Pre-diving/lesson anxiety

[jemmini6]

The way I look at diving is the same as learning to drive. You are excited, but still nervous. Once you get comfortable though, everything becomes second nature and the nervousness goes away.

 

[TMHeimer]

Yeah, what they all said. I felt a little anxiety the week before my check-out dives, even though I knew they were in only 20-30 feet. Though I had snorkelled my whole life, I'd never been deeper than maybe 10 feet. Once on the first dive I was fine, and thinking about doing the skills. I didn't have much anxiety about my first deep dives from boats, except maybe the first one. Knowing that I was prepared with the skills and taking it one step at a time--ei.-get to the anchor line, descend, etc., and knowing the bottom would be where they said it would be kept me at ease. I was a tad nervous on that first one to 78 feet when my "experienced buddy"-an instructor's husband- decided to motor off and grab some lobsters, leaving me alone--I found some others and tagged along a bit until my buddy returned. But those things happen.

 

[al248005]

Hi Suzi,
I totally understand how you are feeling. I was the same about 2 weeks ago when I did my first open water dives. I was worried about all the negative things associated with diving like ascent/descent rates, equalization problems, and most of all sharks instead of the positive things that would come from it. Yes, I did my first dive in the ocean and wasn't told until the ride out that they had spotted sharks at this site on almost every trip they made to it. Another thing I was worried about was finding a dive buddy to dive with on the boat since I was new. Well, that wasn't a problem at all. There were many advanced divers that jumped at the opportunity to dive with me. Most were willing to help in any way. Well I did my dives and my air consumption rate wasn't really anything to brag about and I was worried my buddy was going to be upset and he wasn't at all. He actually gave me tips on how to control it during the surface interval. Just remember to have fun. Diving is supposed to be fun. Everyone goes through these same feelings when first starting.

 

[MartinL74]

I kind of felt the same way- I took a week long course and I felt that it was very intense. I had some experience from snorkeling and I felt that those skills definitely came in handy. After the third day I felt tired and was really questioning myself if I should continue this. I had a hard time in the pool equalizing, this added to my concern. I watched the often- mentioned video about equalization techniques and that helped me a lot. On day four it was the first open water (shore) dive. I found that the skills we practiced in the pool worked just as well in open water, even though the vis was really bad. We did one basic navigation dive that day and I like it a lot.
On day 5 it was 2 boat dives. I was nervous again, because these would be down to 50 feet. I took my time to go down the anchor line, equalizing often, and was actually surprised when i "already" reached the bottom. From then on it was a really nice dive.

I have yet to do any dives outside the certification, but really want to go again soon (it has been a month). Finding a buddy has been difficult so far, I will probably just go on the boat and see who's available....

 

[diver 85]

Like everything else, you'll improve--both mentally(ie nervous) & physically(newbie looking in the water).....hang in & go diving after your cert....

 

[suziqu]

I had my class tonight and I was a lil nervous before hand but definitely not like before and pretty much as soon as I got in the water that disappeared. We did the no mask swim and I had no problems with that like I thought I might HOWEVER there were two things I had some problems with. First was hovering. Everytime I went down my feet would float up and wasn't able to stay vertical so I kept flailing around trying to get vertical instead of hovering. The instructor had me go up and told me not to worry about my position in the water and to just lay back and practice hovering that way. After that I didn't do too bad at it although it wasn't perfect but I know with more practice that will get better. Second thing I had problems with was removing the weight belt and putting it back on. In shallow water I got it on the second try but in deep water my feet again kept floating up. Once I got down in deep water trying to stay put and not rollover or end up face down with feet up was the issue. Once I was able to get control of my body (with help from the instructor) I did the skill just fine. I used different fins than previous pool sessions where this never seemed to be a problem so not sure if they were just more floaty or what. The instructor told me I did fine I just need to quit fighting the water and relax. We do our first round of open water dives this Saturday than one more pool session after that and finish up the following weekend.

 

[Bubbletrubble]

He has been very supportive (holding my hand during the resort dive which he went through with me even though he was already certified to make me more comfy) and he is going to do my OW dives with me as well.

@suziqu: One more bit of advice: Be an independent diver. Don't let your boyfriend set up your gear for you. Don't let him lead/navigate every dive. Don't let him do all of the pre-dive planning. In fact, I would encourage you to dive with other people as much as possible. Approach each dive as a fun learning experience. You will become a better diver...and, in turn, this will allow the two of you to get more out of the sport when you dive together. I see too many couples that are co-dependent (usually girl dependent on the guy). In some cases, one partner will only dive when the other is around. Often times, the male is the more experienced diver and spends so much time worrying about his girlfriend/wife that it sucks the fun out of the dive for both of them. Performance/safety of the buddy team suffers.

My girlfriend is my favorite dive buddy. When we go diving, we have a great time. She is a solid diver because she's worked on her skills and done a fair amount of diving without me.

Enjoy the rest of your OW class. I think you'll be surprised by how much fun you'll have.

[Edited later: I just saw your post a few minutes ago. Weight distribution can really affect the position in which you can hover. Your instructor should help you weight yourself so that you can get into a good horizontal position. Hang in there. I spend the vast majority of my dives just hovering. It's a very important skill.]

 

[Aerosynth]

It sounds like you had a bad experience in Coz. Sorry about that.

If it makes you feel any better, what you're going through isn't exactly abnormal. I was anxious before my academic and pool sessions as well. When I jumped into the water for my first OW checkout dive, though, it was a different story. I love diving now. Practice your skills, read and re-read your academic book, and you'll be fine. I promise.

Get comfortable with your equipment. And no matter how much you annoy your buddy or DM, be meticulous about safety... check O-rings, do weight checks, and don't skip over anything you learned in class just to satisfy an impatient companion. If you're comfortable with your equipment, and confident that you've checked everything, you'll be comfortable in the water.

Remember, there are a lot of people that dive safely every day without the knowledge, proper equipment, training, common sense, or physical fitness to even do so. If you study hard and know your stuff, you'll be fine. And I betcha by your last OW checkout dive, you'll be loving scuba as much as everyone else on here!!!

 

[TSandM]

I had performance anxiety before my OW dives, but surprisingly, the pre-dive anxiety got worse after certification, not better. There were days when, driving to the dive site, I almost turned around and went home. But like you say, once I got there and got in the water, things would get better. Sometimes it took ten or 15 minutes (during which I was saying to myself, "Why is it that you like to do this?") but it always got better. Eventually, the anxiety got to be just a kind of itch that I think tends to make me careful.

Dives in new environments, or dives that are at my limits of experience or certification, still keep me up most of the night before, and I can still get very nervous as the actual splash time gets near. But, as it was in the beginning, once I'm in the water, things get better.

As somebody already said, a bit of apprehension isn't necessarily a bad thing, because getting too comfortable with this whole diving nonsense may mean you stop taking it seriously. I had a recent wake-up call in that department.

 

[dancerscap]

Anxiety is normal and a good thing to keep you on your toes. That said, anytaime you don't feel right about a dive never NEVER hesitate to call off dive because of someone else. Your gut reaction is there for a reason. And that said, don't hesitate to verbalize your fears, others have likely had the same ones and may be able to calm you and help you realize just what those are and help you make dives and get comofortable.