CT-Rich
Contributor
You are always a new diver when you move to a new dive environment.
How many dives before you cease to be a beginner ? [Poll]
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Kharon
Contributor
I would say that no matter the number of dives, untill you have buoyancy and trim under full and reflexive control, until you automatically check your depth and pressure, untill you are not bothered in the least by equalizing and clearing your mask you are a beginner.
The absolute best diver I ever met gave me this advice: "Your card is a learners permit. You need to practice all those skills you were introduced to till you have them down to a conditioned reflex. Do only one at a time till you perfect it before you move on the next. First buoyancy, then trim, then ...And always, ALWAYS minimize your new task load. Never more than one new task till it's reflex.”
The absolute best diver I ever met gave me this advice: "Your card is a learners permit. You need to practice all those skills you were introduced to till you have them down to a conditioned reflex. Do only one at a time till you perfect it before you move on the next. First buoyancy, then trim, then ...And always, ALWAYS minimize your new task load. Never more than one new task till it's reflex.”
Dr Deep is the person I think @clownfishsydney is referring to
Guy Garman - Wikipedia
You cannot equate competency by the number of dives
100 dives in the same quarry doesn't make a good diver, it might for that quarry but you need experience in many situations and environments.
I've not done ice diving yet so I'm pretty much still a learner for that type of diving
I think the "new environment" argument is as lame as any other. A bad diver with 1000 dives is going to be just as bad in any new environment. A GOOD diver with 30 dives, is going to be much more apt to adapt to said environment quickly and safely.
A new environment doesn't necessarily a "beginner" make. A good diver will adapt quickly and safely and will very quickly be as adept in whatever environment. I think @Searcaigh 's astute use of the word "learner" is much more applicable. He's certainly not a "beginner," and I would posit a guess that he could just as quickly adapt to ice diving as any of the other diving he has done. The converse is that a new environment might make a poor diver worse, but at that point we're really just splitting hairs. Not splitting hares. That's messy.
A new environment doesn't necessarily a "beginner" make. A good diver will adapt quickly and safely and will very quickly be as adept in whatever environment. I think @Searcaigh 's astute use of the word "learner" is much more applicable. He's certainly not a "beginner," and I would posit a guess that he could just as quickly adapt to ice diving as any of the other diving he has done. The converse is that a new environment might make a poor diver worse, but at that point we're really just splitting hairs. Not splitting hares. That's messy.
CT-Rich
Contributor
No matter how many tech dives ou have done, you are a beginner cave diver. A hundred shore dives, you are beginner wreck diver. Being the balls in one area of diving doesn’t give you competency in a new area. The “hold my beer, let me show you how it’s done” mentality of some divers is where the trouble comes in.
There is no magic number of dives where you are no longer a newbie, there will be dives where you are the experienced guy and dives where you will defer to someone else. Dr Deep is a great example, he had a lot of experience as a diver, relative to the average schmo, but nowhere near enough to make the dive that killed him.
Confidence is great, over confidence is what the Darwin Awards are for.
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I retract some of my recent post. This makes sense.
It does support my thought that basic scuba ability mostly determines beginner vs. non-beginner. I don't think varied experience plays as big a role as number of dives though. I would think a majority of people need that 51-100 dive count to become really comfortable.
Primero, being the basic forum, we're not really talking about environments like that. We can certainly broach that subject but there's a substantial difference in the risk profile associated with those types of dives that's outside the scope of this forum, has a whole other set of definitions, and there's already a good thread on cave divers and wreck divers that touched on some of this.
While there are certainly bad technical divers, the basic idea is that by the time you enter technical training of whatever sort, you have your ducks in a row as a diver in the first place. The word "beginner" in that context means something completely different. You are not a beginner diver, you are beginning to learn those advanced skills. And that's all it really is, learning additional skills. You're not learning how to dive, you're not a beginner diver, you're simply learning new skills.
In the context of being a "beginner," you should not be a beginner when you enter that training, and ideally, while you may perfect those basic skills during training, you should already have those skills down beforehand.
The problem is that we're using a word and trying to come up with some metric to define that word, that is demonstrably variable across the board. I get why we do it, but as is evident here, everybody has a different opinion on what that word means and what defines it.
- Messages
- 16,405
- Reaction score
- 5,219
- # of dives
- 1000 - 2499
I agree with JohnnyC. My Grade 6 Band consisted of beginners, as it was their first year. My Grade 7 Band students were not beginners. Once in a while I'd have a certain Gr. 6 member who played better than a certain Gr. 7 one.
NYCNaiad
Dive babble all day long
Generally, I think beginners are those with less than 50-odd dives, but I think it also depends upon the type of experience they have & whether they continue to learn/improve.
I've been diving with someone who had 40 dives who seemed less of a "beginner" than someone who had been diving 200+ times because this latter guy had awful buoyancy & was a terrible buddy. But I suppose I'd categorize divers like so...
0-50 dives Beginner
50-100 Advanced beginner
More than those numbers & still showing poor skills? A bad diver. lol
I've been diving with someone who had 40 dives who seemed less of a "beginner" than someone who had been diving 200+ times because this latter guy had awful buoyancy & was a terrible buddy. But I suppose I'd categorize divers like so...
0-50 dives Beginner
50-100 Advanced beginner
More than those numbers & still showing poor skills? A bad diver. lol
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