You can strive to be perfect and then discover your perfection backfire.
Case in point, I was fortunate enough to have mostly consistent flat trim in my GUE classes. When cameras were in the water, buddies looked for opportunities to get me out of trim.
When I did my NSS-CDS cave class with John Orlowski, I thought his trim was not perfect because he was slightly knees down, but he dove with his knees together and fins flat at the center line of his profile. He told me this allowed him to see more vertical relief in front of him and his fins were never too high to contact the ceiling or create vortexes along the ceiling. In some smaller tunnels in class, I noticed my "perfect" trim placed my blades high enough to bump the ceiling and also put them in a position to create whirling vortexes that would spiral off the ceiling and stir up puffs of silt. But, wait! Wasn't this the very place that I was supposed to have perfect trim and finesse my modified frog kick?
I learned to adjust my trim, modify my mod frog to the point that my knees and thighs were together, and allow my trim to serve me by allowing me to see more cave, get my fins up and my head slightly down, or be horizontal.
I also learned caves are a lot more difficult to silt with propulsion than you think and a lot more easily silted by things you wouldn't think would create a problem.
"Trim is a tool," as a GUE instructor such as Bob Sherwood will tell students, but the feedback in a GUE-F class to develop the ability to to maintain 0° horizontal often creates an abnormal focus on trim and a strive for perfection that is unnecessary. It's admirable to want to perfect skills, but when the desire to perfect skills interferes with your enjoyment or hinders your ability to balance training, practice and experience, something is wrong.
As was said, some people really enjoy training. I love to train. I loved both lacrosse practice and lacrosse games - maybe even practice more and I love training for dives and diving. The problem new DIR divers have to overcome is understanding what is "good enough" for those who dislike training more than diving, and for those who strive to attain perfection by training, where the point of diminishing return lies.
For those of us who are instructors, the quality of our students can also represent us. Divers become swimming billboards of what others may hope to achieve. Instructors must be careful to not create an environment in which the procedures overshadow the goals of the procedures and the desire students have to "look good" isn't exploited for the sake of making us look good.
Case in point, I was fortunate enough to have mostly consistent flat trim in my GUE classes. When cameras were in the water, buddies looked for opportunities to get me out of trim.
When I did my NSS-CDS cave class with John Orlowski, I thought his trim was not perfect because he was slightly knees down, but he dove with his knees together and fins flat at the center line of his profile. He told me this allowed him to see more vertical relief in front of him and his fins were never too high to contact the ceiling or create vortexes along the ceiling. In some smaller tunnels in class, I noticed my "perfect" trim placed my blades high enough to bump the ceiling and also put them in a position to create whirling vortexes that would spiral off the ceiling and stir up puffs of silt. But, wait! Wasn't this the very place that I was supposed to have perfect trim and finesse my modified frog kick?
I learned to adjust my trim, modify my mod frog to the point that my knees and thighs were together, and allow my trim to serve me by allowing me to see more cave, get my fins up and my head slightly down, or be horizontal.
I also learned caves are a lot more difficult to silt with propulsion than you think and a lot more easily silted by things you wouldn't think would create a problem.
"Trim is a tool," as a GUE instructor such as Bob Sherwood will tell students, but the feedback in a GUE-F class to develop the ability to to maintain 0° horizontal often creates an abnormal focus on trim and a strive for perfection that is unnecessary. It's admirable to want to perfect skills, but when the desire to perfect skills interferes with your enjoyment or hinders your ability to balance training, practice and experience, something is wrong.
As was said, some people really enjoy training. I love to train. I loved both lacrosse practice and lacrosse games - maybe even practice more and I love training for dives and diving. The problem new DIR divers have to overcome is understanding what is "good enough" for those who dislike training more than diving, and for those who strive to attain perfection by training, where the point of diminishing return lies.
For those of us who are instructors, the quality of our students can also represent us. Divers become swimming billboards of what others may hope to achieve. Instructors must be careful to not create an environment in which the procedures overshadow the goals of the procedures and the desire students have to "look good" isn't exploited for the sake of making us look good.
