How often do you need to dive to maintain skills?

[suthnbelle]

.. Does anyone else use this same type of method to keep skills up? Or does everyone just use a privately owned pool? Just curious.

There is an indoor pool (and workout facility) through a nearby town's park and recreation department that I've been to a few times to work on skills during the winter. It is olympic size and the deep end is 17 ft. deep as they use it for swim meets and have a high diving board. We just asked if we could use it for practicing skills and as long as they were not using it for the high diving board it was okay. There is a small charge.

 

[PerroneFord]

If I am out of the water for 2 weeks, I notice it. If I am out for a month, I get in the pool before heading out.

Once you get your certification, I understand that you need to continue to dive regularly to maintain your skills and learn more. But how often would you consider 'regularly' to be? Obviously vacation once or twice a year would not be 'regular', but what about maybe a couple of dives a month? Would you be able to maintain the stuff you learned and continue to become a better diver with that amount of dives? What would you consider to be the threshold for continuing to be a safe and continually improving diver?

 

[Reggae Joe]

The LDS I'll probably keep in practice with is something I'm actually looking forward to, in a way, especially since the pool's heated. Plus, there's enough toys and whatnot in there to keep it from being TOO boring...especially if we can get some Scubuno going in there...

 

[Damselfish]

Of course more is always better. But I think it depends some on the person and how long they've been diving. Also what kind of diving you're talking about and what skills are needed.

Someone who is pretty new, and doesn't have everything nailed down yet to begin with, needs more practice and review. You'll forget more stuff when you didn't know it too well to begin with and things haven't become second nature yet. In the extreme case someone who gets certified then doesn't dive for years may almost need to start over. While someone who has a fair amount of experience and was a good diver, then takes off a awhile, probably isn't going to have much problem even if it was a couple of years.

I used to dive locally about every other weekend late spring-fall. May have been a warm trip in the winter. Now I dive only on trips and the gap is typically 4-6 months. For the diving I do and the length of time I've been diving that's not a problem. If it was a year or 2 or even longer I don't think it would be a problem. Now, I haven't been in cold water in maybe 12 years, and I'd have some serious relearning to for that.

 

[spectrum]

I think you need to begin with how much did you dive in the first place.

If you certified and took a trip every 6 months with no diving in between then progress will be slow. This may be mitigated my getting away with light weight gear and being chaperoned by a dive master. Let's not get into the "trust me dive" issue here. My point is that significant competence will be slow coming in this scenario. Getting into local or destination water for a refresher every 6 months is not unreasonable.

Now if you got certified locally and have been diving every weekend and wracked up say 100 dives in a year you have hardwired a lot of reactions and have a body of experieince to fall back on. Diving monthly should be more than adequate if you fall into a "dry spell". and returning after a year or 2 with a few conservative dives would not be out of the question in my opinion.

So I think a lot of this depends where on the experieince & comfort curve you are.

Pete

 

[carolrose]

How about feeling out your profile so we know what region you are in and a little more about you.

I added my location but I can't edit my dive profile. I think I have some type of pop up blocker here at work. Anyway, I'm brand new to this, not certified yet. I just got checked out by a DAN doc this week and am cleared to dive, although I have to do a trial in a pool before taking the OWD course since I have a deviated septum and might not be able to equalize. My plan for diving is kind of long term. I joined a Y a couple of weeks ago and want to swim 100 miles both to get in better shape and to increase my lung capacity. I'd like to be at least halfway to that goal before starting the class, and done before I do my open water dives. I plan on taking the class starting in Jan-Feb (depends on if I have to have surgery for deviated septum--that means no diving for 3 months). In the meantime, I'm trying to learn everything I can about what I'll need to do to be a good safe diver, so that's where this question comes from.

 

[Damselfish]

I added my location but I can't edit my dive profile. I think I have some type of pop up blocker here at work.

It's not you, that just doesn't work right now.

 

[AquaHump]

I try to dive two days a month ranging from 2 to 4 dives a day

 

[mikerault]

I try to do 2-4 dives per month as a minimum, in the 2 years I have been ceritified I have done 77 dives. Here in Atlanta I belong to a dive group (The Lake Lanier Loonie Birds) who dive Lakes and quarries in the area year round. We dive drysuits mostly since below the thermo can still be in the 50 degree range even during the summer. Of course I never pass up an opportunity to go some where warm and tropical (2 days to Curacao Yee Haw!) and dive my buns off...

Mike

 

[REII]

I think you should try to dive once a month to maintain skills and knowledge.

I dive 2-3 times a month pretty much year round and feel pretty good with that.

TOM