Redundancy Required for Decompression Diving?

[DevonDiver]

I recently had a person who had passed GUE Fundies take my tech course, and it took him more than a few tries to get his valve shutdown drill to the passing level. Yet we are told in a recent thread that such skills are so easy that any new OW student can do them.

There seems to be a disconnect somewhere between people's understanding of what it takes to learn those skills and reality.

I recently had a GUE Tech1 diver on a sidemount course. Lessons were long and challenging, but progress was tangible as focused practice continued over 3 days. It'd normally take 5 days, but this student had the solid skills and fundamentals as a platform for development.

Other divers here, with a tiny fraction of that student's training, skillset and experience think they'd achieve equal, or better, results from YouTube videos... go figure.

The trend in this thread seems to be some inexperienced divers arguing against the need for formal training, and experienced divers arguing for it. Shouldn't it be the other way round? LOL

I'd attempt to explain this backwards situation by guessing that the experienced/higher level divers had more exposure to effective instruction, whereas the inexperienced divers are low-balling the value of training due to a limited exposure to only mediocre or poor quality instructors.

Learning to identify beneficial... legitimate... instruction is something that comes with experience.

 

[boulderjohn]

The trend in this thread seems to be some inexperienced divers arguing against the need for formal training, and experienced divers arguing for it. Shouldn't it be the other way round? LOL

This is a version of a phenomenon that is manifested in a variety of ways in a variety of situations.

A survey of people who work at various levels in various companies asked what it took to become part of the management of a business. The people who were part of management stressed hard work and training. The people who were not part of management said it was mostly luck.

Scuba instructors who used to teach OW students on their knees but who switched to neutral and horizontal instruction talk about how much easier it is for students to learn that way, how much faster they develop their skills, and how much better they are as divers when they are done with the class. Instructors who have never tried teaching neutral and horizontal say they refuse to try it because they know it must be too hard for students to learn that way, and they don't have the extra time in class that it would take.

In general, people who have made choices to remain outside of a certain system often insist that they do so for reasons that differ from the reported experiences of those within the system.

 

[boulderjohn]

Here is a poem by Stephen Crane that some might find interesting.

The Wayfarer

The wayfarer,
Perceiving the pathway to truth,
Was struck with astonishment.
It was thickly grown with weeds.
"Ha," he said,
"I see that none has passed here
In a long time."
Later he saw that each weed
Was a singular knife.
"Well," he mumbled at last,
"Doubtless there are other roads."​

 

[Diving Dubai]

Perhaps, this is because people can't see any tangible improvement in themselves (in a lot of cases) other than getting a new card. Unless you are learning new skills, and even then once learnt how do you judge.

Take golf for instance. Yes i was stupid enough to play once before I saw the light. People are more inclined to go see a Golf pro for a tune up because they can see (my means of video) improvement to their technique within on lesson, and that (hopefully) translates into a lower score. If peopel plateau or get worse, off they go to the pro again.

In Scuba we don't have means to easily judge our own performance and how we perform alongside others. Thus people feel that because they can complete a dive with out surfacing earl y because of low gas, they have got it mastered.

Perhaps positive feedback in learning has gone too far (everyone gets a prize) certainly in club diving if you are below the accepted standard people won't be shy and telling you so. At first you get offered help, if you continue to think you're above it, then you'll be told as much.

 

[boulderjohn]

In Scuba we don't have means to easily judge our own performance and how we perform alongside others. Thus people feel that because they can complete a dive with out surfacing earl y because of low gas, they have got it mastered.

As someone who does play golf and also dives, I can tell you there is a big difference, and that difference plays directly into this discussion and is a point I have made before.

A really good golf swing has to be extremely precise, and the slightest mistake can lead to a horrendous error. The very greatest professionals in history have while at the top of their game made individual swing errors resulting in truly horrible results.

Recreational scuba is nothing like that. Your skills need only be performed within a very broad range of acceptability to provide perfectly acceptable results. For the overwhelming majority of scuba divers going out on a reef during an annual vacation, plopping in the water in an ill-fitting wet suit and rented BCD and swimming around overweighted at a 45° angle while bicycle kicking and waving their arms is an experience with which they are perfectly contented. No one is keeping score. They don't lose a lot of balls in the underbrush. A DM tells them how much weight to use, makes the navigational decisions for them, and makes sure they don't run out of air. That is just fine with them, and they see no reason to take any more instruction to learn skills they don't think they need.

 

[DevonDiver]

If you can't identify tangible, real, improvement as you progress through a training course, then you aren't being trained. Every dive, every day, of training should be a noticeable step up.

When divers illustrate a cynicism for training, it's often likely that they've never experienced good training and/or under-appreciate the standards they could be achieving.

 

[stuartv]

Which is surprising for your surely?

Given that everything you need to know for a Fundies pass is on YouTube...

It is not surprising to me. Virtually the entire industry is oriented towards funneling students into training with professional or semi-professional instructors. It's no surprise at all that the majority of divers would follow this path rather than spend the (longer) time it would take to learn the stuff and achieve competence at it completely on their own.

we are told in a recent thread that such skills are so easy that any new OW student can do them.

Maybe you're not talking about me, but I have never said ANYONE can learn to dive without formal training. I did not even say that most can do it. I said that lots of people can do it. I was more detailed than that, in that I specified "after basic OW training", and also that I would not include certain specific technical disciplines, like cave diving, in that.

The trend in this thread seems to be some inexperienced divers arguing against the need for formal training, and experienced divers arguing for it.

I suspect you are lumping me into the group arguing against the need for formal training. I want to be clear.

I place a high value on formal training with a good instructor. What I have said is that, I think, for much of scuba diving, I think a lot of people can learn to do it without formal training. I.e. they can achieve competency through self-learning, which may even include INformal training. It will almost certainly take longer than if they simply retained a good certified instructor and had formal training, but the time it takes wasn't the issue that anyone has raised.

You keep advocating formal training as the only way to learn pretty much anything in scuba, right down to deploying an SMB. I have no experience with teaching scuba. But, I do have about 30 years experience in sport motorcycling, including almost 20 years experience in road racing. During that time, I did almost all the mechanical work on my own bikes. And I was an instructor for a time for what is arguably the most highly-regarded motorcycle riding training school in the world.

Suppose you wanted to learn how to change the clutch on a motorcycle. I could teach you how to do that. I could show you. I could have you repeat the process under my watchful eye 8 times. I could give you tips on the specific tools you're using. The order of the bolt removal and installation, etc, etc. We could pretend that the clutch had various different problems. Fried fiber plates. Warped metal plates. Burnt metal plates. Broken clutch springs. Etc.. When finished, I am confident that you would be completely competent to change the clutch on your own.

But, at the end of all that, imagine that I brought in a guy who had no formal training (say, someone like myself, actually). That guy could also change a clutch, but his ability to do so came from figuring it out on his own, using the shop manual, the Internet, whatever. He also changed his clutch 8 times, but he did it each time based on his own experience, what he learned from books, etc., and what he learned each time from having to completely analyze it on his own and figure it out himself.

I take you and the other guy and put you both in front of identical motorcycles that are different than what either of you has worked on before. I'd bet money that the guy who learned it himself will get the clutch changed (and correctly) before you do.

In counterpoint:

Before I became a motorcycle riding instructor, I went through the school as a student. Prior to that, I had been roadracing for 10 years. Up to that point, I had finished well sometimes. And I had an almost unblemished record for finishing races without mechanical problems or crashing. But, I had never won a race. Then I went through the superbike school as a student. In one weekend, my riding improved so much that I started winning races shortly thereafter and won several regional championships over the next few seasons.

I firmly believe that good quality formal training is necessary for some specific things. It's necessary for some people (on any subject). It reduces the time required to learn a subject. And it can help almost anyone, to some degree.

But, as John said, this isn't golf. Nobody is keeping score. Other than Ascents == Descents. It's also not motorcycle racing. Improvements of 3% in SAC rate or time to deploy an SMB or do a valve shutdown are not remotely close to life critical. For the VAST majority of open circuit scuba dives that are done every day around the world deploying an SMB in 40 seconds instead of 60 - or even 120 - just isn't important.

I have no problem saying that good quality formal instruction is very helpful and, in some case, required. What I have a problem with is this dogma that every single thing in scuba MUST be taught in a formal training class by a certified instructor. Before I went through the superbike school as a student, I had been riding motorcycles for 15 years. I had never had formal instruction. I had also never been injured (other than a scraped knee). I was more than proficient. I was more than proficient as a road racer, not just a street rider. Did further training improve my skills? Yes. Was it necessary for me to be a safe and competent street rider? Absolutely not.

If there is a pitfall to doing a valve drill that a person learning it on their own doesn't spot, why can't they ask on here and find out? If they CAN come here and ask the community and learn all the pitfalls and nuances, then why do they have to take a formal training class? If they can't, why is that? If you saw their question, would you refuse to answer, allowing them to proceed on in ignorance?

 

[KevinNM]

The pitfall to learning a valve drill on your own is that you can turn off all your gas underwater if you get the sequence wrong or forget a step. This is embarrassing when there is an instructor who puts a hand on the valve you need to close to shut off all your gas, and keeps you from doing it, I expect it is a bit more exciting when there is not an instructor there.

 

[boulderjohn]

Maybe you're not talking about me, but I have never said ANYONE can learn to dive without formal training.

I was not talking about you. In another thread a poster said that ANY diver at ANY level already had ALL the skills needed to be an instructor at ANY level (including technical). I disagreed, but he was dismissive of my disagreement. Not many people would go that far, but it does represent a point of view.

 

[stuartv]

The pitfall to learning a valve drill on your own is that you can turn off all your gas underwater if you get the sequence wrong or forget a step. This is embarrassing when there is an instructor who puts a hand on the valve you need to close to shut off all your gas, and keeps you from doing it, I expect it is a bit more exciting when there is not an instructor there.

I did that once, during my first tech training session in open water (after prior pool sessions). I realized what I had done and turned my own gas back on before the assistant instructor who was watching me even realized. I didn't think it was a big deal, really, especially as far as practicing a valve drill on your own goes.