How often do you practice skills?

[Buoyant1]

Skills? hmm?????


OK...I practice changing from my primary to secondary a few times every year....change to my pony once or twice (I breathe it down usually before it's annual as well)

Any mask on & off swimming is usually done in a pool early in the season..I don't do any donning and doffing of my BCD or anything like that.

 

[SoccerJeni]

Come on out to CA. We'll practice with you. Be careful what you ask for, you just might get it.

:shocked2: Lol! I'd love to come out to CA...another place on the list to go and dive! Where in CA do you live? There are so many CA divers on this site...I love it!

 

[MaxBottomtime]

I have to say, I have been diving for five years in a wide variety of environments, and I have never had occasion to remove my gear underwater, nor do I practice that skill (except to demonstrate it as a DM). Taking the gear off (and putting it on) on the surface is a good skill for diving off small boats, but although I know people argue about it, I just don't see the point of practicing removing it underwater. It's sufficient to know it's possible to do it, I think.

That's the exact way I feel about most skills that some divers practice. In more than two decades of diving, I haven't had my mask off since my OW class. I know how to replace a mask if needed. No need to practice that. I used to do valve drills on every dive with some buddies, but I've never had a gear issue, so I haven't practiced valve drills for several years. I still know how, but the odds of a gear failure are so low I don't feel the need to practice. The only skills I practice are the ones I use every dive, and I practice them by simply diving often.

 

[TSandM]

Max, I can see that approach . . . but in medicine, we tend to think about what's likely, and what's most lethal. I practice air-sharing as regularly as I can, because although it's vanishingly unlikely that any of MY buddies will go out of gas, I want to be absolutely solid to help them if they have a clogged dip tube, and I want to be utterly solid if some unknown diver shows up out of gas, because I know I may have to be competent for two of us at that point.

 

[stakanak]

You know its interesting. I want to practice dive skills all the time but it seems to "interfere" with some of my buddies diving agendas. Since we usually only take one tank down to the shore, we seem to not want to "waste" the tank on drills. I personally think this is a mistake, but to each his/her own I guess.
To those that don't practice drills at all, take heed. Things go wrong quickly underwater and the only way to stay sharp and not panic is to practice!
Get Wet

 

[Captain12Pk]

:shocked2: Lol! I'd love to come out to CA...another place on the list to go and dive! Where in CA do you live? There are so many CA divers on this site...I love it!

I'm in So. Cal. Orange to be specific. From my back yard I can watch the Disneyland fireworks, and on a good day I can see Catalina Isl.
Just say when...

 

[SoccerJeni]

I'm in So. Cal. Orange to be specific. From my back yard I can watch the Disneyland fireworks, and on a good day I can see Catalina Isl.
Just say when...

Tomorrow? :blinking: Oh I wish! One day...it will happen.

 

[Downing]

My wife hates the mask off/on drill, so I make a point of doing it in front of her just to tick her off.

I like to run through the drills because it's kind of fun.

A few years ago, in Belize, I made arrangements with my DM to do the BCD off/on underwater drill. Only we forgot to tell the other DM who was leading a second group. Near the end of the dive, my DM signaled me to start the drill. As I was slipping out of my BC, I saw the second group arriving. Their DM was making a beeline for me, obviously thinking I was in distress. I tried to signal him that I was actually ok but by then he was on top of me, spinning me around and back into my BCD. At that point, I just went with the flow and aborted the drill. It was time to ascend, anyway.

We got a good laugh out of that one up on the boat. I'll never forget the look on his face as he glided onto me. I didn't know a person's eyes could stretch so wide!

 

[40Fathoms]

I try to do it as often as possible. I won't spend time on it if I'm travelling and diving, I'll just enjoy diving in a new location. But at home, when I'm diving just for fun (i.e. without clients etc.), I'll usually do something on most dives. Just a simple inverted hover, removing mask, etc. Other times, I'll do a real drill dive, where my buddy and will go out specifically to practice SMB-deployment, a rescue scenario, BCD-removal or similar. But in any case we try to end each dive with some skill repetition.

Also, we have a dive center in town that has open pool sessions twice a week all winter. I'll usually stop by a couple of times during the off-season to practice something.

 

[jnorris]

Since I'm relatively new to diving I practice skills on every dive. Especially buoyancy, but since I have a mustache I get to practice clearing my mask a lot too! I actually find it fun to practice the skills and will do the basic skills quite often. But of course I also like to look at the pretty fishies too, so I need to spend some time on that!