How many of you practice skills?

[TSandM]

Thinking about some of the dives I've been doing lately, and about what I wrote in the "Concerned about family" thread, it occurred to me that it might be good to talk about practicing skills. I mean, we all learned how to remove and replace a mask, how to do snorkel/regulator exchanges and retrieve a lost reg in our OW classes. But skills, once learned, atrophy without practice.

I realized, when I signed up for a course that I knew would make me do all these things for evaluation again, that I hadn't practiced any of them since I got out from underneath my instructor's thumb. (With the exception of mask clearing, which is an event of every dive at some point.) I'd done one air share drill since OW, and I had never removed my mask.

A friend told me she organized pool nights once a month for her dive club, just for skills practice.

How many of you (and the instructors and divemasters who teach don't count!) ever practice these skills? How often?

 

[Lonefox]

My friend and I have recently got our Open Water Certification, and I have made a conscious decision to practice everything I learned on the O/W course until it feels completely natural to me, I remember my apprehension with the final mask off drill, and I wondered how I would cope if I lost my mask unexpectedly. So yes, priority for me is to practice practice practice as soon as I start going out regularly. Fortunately I have a good dive buddy who shares my feelings on this.

 

[docmartin]

i used to dive a sea vision mask with the pink lenses. 3 years ago, a diver on the boat quizzed me on how i liked them etc. toward the end of the dive she approached me and signaled to switch masks with her underwater so she could compare. i became painfully aware that the last time i had taken off my mask was during OW training. of course, i did not want to look like a beginner - experienced diver that i was - and so i took my mask off and handed it to her. not as bad as i feared i thought. then my computer went off beeping because i was rising at a nice clip towards the surface because my breathing pattern had changed under the stress of diving without a mask. i recovered my buoyancy and everything went fine. i definitely learned my lesson, though. these skills are not skills unless you practice regularly. and it is important to practive under different conditions e.g. taking your mask off in 80F water is very different from doing it in 45F.

 

[PerroneFord]

I tend to practice some things each dive. I do an S-Drill on my dives, reg switch, and usually mask off. I don't use a snorkel, so I don't work on that switch. After fundies I will do basic 5 on deco most likely. In the dives I have coming up this weekend, I will do OOA practice and have agreed beforehand on that with my buddy.

I work on hovering every dive, helicopter turns every dive, and horizontal ascents and descents every dive. I'll be adding valve drills to my practices very shortly.

 

[dkktsunami]

Frequently, in a local lake. Mask removal, bc removal, reg exchange, lost reg, fin pivot,etc. Water is dark, so entire swim is a navigation exercise. Also a chance to practice with pony for solo diving.

 

[Walter]

I don't count.

 

[tedj01]

I don't count.

Me too; I don't count!

 

[MaxBottomtime]

I've been diving with DIR types for about seven or eight years now. We used to practice valve drills, S-drills and other drills during the last twenty minutes of every dive. It got to the point where I was avoiding a few dives because I didn't feel like practicing again. For the last couple years I've gone back to just enjoying every minute of each dive. If I'm making a deco stop and I feel like practicing, I will, but that is pretty rare.
I don't mind drills once in awhile, but I'd rather dive for fun.

 

[Rick Inman]

You wouldn't know it by my progress...

 

[BigTuna]

Way to go, Perrone. I'm going to start following your example, but I hope there will be some time left on each dive for playing tourist!

I think pool practice can't hurt, but real-dive practice has to be better.

Here's an example of why. On New Year's day I was at 75 feet in 6-foot gloom when my buddy kicked my reg out of my mouth as we were turning around. I'm skilled at finding it standing in a pool, but now I was horizontal in the dark, and my buddy was hunting for fish in the gloom. So I went to my pony necklace until I could locate my primary.

That experience underscores the value of the GUE idea of dress rehearsals. For example, I should practice locating my reg while horizontal and with my goggles blacked out, or at least with my eyes closed.

Other things that are hard or impossible in a pool are shooting a bag, doing various buoyancy exercises, especially in a dry suit, and performing emergency surface signaling.

Something else I want to practice after I get a little more experience is good CESAs, and deep ones. The CESA I did for OW was uninformed--from reading on this board I now know the concept is to keep the airway open. If I can practice that in a controlled manner down to at least 60 feet, say, I think I'll be improving my emergency tool set. Not to hijack the thread, but do you think of adding this to skills to practice?