I was looking through the new issue of "Dive Training". The refuse to believe that I closed my shop I guess because they still send me boxes of the things.
Any way...they had a piece on reg recovery. They pictured a kneeling diver performing an arm sweep and an over the shoulder reach. They explained it pretty much the way I was taught and the way I USED to teach it. But, it's another one of those things that I had to disagree with after spending a few years thinking about it.
The arm sweep pretty much assumes a vertical position so it's not for diving except maube on the surface.
They were careful to explain that you can use one hand to lift the tank while doing the over the shoulder reach. I guess that again assumes a vertical position huh?
They also plainly showed the diver blowing a continuous stream of bubbles while they recovered the lost reg.
The way I wear my reg (a long hose) it will just hang off my right shoulder if I drop it. (at that it will be right in front of my face since I'll be horizontal in the water. If for some reason it isn't there I AM NOT going to hang out blowing bubbles while I look for it. I'm going to dip my head and get my backup reg which is conveniently right under my chin on a necklace.
Not having anything to breath is just about the most urgent problem we can have under water. When deprived of breathing gas the priority is to get some, then you can sort out any other problems there might be.
Of course some divers dress in such a way that they would be hard pressed to find their backup too. If you insist on configuring your equipment that way and can't immediately grab one reg or the other, I'd recommend using that OOA signal you learned and getting gas from your buddy rather than finding out how long you can blow bubbles. Blue is one of the last colors to be filtered at depth.
Just another example of skills being taught in a way that works better while having a group powow on the bottom of a pool than it does while diving.
Any way...they had a piece on reg recovery. They pictured a kneeling diver performing an arm sweep and an over the shoulder reach. They explained it pretty much the way I was taught and the way I USED to teach it. But, it's another one of those things that I had to disagree with after spending a few years thinking about it.
The arm sweep pretty much assumes a vertical position so it's not for diving except maube on the surface.
They were careful to explain that you can use one hand to lift the tank while doing the over the shoulder reach. I guess that again assumes a vertical position huh?
They also plainly showed the diver blowing a continuous stream of bubbles while they recovered the lost reg.
The way I wear my reg (a long hose) it will just hang off my right shoulder if I drop it. (at that it will be right in front of my face since I'll be horizontal in the water. If for some reason it isn't there I AM NOT going to hang out blowing bubbles while I look for it. I'm going to dip my head and get my backup reg which is conveniently right under my chin on a necklace.
Not having anything to breath is just about the most urgent problem we can have under water. When deprived of breathing gas the priority is to get some, then you can sort out any other problems there might be.
Of course some divers dress in such a way that they would be hard pressed to find their backup too. If you insist on configuring your equipment that way and can't immediately grab one reg or the other, I'd recommend using that OOA signal you learned and getting gas from your buddy rather than finding out how long you can blow bubbles. Blue is one of the last colors to be filtered at depth.
Just another example of skills being taught in a way that works better while having a group powow on the bottom of a pool than it does while diving.
