OOA practice

[richies]

Hi


In all the OOA drills I've seen people do, they just hold their breath, knowing that if their buddy mucks up, they can just breathe in again. I don't think this instills the urgency that's really required.
A while ago I started turning my air off while doing OOA drills in the pool (yep, saddo that I am, I still go every week). It really makes you realise how close you have to be to your buddy, how quick you have to be, and how much you actually trust them.
You also start to wish everyone had a long hose that they can deploy in less than a second...

Does anyone else do this?

cheers

R

 

[O-ring]

Why not just take your second stage out of your mouth instead?

 

[Dive4Life]

You should never, never, never, never hold your breath in any diving emergency. You could suffer any # of over expansion injuries. In a pool or any type of training you MIGHT and that is a very small might have a reason to hold your breath in a pool. But when using compressed gas you should always breath.

Just had to add my two sense worth on this one.

 

[O-ring]

I agree with you in principle, but if your buddy is 30' away and you are really OOA, I bet you won't be blowing bubbles while swimming toward him/her!

(Disclaimer - you should never be 30' away from your buddy)

 

[ChrisM]

Well, there is also a big difference between "holding your breath" and "not breathing" Try it next time, you don't have to squeeze your throat shut, you can still keep the airway open....

That said, unless you are comfortable turning on and off your valves, I don't think it's a good idea to mix the S drill and the valve drill.

When we do them, not often enough, we do not prepare eachother normally. Usually, in the middle of a dive, one diver will swim up to another, with the reg out of their mouth, and give the OOA signal.

It's just as hard to breathe when your second stage is out of your mouth as it is with the valve off

Chris

 

[zeN||]

I don't believe that is true-holding your breath will injure you if you are ascending, causing lung over-expansion injury, but I cannot see how holding your breath underwater for short periods is detrimental-if one of the dive docs can comment on this I would like to hear an informed opinion thanks zeN

 

[jbd]

quite a distance while exhaling little bubbles. Part of my OOA training consists off having the students and I swim towards each other with one of us being the OOA person.

Specifically to the issue of breath holding while UW. Consider the effects of Boyle's Law.