Practicing Skills

[HBDiveGirl]

Excellent post, UP! Thanks for the ever-fresh thoughts.

I've been diving often for three years, and it's been a series of transitions.

• Sometimes I dive all for fun, all the time.
• Sometimes I do entire dives working on skills.
• Sometimes I do skill practice for 15-20 minutes, and then go play.
• Sometimes I use stops during ascent to practice skills.
• Sometimes I dive all for fun.

I practice hard for dive classes when I take them.
Then I take breaks from the intense classes.

And so it goes.

I want to get better at what I believe is important.
I could do another 600 dives and not get any better if I don't practice purposefully and precisely.
I could do another 20 dives and master some essential skills that will make all the rest of my diving better.

FUN:

• It has got to be fun. I don't dive for work. I dive for enrichment, experiences (peak and otherwise), camaraderie, understanding (environment, life, self).
• I had to get stronger to have fun, so I worked to get there.
• I couldn't have as much fun when the team didn't work well underwater, so I stepped up to learn unified team diving.
• I want more time at some depths just past recreational limits, so I'm learning the skills and how to manage the equipment.

SAFETY:

• I always want to come home. My guardian angels have put in their work time occassionally, and I'd like them to be able to relax.
• No dive is worth dying for.
• All dives are worth practicing for.
• All team mates are my responsibility. I have to be able to do for them what they can't do for themselves in those bad moments. Air? Mask? Buoyancy info? Calmness? It's my responsibility to practice these skills and abilities, and groom the right gear, all the time, so I'm ready if it's needed.

I guess I move all over your Imagi-Graph, UP. But I recognize my goals and progress. It's always a work in progress.

Thanks for the thought-provoking question.

Claudette

 

[Bill51]

I’m a geek, I love to practice skills whether it’s diving, driving, or flying. When I was a kid a friend and I would play checkers or cards on the bottom of the pool while hovering a foot off the bottom – you lost a turn if you touched bottom. That was making a fun game out of skills practice and I still do it that way today, even if only games with myself.

Now I like to just go out on dives doing what I call scenario-based training. For instance, my buddy and I will go out in 40’ of water, drop down to the anchor, shoot a marker up from the anchor, and then each of us will have a predetermined course and distance to go mark off (200 yards at 250 degrees from the anchor). Once we’ve each shot another marker up from our attempt to hit our target, we’ll surface and see who came closest in terms of bearing and distance. Yea, it’s a geeky dive, but it is fun and it is training – plus we bet beers on who is closest.

 

[Uncle Pug]

Part Two ~ Where to practice: "Marco!" ~ "Polo!" or At [shudder]DEPTH[/shudder]

Many folks have never practiced handling emergencies *at depth* because they view that as unsafe.

They don't seem to view diving *at depth* unsafe... even though they are diving *at depth* with untested skills!

If you can't perform the skill at the depth you are diving then should you really be diving at that depth? You say, "Oh, but I can perform that skill.. I did it in the pool." Uh huh... but how do you know that you can do it *at depth*? Hmmmm?

There is great comfort in knowing that you can just stand up in the pool if things don't go as planned. With that in mind you can concentrate on the task at hand.

But when you are at depth and the option of standing up is no longer there will you be able to concentrate on the task at hand... solving the emergency that wasn't suppose to happen but is happening?

You've subliminally trained yourself to look at the surface as your escape hatch. It was always there before when you did this skill... you only had to stand up.

And it still is there... but the fact that it is so much further away crowds your consciousness and clouds your thinking.

You blow your skill and the clamor for the safe comfort of the surface makes thought of further attempts disappear... and... as your buddy watches in amazed disbelief, so do you... heading for the surface.

OK... enough histrionics.

If you are going to dive to a level be competent at that level. To be competent at that level you need to train at that level.

 

[lamont]

Dude, Lighten up and have fun. You'll practice the basic skills each and every dive. I've been in some scary stuff and each time I hear my instructor, (OOW,AOW,Stress&Rescue, etc same guy) talking in my head. I don't know how many dives you have, I actually checked your "Personal" but sounds like you may be overthinking it. As any of these 10000+ divers will tell ya. It doesn't matter how many dives you have as to where you fall on the X/Y experience/ability curves. A diver that continuously dives warm water/same location 100 times, may have less true experience than someone who has dove 50 times is vastly different locations/temp/depths/vis/wildlife/etc.

I get your theory and it is a good thought process. I just don't think that diving is a sport like golf that can be easily measured.

Just flip off the boat, remember to breathe and listen to that instructor in your head.

"Breathe in, breathe out, move on!" Jimmy Buffet

In mexico we were hanging out in the cenote when a team of guided cavern divers came up. One of them was having nosebleeds due to not properly equalizing his mask at depth and complained that at 60 fsw he was getting tunnel vision (CO2 hit?). Another diver bowed out of the next dive because on the previous one she was nearly in a panic the entire time and didn't think it was fun. The third diver did better than the other two, but also was clearly not entirely comfortable and was complaining about her gear (displaced anxiety?).

Contrast that with our dives in the Cavern. I was highly comfortable the entire time. Our cavern guide had double Al80s, we had two single Al80 divers and me and another guy bringing up the rear with two more sets of double Al80s. We all had good trim and knew how to share air. We were all familiar enough with line protocol to be able to understand how to use the cavern line to get us back out into the cenote. All of our dives were largely stress free. Even when on the second dive of the first day we had two primary light failures right after turning the dive (where *was* that instructor hiding in the shadows???) it was easily dealt with. We spent most of our time gawking at the structures in the cave and not worrying about anything bad happening and/or dealing with issues. Nobody bowed out of any of the dives because of any anxiety, and our cavern guide really didn't have much work to do past the dive briefing and leading the dive. We got some practice in trim and buoyancy control trying not to conk valves and manifolds on some of the tighter sections and I helped remove a few tie-offs on the way out to try to practice team-oriented line management a bit. Other than that we were just sight-seeing the entire time.

And I was snapping pictures like crazy one day:

http://www.scriptkiddie.org/uwphoto/Carwash-2006-12-14/
http://www.scriptkiddie.org/uwphoto/Grand-Cenote-2006-12-14/
http://www.scriptkiddie.org/uwphoto/Akumal-2006-12-14/

Which team do you think had more fun?

 

[Rick Inman]

If you are going to dive to a level be competent at that level. To be competent at that level you need to train at that level.

ok

>

 

[SparticleBrane]

I have found that the people who argue against practice are usually the ones who need it the most.

 

[MXGratefulDiver]

Dude, Lighten up and have fun. You'll practice the basic skills each and every dive. I've been in some scary stuff and each time I hear my instructor, (OOW,AOW,Stress&Rescue, etc same guy) talking in my head. I don't know how many dives you have, I actually checked your "Personal" but sounds like you may be overthinking it. As any of these 10000+ divers will tell ya. It doesn't matter how many dives you have as to where you fall on the X/Y experience/ability curves. A diver that continuously dives warm water/same location 100 times, may have less true experience than someone who has dove 50 times is vastly different locations/temp/depths/vis/wildlife/etc.

I get your theory and it is a good thought process. I just don't think that diving is a sport like golf that can be easily measured.

Just flip off the boat, remember to breathe and listen to that instructor in your head.

"Breathe in, breathe out, move on!" Jimmy Buffet

OMG ... that IS funny ...

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

 

[SparticleBrane]

Always do what your instructor says...

 

[MXGratefulDiver]

Always do what your instructor says...

Uncle Pug has taught me more about diving than any instructor I ever took a class from ... usually by filling in the parts my instructor forgot to mention ...

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

 

[SparticleBrane]

People blindly following instructors makes me sad...especially for 200ft dives on air.