Mentoring a new diver the minimalist way

[LeadTurn_SD]

ZKY, Thank you for your original post. This 44 YO kid is fortunate to have you as his mentor. Diving has many styles and for some reason, each group feels their method is the best and all others fall short.

I dived many times sans a BC as a young man harvesting Ab's off our local shores. I have also used almost every gadget known to the modern diver and have settled into a setup that fits my style and diving and could care less if others think it will kill me or not.

Let me also say that having a good mentor, certified as an instructor or not, is the single best way to learn. Good for you in taking the time and energy to insure that he will be safe and learn from you and your peers.

Well said.

Given the choice between a good mentor and the "average" freshly-minted, less than 2,000-dive instructor, I'll trust myself and family with the mentor.

 

[buckybwhiplash]

I think the dmv should hand out motorcycle lic for 6 months before one takes the wheel of a car. bet we would have a lot better drivers out there. nothing like speeding down the road at 60 mph. with nothing between you. one learns respect quickly.

I couldn't agree with you more on that one. They would certainly become more aware of their surroundings after the first near miss. There's nothing like nearly getting punted into the next life to get the old ticker spooled up to 200bpm.

 

[MXGratefulDiver]

Well said.

Given the choice between a good mentor and the "average" freshly-minted, less than 2,000-dive instructor, I'll trust myself and family with the mentor.

Hmmm ... so if an instructor with less than 2,000 dives is "freshly minted" ... what does that make someone with 500-999 dives? :blinking:

FWIW - number of dives is a false measurement of anyone's ability to dive, teach, or mentor. I know people with three times my number of dives who have pathetic skills ... and people with one-third times my number of dives who have skills I couldn't even aspire to.

Furthermore, great skills won't necessarily make someone a great instructor or a great mentor. In order to help someone learn anything you not only have to set a good example, you also have to be able to convey why you are doing what you do ... and building yourself up by knocking how other folks do it just never quite cut it for me ... if anything, it implies that you're too insecure with your own choices to let them stand on their own merits.

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

 

[LeadTurn_SD]

Hmmm ... so if an instructor with less than 2,000 dives is "freshly minted" ... what does that make someone with 500-999 dives? :blinking:

FWIW - number of dives is a false measurement of anyone's ability to dive, teach, or mentor. I know people with three times my number of dives who have pathetic skills ... and people with one-third times my number of dives who have skills I couldn't even aspire to.

Furthermore, great skills won't necessarily make someone a great instructor or a great mentor. In order to help someone learn anything you not only have to set a good example, you also have to be able to convey why you are doing what you do ... and building yourself up by knocking how other folks do it just never quite cut it for me ... if anything, it implies that you're too insecure with your own choices to let them stand on their own merits.

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

:shocked2: Ouch!!

Bob, you're completely right, on all your points.

Often I'll post something without totally "engaging" my brain, and on re-reading it I will realize it just comes across the "wrong way" and I'll try to quickly edit it (hoping nobody saw it )

And every once in awhile, like this time, I'll post something in haste without re-reading and editing it that I regret afterwards.

So,"2,000 apologies" to any "less than 2,000 dive" instructors that I offended with my remark, from a "500-999" ordinary diver.

Carry on with the debate!

 

[Nemrod]

All this fuss just so a poor fellow could learn to dive without an airbag.

"Hey, Mr. Nemrod, how is it that you dive without dem dar automatik air bags?" "Well, now sonny," says ol' Nemrod, "it is simple,"

"We just swim down, then we swim around and then we swim back up."

N

 

[Eric Sedletzky]

Hey ZKY, would you mind mentoring me? Im ALL for diving with no bc or any "specialty" equip. I bug hunt in the Channel Islands and hunt on the North Coast, and have seen the mobility of minimal diving.

Rob

Totally.
We're going on a weekend after the club dive. Stay tuned to our board.
Between Brian and I we have stuff for you to use for now.
Matt too.

 

[Eric Sedletzky]

My point is that you should be able to enjoy your way WITHOUT taking potshots at how other people do it ...

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

What potshots? ...Oh you mean how instructors overweight students during open water then those divers go on diving like that thinking that's the way it should be done because god almighty instructor said so, then they die 50 feet from the beach when their inflator hose breaks off their BC and they sink like a rock, those potshots??

Yeah, I'll take the potshots.

 

[Eric Sedletzky]

You should get your nose checked. As mentioned several times, I don't really care about how anybody dives, except my buddy, and then only when we're diving.

However I do beleive that systems fail when not taken as a whole, and that taking the BC away from a new diver who was trained to dive with one is assuming a big liability in case of an accident.

You guys can go cliff diving if it makes you happy. I really don't care. I was just mentioning that taking away a new diver's BC means that you have invalidated the emergency procedures they were taught, and you would need to replace them with something else that works at least as well, then train the diver how to perform them.

Still want to do it? Knock yourself out. It doesn't bother me at all because I'm not on the hook for any of it.

Terry

Wow, you really are a product of the new establishment.

Systems failing
Invalidating emergency proceedures
Liability
Accidents
BC
Training protocols

I see you're from the Great Lakes, Chicago area?

Just to give you an idea of our layed back style in California:
The live aboard dive boats in will let you do virtually anything you want.
You have to fill out the regular paper work, but they don't look at your dive log to see what you've been doing. They let people solo dive, dive with no BC, they don't care. They pretty much open the gates and yell "POOL'S OPEN".

Somehow I get the feeling you think we're going to take the guy's BC away and throw him in the ocean then yell to him "Swim or die!" like some kind of tyranical drill seargent. That's not how it's going to be.
We're going to start the guy off with baby steps and make sure he 's comfortable with every subsequent step. His weighting will be just right, his comfort level will be great,
everything will be fine.

And besides, if you don't care, then why did you even open your mouth?

 

[Web Monkey]

What potshots? ...Oh you mean how instructors overweight students during open water then those divers go on diving like that thinking that's the way it should be done because god almighty instructor said so, then they die 50 feet from the beach when their inflator hose breaks off their BC and they sink like a rock, those potshots??Yeah, I'll take the potshots.

This has very little to do with a torn hose and everything to do with ignoring training.

A torn inflator hose would have been a non-event if the diver followed almost any of his training and did any one of these:

Before the dive:

• Proper weighting

During the Dive:

• Gas Management
• Buddy distance and awareness (Just like the Tango, losing a buddy takes two inattentive divers.)

During the Emergency:

• Buddy grabs his butt and they share air back to the surface.
• Ditch weights and swim to surface
• Ditch entire BC including weights and swim to surface

This event (wherever/whenever it was) has everything to do with ignoring training and very little to do with BCs.

I can say this with great confidence because I actually had one of these little eye-openers on the Santa Rosa wall in Cozumel on my #7 dive. You know what happened? Nothing. The hose ripped off at the elbow, I showed the torn hose to the DM, he shrugged his shoulders, and I gave him the thumb and surfaced.

Darwin will only wait just so long before picking someone out of the gene pool. If somoene dives over-weighted with no buddy and no gas management, eventually something bad will happen.

Terry

 

[Eric Sedletzky]

This has very little to do with a torn hose and everything to do with ignoring training.

A torn inflator hose would have been a non-event if the diver followed almost any of his training and did any one of these:

Before the dive:

• Proper weighting

During the Dive:

• Gas Management
• Buddy distance and awareness (Just like the Tango, losing a buddy takes two inattentive divers.)

During the Emergency:

• Buddy grabs his butt and they share air back to the surface.
• Ditch weights and swim to surface
• Ditch entire BC including weights and swim to surface

This event (wherever/whenever it was) has everything to do with ignoring training and very little to do with BCs.

I can say this with great confidence because I actually had one of these little eye-openers on the Santa Rosa wall in Cozumel on my #7 dive. You know what happened? Nothing. The hose ripped off at the elbow, I showed the torn hose to the DM, he shrugged his shoulders, and I gave him the thumb and surfaced.

Darwin will only wait just so long before picking someone out of the gene pool. If somoene dives over-weighted with no buddy and no gas management, eventually something bad will happen.

Terry

How do we know what kind of training he got? They didn't tell us.

From what I gather it wasn't very good training otherwise he wouldn't have been as grossly overweighted as he was. The only way he could have passed OW if he was weighted the same as his last dive would have been with the aid of a huge bladder on his BC. And since it was an integrated weight BC It most likely had an oversized bladder, most of them do.

In backpack diving from shore there is no way to dive overweighted simply because it won't work. There is no BC to artificially hold you on the surface. You have to be able to float on the surface with no BC to be able to do a surface swim out to where you want to dive. At least that's how we do it. The only way I could see getting in trouble from the start would be for someone to jump off a boat with no BC and be overweighted. Generally though, the few people who backpack dive and are experienced would know not to do this and they would have their weighting dialed in before doing a boat dive.

That type of scenario would never happen with minimalist diving. First, you would always be able to float on the surfce especially at the end of the dive when your tank is near empty or in this guys case completely empty. If there was trouble still in the surf you could always reach down and dump the belt. That's the safety device, just like freediving, dump the belt. If you still have trouble then pull the waist strap buckle loose and ditch the rig. That maneuver takes me less than two seconds. With a big bulky BC most of them have shoulder clips that you're supposed to undo to get out but with 3 to 5 mil gloves that can be tough. They also have a chest strap a waist clip and a cumber bun. Thats 5 things you need to do before you can get out as opposed to 2 with the minimalist set up.

The guy who died on the beach had integrated weights in his BC and they found the weights still in the pockets when they recovered his body, so he even had trouble with step one and couldn't get them out.

It was lack of training with the BC that killed him. So I guess it was a combo between the two.

OK, I'll split this one with you