Open Water Panic.

[SailNaked]

Since I am not an instructor yet I have to ask this here however the DMs can answer too. what percentage of your students are totally uncomfortable in the water right from the start. first skill, need help etc. how many then do not finish the course or have to retake it? What I am looking at is if there is any relationship to pre-pool training interaction and fear in the pool and open water. do yall see people that are fine in the pool then panic in open water? Can you tell in the classroom which ones will have problems in the water?

 

[vjanelle]

From my limited experience so far I've been able to identify people that'll do fine, and who'll need to repeat the skills a few times in the ocean. No one's paniced on me yet, but you can definitely tell who the nervous people are.

Look for signs of nervousness, trouble with equipment, stress, etc. Have a backup regulator deployed and ready for a student during recovery exercises. Make sure you know that you're there during mask flooding exercises. Be patient. Etc.

 

[Jim Lapenta]

This is what pre class interviews are for. I also use Scuba Intro's( discovers),the swim tests, and snorkeling/skin diving sessions for determining comfort in the water. If they do not do an intro having them swim, tread water, and do an underwater swim is the first step. Next is the snorkeling/skin diving where they do mask clear, mask remove and replace, and mask/snorkel recover and replace/clear. They do not move on to scuba if they cannot get through this part. I have had one student that I could not get comfortable in the water. They started with another instructor and got passed to me. It took one pool session to determine they had no business training on scuba at that time. I advised her to join a swim club near her home and work on swimming/snorkeling skills, and get comfortable and competent with that before going on. She agreed and to my knowledge decided that scuba was not for her.

 

[Web Monkey]

Since I am not an instructor yet I have to ask this here however the DMs can answer too. what percentage of your students are totally uncomfortable in the water right from the start. first skill, need help etc. how many then do not finish the course or have to retake it? What I am looking at is if there is any relationship to pre-pool training interaction and fear in the pool and open water.

We don't take them to OW until both the student and instructor are happy. That pretty much eliminates panic in OW. It might take 8 weeks, might take years, but it takes what it takes.

do yall see people that are fine in the pool then panic in open water?

I've never seen a student panic during OW dives. By the time they get to OW, they're generally pretty bored with the pool, have the skills nailed, and are excited to get out into actual open water.

Terry

 

[SailNaked]

I understand some people are not really comfortable in the water right off the street, what I was looking for is if there was something that could be done in the classroom to first ascertain that they will be nervous in the water and then if there was something that would help them relax before the first pool session. If someone is not comfortable with water and no effort is made in the classroom then they will be nervous in the pool. If they do not work out their fear in the pool then they will be skittish in OW and our ultimate failure would be to have them still nervous on a dive charter.


I assume our goal it to train confident divers and not just to weed out the unworthy.

 

[SailNaked]

We don't take them to OW until both the student and instructor are happy. That pretty much eliminates panic in OW. It might take 8 weeks, might take years, but it takes what it takes.



I've never seen a student panic during OW dives. By the time they get to OW, they're generally pretty bored with the pool, have the skills nailed, and are excited to get out into actual open water.

Terry

I think this is close to what I am looking for but would you please go more into detail about how you know when you are both happy what kind of signs do you require to move out of the pool? and how you explain to a student that they are slow and can not go to open water with the rest of their class?

 

[Web Monkey]

I think this is close to what I am looking for but would you please go more into detail about how you know when you are both happy what kind of signs do you require to move out of the pool? and how you explain to a student that they are slow and can not go to open water with the rest of their class?

I know this sounds like I'm being evasive, but I'm really not. The instructor is happy when the student can do all the skills repeatedly and reliably, without any significant anxiety and the student looks happy and comfortable.

From the student's perspective, they're ready for OW when they say they're ready. We figure this out by asking them.

However just like the Tango, it takes two. Both have to agree before going to OW.

The last part of your question is the easiest. Just tell the student that you think they could use a few more pool sessions. If you don't make a big deal out of it, it doesn't become a big deal, so I wouldn't sweat it.

Terry

 

[Web Monkey]

I understand some people are not really comfortable in the water right off the street, what I was looking for is if there was something that could be done in the classroom to first ascertain that they will be nervous in the water and then if there was something that would help them relax before the first pool session.

There's no way I know of to figure out in the classroom, who is scared of the water, aside from just asking. However this generally isn't necessary if you start them off in the shallow end of the pool, since almost nobody over 4' tall is nervous in 4' of water.

Once at the pool, the stuff listed under "Stress" in the "Stress and Rescue" class and probably the DM book (I've never seen it) would be a great place to start, when looking for signs of stress.

"Not freaking out underwater" in class is mostly prevented by adding tasks and changing conditions slowly, over time and observing stress levels. For example, someone who is stressed out doing a mask clear in 4' of water, shouldn't be going to the deep end until the mask clear becomes a non-issue in the shallow end.


Terry

 

[Interceptor121]

Based on my personal numbers around 2% of people will freak out and around 10% will have significant issues with a specific skill (no mask swimming in CW and Cesa in OW being the most common) I am including DSD/SD/OWD
Can tell from the start? Yes. People that will panic ask a lot of questions even when they get the quiz right and appear stressed after the first knowledge session
Those with issues with a specific skill don't panic but get increasingly frustrated and may abandon