regrets...I've had a few...er, skills I learnt after the fact

[Divesherpa]

The previous post by stirling brings up a wonderful point. The skill that I am most grateful for learning is communication. When I travel to a new area, the first that I do is find a local Divemaster. I'll ask about local conditions and hazards (as well as what's awesome, standard, OK, and to be avoided). This information is very helpful, along with other tips. I haven't been diving recreationally in many areas where a local divemaster wasn't willing to spend time orienting me to the local environment. In my experience, divemasters are much more helpful than instructors. Divemasters also tend to be more motivated about diving for fun instead of profit.

An appetizer and a couple of cocktails will pave the way for many exciting dives and an insider's knowledge of your surroundings (like the current mentioned above).

Remember, a good divemaster knows the area and conditions better than almost anyone else that you'll meet. If you are on a dive boat, ask the divemaster about the area. If you are on a reef, tell the DM what you like to see. They can generally steer you in the right direction. They love to share something that is very important to them.

Cheers,
Jamie :babycrawl (crawling back to divemaster with a smile)

 

[Azza]

Divemasters also tend to be more motivated about diving for fun instead of profit.

Bingo! We DM's love to help divers out for kicks, not bucks. Our little reward is seeing OW divers become great divers

I say getting your bouyancy right is number one, then dive dive dive as much as you can.

Find a DM or other experienced to diver to hang with and use them as a mentor. Mentoring is the best way to gain diving prowess. I have a mate who has done thousands of dives, who is still OW. He didnt see the point in doing more courses because he didnt see that they will teach him anything, and he is right to an extent. He just hung around with more experienced divers and gained from hanging and diving with them.

 

[MikeFerrara]

An entry level class should, IMO, first show a diver what good diving is and why they want to get there. Second it should geve them a SOLID foundation in basic skills that they can build on rather than a bunch of bad habits that they will have to break before they can ever really improve.

In a given set of conditions a new diver needs the same skills and will benefite as much or more from them as the most experience diver in the world.

I think the idea that a new diver is somehow safe in the water while still strugling with basics comes from the fact that so many people do most of their diving under supervision. As far as I know there is no reprieve from potential dangers just because you're new.

Would we still teach the same if we assumed that the first post-cert dive of each of our students was going to take place while buddied with another new diver and no DM anywhere in sight? That c-card gives the green light for a diver to go out and dive as they see fit.

 

[Ber Rabbit]

This is not a skill I wished I'd learned in OW but a skill I'm glad I learned. Our class covered a lot of stress and problem solving skills. Exercises were used through the class that were designed to put the diver under stress, mild stress at first (doing a search without a mask-that's what you were searching for-with chlorine burning your eyes) then subsequently higher levels of stress as the class progressed. Many classes consider this to be harassing the diver so they don't do it. I was a panicky student and the exercises helped me realize that I had control over my reaction to any situation. The blindfolded search for CO2 cartridges while keeping track of and communicating with your buddy exercise was the reason I hung around the dive program as long as I have so I guess that stress inducing exercise is the only reason I'm an instructor now.
Ber :lilbunny:

 

[boxcar]

Thanks for all the input here! This is good stuff. Keep 'em coming

 

[RiverRat]

For me there was not enough emphasis on "trimming out" and proper weight checks with a close to empty tank (500 psi.) I went right to AOW (not a bad thing) with horrible trim and so-so buoyancy skills in my rental gear. That forced me to seek out the knowledge on my own. I put in MANY late nights here on SB searching posts and downloading every buoyancy calculator and document related to neutral buoyancy I could find. I bought/built my own gear and started diving it. In the end it all paid off. Once I learned to RELAX (now possible with proper weighting, trim) my diving really started to improve. Diving was now FUN, not a chore. I came full circle right back to where I started with a Discover Scuba dive in St. Thomas. The guy had me weighted perfect and it was a very relaxing first dive.

 

[MXGratefulDiver]

Would we still teach the same if we assumed that the first post-cert dive of each of our students was going to take place while buddied with another new diver and no DM anywhere in sight? That c-card gives the green light for a diver to go out and dive as they see fit.

Mike, around here that would be a valid assumption ... most new divers do go out and do their first post OW dives with someone they went through class with.

And NOBODY around here gets led around by a DM. Heck, the charter boats don't even have DM's. They brief the site, then tell you to get off their boat and have a nice dive.

Most of my first 25 dives were with someone I went through OW with ... the rest were with a co-worker, former Navy diver who hadn't a clue what a dive buddy was for.

It wasn't until a few months after I got certified ... when I took my first warm-water trip to Belize ... that I ever did a dive with a DM to lead me around.

Getting back to the original topic ... I would've like to see buddy skills and gas management techniques emphasized more during OW ...

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

 

[mm777]

As a new diver it's been somewhat alarming to realize that my OW class (given by a less than enthused LDS owner who was in the process of closing down his shop) had quite a few shortcomings. Buoyancy was never addressed after the first "weighting" session at the shallow end of the pool. Buddy checks, boat diving basics, navigation and lots of other basic skills were things I had to learn about later.

I'm just soooooo thankful I've made every dive since certification with a good friend who is a commercial diver. Every dive is a new "class" and this guy keeps me progressing at a good steady pace.

 

[kidspot]

It may sound strange, but a key skill that took me a while to learn was how to DO ABSOLUTELY NOTHING. By that, I mean learning how to halt all motion of any kind and then adjusting BCD buoyancy to be truly neutral. And then using lung volume changes to make minor depth changes. Diving became so much easier when I didn't have to keep finning to stay at the same depth.

After learning how to stop all motion it was just another small step to getting my weighting right, which in turn made it so much easier to control buoyancy since I didn't have a huge bubble of air in the BC expanding and contracting as I ascended and descended.

Charlie

While I'm still in the "new to diving" category I would completely agree with you on this one - I'm slowly getting better, but I didn't realize how much I still move constantly until after seeing myself on video recently. The other skill which I asked about and was told was nearly impossible (though I have since seen a couple of divers do quite gracefully) is the backward kick. Those two skills are ones that are very high on my current priority list to master, just to make diving all the more fun and enjoyable.

Aloha, Tim

 

[Charlie99]

- I'm slowly getting better, but I didn't realize how much I still move constantly until after seeing myself on video recently. Aloha, Tim

Yeah. Doing nothing is a lot harder than it sounds! Although I'm good about avoiding extra motion underwater, I did catch myself finning away while waiting on the surface the other day rather than just letting the BC do its job. But I'm getting older, wiser, and lazier.,,, ooops, I mean more efficient.