritize your weaknesses and address them efficiently. You’d be adding in other things like practicing tangible skills like knots, mask clearing, reg swap, shooting SMBs, etc. I still practice a few of those every few dives so I don’t lose them.

 

[The Chairman]

Here's something I wrote years ago: Master Neutral Buoyancy: The Importance of Horizontal Trim (Simple Vector Physics)

 

[ModelsxB]

I would argue that there is always areas of improvement within your diving. To accept your current ability as being the best you can possibly do seems pretty self-defeating to me and an even better way to become complacent and over-confident