Nightly F Report

[Randy43068]

Great reports! I'm going to re-read 'em.

 

[Randy43068]

Rick, clean out your PMs. Your in-box is full!

 

[Peter Guy]

Hmmmm, TSandM wrote "Jet fins DO make a difference. A BIG difference. A HUGE difference. Put mine on and presto"

She didn't have any Jet fins on Saturday morning when I went out to Cove 2 to give her shore support -- what is this "mine" she is writing about? Rick, were you one of her addiction enablers????

 

[Snowbear]

Congrats to you all for sticking with it!
Pretty amazing how high that bar is, eh?!?!?
Even if I never attain it, I'm hoping that some day I'll at least get to touch it.....

 

[Rick Inman]

(PMs cleaned)

Ok, my turn. I guess I would title the final day, Can’t Win For Losin’ (now referred to as CWFL).

The first thing that happen was, we got to the dive site, suited up and I promptly locked my keys in the car. Not a big deal, really, thanks to AAA (I guess I’m destined to eventually be a member of all the “A” groups: AA, AAA, and some day, AARP).

This day was to be a big turning point for me. I defiantly “got” some things. Some of the relays in my brain went “click” and I had some sudden pyridine shifts.

First of all, my frog kick. It was feeling awkward on the fist dive again. We did our drills and the instructor sent us in as the other group joined him. As I was swimming in, my legs were feeling kind of stiff, so during the kick, I stretched them out to stretch the muscles, and suddenly went shooting off through the water. Whoa! I did it again. All at once the kick felt so natural, so powerful, so easy, so “frog”-like. I signaled my buddy to watch me to see if it looked as good as it felt. He said it was. He said it looked just like a frog. That is such a huge change for me that it made it worth the price of admission. Unfortunately, there is no real video evidence of this change in my kick, because on the second dive the focus of the video was on other things.

The next big change was my concept of “team” during the dive. I thought I’d understood this, but on the third dive our team really put it together. I got a big, ah ha!

However, we did one thing wrong.

One of the things I wasn’t liking was how we were all bumping into each other and trying to avoid getting in the middle of each other during the drills, and one would turn to get out of the way and kick the other and that kind of stuff. Before the first dive the instructor said to stay out of the way when someone was doing a drill. So when two of us were doing, say, an S drill, the other would back way off. Of course, the instructor nailed us for not being next to our buddies (CWFL).

So, on the second dive, we decided to stay together and just push off each other. During the ascent drills, we faced each other and just pushed back now and then to stay in formation. Nice. Good trim, good buoyancy. But of course, the instructor said we touched each other too much. CWFL.

My dry suit is too tight, and I can’t reach up and touch my hands together, much less reach my valve. The instructor agreed that my dry suit could make the drill impossible for me.

But during the last dive, I was bound and determined to make it happen. So, when my turn came, I loosened up my waist strap, grabbed a hose and started hauling my kit up over my head. I reach… and reached… and pulled… and pulled… and shoved the tank bottom from behind…. And I could just touch the valve with the tip of my finger, so I yanked down hard… and got my fingers around the valve. With everything I had, I did what I thought was impossible: a successful valve drill.

I was so happy! I did it! During the drill I’d also maintained buoyancy and trim! However, here comes the CWFL part. The video showed the truth - that I was in a squatting position, not arching my back, so I failed the drill.

I shot the bag perfectly. I really focused on this one because of the issue I’d had last week shooting a bag. I removed the bag and spool, threaded the line, clipped off the double ender, unrolled the bag, put in a breath, looked up to be sure it was clear, signaled my buddies and then let the bag go.

Hummm… that’s funny. The line was falling down around me slack. The bag wasn’t going up. Guess it needed more air, so I pulled it down, put in another breath and let it go again. This time it went up. I retrieved the dbl ender, wound up the slack and clipped it to the reel.

Perfect. I’d maintained buoyancy and trim the entire time.

CWFL. I failed the drill. The reason the bag didn’t go up the first time was that the instructor had swam over me and stopped the bag. Nice trick. He said that if I’d been more aware, I’d have seen him come from above me. The second time I sent it up, I didn’t look up again, and my buddy almost swam into the line (didn’t know it ‘till we saw the video, of course). In fact, the entire time I was getting the spool and bag ready to shoot, I didn’t look at my buddies. Bad buddy awareness. Sheesh! CWFL.

Bottom line is, I learned so much from the class and I had so much fun doing it! I know for a fact that I’ve come out a better diver. I really know how much I don’t know. My diving will never be the same. I can’t wait to apply this stuff to some real dives (not in just 10 feet of water! Augh!). I can’t wait to drill on the skills some more.

And if you look, you shouldn’t see any red dye #3 around my lips.

Thanks to all those who gave great mentoring to me, and those who gave great advice on this board.

Heres a picture of me and our class after the last dive: LINK

 

[Ber Rabbit]

Day one.

Indisputable proof that there is a compassionate God:

I passed the swim test.

I'm mad at all of you, BTW. Nobody warned me that it wouldn't just be just calmly swimming back and forth in the pool. Nobody told me that six of us would be crammed into one tiny lane at the same time, bumping and slapping and hitting each other like some kind of Marx Bothers shtick that mixes swimming with roller derby. It took me doing a WWF head collide with another swimmer before the instructor finally shouted, "Everyone swimming down, stay right. Swimming up stay left."

That helped somewhat.

Ummm Rick, this is how my OW students do their 12 minute swim test and they figure out the "right-of-way" thing right after the first person makes turn #1 At least you got to do the test in the pool, I've seen them doing that swim in the quarry here in Ohio.
Ber :lilbunny:

 

[Ber Rabbit]

I think he was quite surprised at his inability to take any weight off me. He took weight off everybody else, I think, and he had made some disparaging comment about overweighted divers the day before, saying he had seen a woman my size diving with THIRTY POUNDS of weight . . . I had said, "Well, that's pretty much what I'm diving," and he had raised his eyebrows. Well, he tried to take weight off me today, and none was going anywhere. Between my native buoyancy and the several dozen undergarments I wear in an attempt to stay in the water for an hour, I NEED all that weight.

Thank you for this, BIG HUG! I'm about your size and carry 26-28 pounds, I'll carry as much as 38 pounds when I wear all my layers.

Maybe the next time fundies gets to Ohio I'll try the course, the instructors should get a good laugh out of watching me Thank you for your reports, nice to see stuff coming from the female side.
Ber :lilbunny:

 

[Slipstrm]

So if you get a "provisional" do you have to re-take the class?

 

[Reinoud]

So if you get a "provisional" do you have to re-take the class?

No. Basically it means that the instructor sends you home with a list of points to work on, and you can show him (or her) them within six months. Usually that does not cost extra money.

 

[Reinoud]

CWFL. I failed the drill. The reason the bag didn’t go up the first time was that the instructor had swam over me and stopped the bag. Nice trick. He said that if I’d been more aware, I’d have seen him come from above me. The second time I sent it up, I didn’t look up again, and my buddy almost swam into the line (didn’t know it ‘till we saw the video, of course). In fact, the entire time I was getting the spool and bag ready to shoot, I didn’t look at my buddies. Bad buddy awareness. Sheesh! CWFL.

sounds all too familiar ";-) The basic things for Fundamentals are bouancy and team awareness. All the drills are just there to make it hard to concentrate on both ";-)

Bottom line is, I learned so much from the class and I had so much fun doing it! I know for a fact that I’ve come out a better diver. I really know how much I don’t know. My diving will never be the same. I can’t wait to apply this stuff to some real dives (not in just 10 feet of water! Augh!). I can’t wait to drill on the skills some more.

What I noted is that since DIR-F I am also much more aware of my own diving. And the technique still improve every dive, not just on the 'training dives'. It took me some dives until the backward kick was something I could rely on, but it is a very handy skill to have mastered. In every dive.