SCUBA skills enhanced by snorkeling

[d33ps1x]

There is only one slight problem, in that freediving is focused on taking a full deep breath of air and holding it, whereas with scuba, Cousteau's Rule #1 is "Never hold your breath... ."

The historic NAUI and YMCA way of teaching scuba was first to teach you freediving together with many freediving skills, then to subsequently wean you onto the scuba gear. This is also how scuba diving skills were first developed, by Florida and SoCalif (and French and British and Italian) freedivers. That is also how I learned. We became freedivers first, then scuba divers second. This is also how I taught my wife, since I wanted her to learn the traditional approach as well, and I wanted her to get used to the ocean with fins, mask, and snorkel before being incumbered with tanks and gear.

There is a drawback to this approach, in that it tends to reinforce the breathholding practice, even during the scuba phase. The habit is unconscious. You do not realize you are doing it.

I do not teach scuba students to be freedivers first. I teach them "Never hold your breath on scuba." The reason is risk related and insurance related. And therefore that also rules out freediving training before scuba, in my opinion.....

I don't know.

This line of thinking makes me think I should perhaps turn in my motorcycle license.

I can't possibly successfully drive a car and then go and drive a motorcycle. I might forget to lean into my turns or something???

Bottom line is aquatic comfort is aquatic comfort no matter what you are doing.

 

[IndigoBlue]

I don't know.

This line of thinking makes me think I should perhaps turn in my motorcycle license.

I can't possibly successfully drive a car and then go and drive a motorcycle. I might forget to lean into my turns or something???

Bottom line is aquatic comfort is aquatic comfort no matter what you are doing.

True enough, but that still does not address the limited available time issue with modern lesser training standards across all agencies, compared with 30 years ago.

In a college scuba class, however, you still have lots of time to take the students all the way through a snorkeling, freediving, and scuba diving training experience, as well as advanced nav and nitrox and rescue.

It just depends on what learning environment you are talking about.

 

[d33ps1x]

True enough, but that still does not address the limited available time issue with modern lesser training standards across all agencies, compared with 30 years ago.

In a college scuba class, however, you still have lots of time to take the students all the way through a snorkeling, freediving, and scuba diving training experience, as well as advanced nav and nitrox and rescue.

It just depends on what learning environment you are talking about.

A point I intended to throw in there and actually cut it out because I didn't want it to sound insulting. I'd be happy to have gotten the extended and diverse old skool training you got.

Scuba classes are far too short these days. A lot of the ridiculous logic inherent in big agency standards I think are a direct result of the the neccesity to not overcomplicate things due to time limitations.

Having to skip things because they would open up other doors that would cut down on profit margins is the wrong approach. I've never been good at being handed answers like, "Just because.", or "We actually cover that 2 courses from now and it is outside the scope of your current training."

I strongly believe that if the time limitations disappeared a lot of the compounded shortcomings of scuba training would also. It's a domino effect of inadequacy.

 

[Walter]

What a load of crap!

There is a drawback to this approach, in that it tends to reinforce the breathholding practice, even during the scuba phase. The habit is unconscious. You do not realize you are doing it.

You are forgetting one small detail. Every student you get already holds his breath when underwater. Your argument doesn't hold up. According to that argument, you couldn't teach SCUBA to anyone who's ever had their head under water. Ridiculous! This is NOT an issue.

Go over in the shallow end of the pool, sit on the steps, make sure you can breathe through your snorkel while sitting underwater, with your snorkel sticking out of the water, then flood your mask, and clear it, while you continue to breathe on your snorkel..

You've accomplished nothing unless you ditch the snorkel.

I do not believe it is necessary or wise to teach everyone to be freedivers before scuba, simply because of the short time that is now involved in most basic open water courses. And there is not time to learn and then un-learn breathholding.

It's not wise to leave it out. It increases the chances your divers will panic and die. When you teach free diving, you don't teach them to hold their breath, they already know how.

I believe there is no longer any room in a basic open water course curriculum for freediving instruction and training,

Take the time, good instructors do.

Neither do the teaching standards require it.

It is if your agency has good standards.

limited available time issue with modern lesser training standards across all agencies, compared with 30 years ago.

It's not all agencies. The limited time issue sounds like you think it's ok to cut corners because others do.

 

[chickdiver]

Hmmm NAUI standards still require that we teach those snorkeling skills.....

 

[Snowbear]

PADI requires snorkeling, but freediving is optional.

 

[quimby]

You are forgetting one small detail. Every student you get already holds his breath when underwater. Your argument doesn't hold up. According to that argument, you couldn't teach SCUBA to anyone who's ever had their head under water. Ridiculous! This is NOT an issue

Thank you Walter, your comments are much more elequent than the rant I thought about.

 

[IndigoBlue]

A point I intended to throw in there and actually cut it out because I didn't want it to sound insulting. I'd be happy to have gotten the extended and diverse old skool training you got.

Scuba classes are far too short these days. A lot of the ridiculous logic inherent in big agency standards I think are a direct result of the the neccesity to not overcomplicate things due to time limitations.

Having to skip things because they would open up other doors that would cut down on profit margins is the wrong approach. I've never been good at being handed answers like, "Just because.", or "We actually cover that 2 courses from now and it is outside the scope of your current training."

I strongly believe that if the time limitations disappeared a lot of the compounded shortcomings of scuba training would also. It's a domino effect of inadequacy.

The college P.E. scuba classes still have the luxury of going the traditional snorkeling-freediving-scuba route. Anyone in college who is thinking about scuba, I strongly urge them to take a P.E. class like that.

I still recall mine vividly.

We began with a whole day of swimming tests, surface swimming and underwater swimming. I was surprised at how many students in the class were great swimmers, some of whom had also swum competitively in high school.

Then we graduated to snorkeling skills, about wearing and clearing a snorkel. For many of the swimmers, this was their first experience with a snorkel.

Next was surface diving, and blast clearing the snorkel upon surfacing without taking your face out of the water. This is actually where the breathholding began. Snorkeling itself is not associated with breathholding.

Next we learned breath control, and relaxation underwater, with slow gentle movements. The acid test came with the skin diving ditch and recovery drill, where you swam to the bottom of the 20 ft pool (a deep olympic board diving pool), removed your fins, mask, and snorkel, placed them in a stack, then swam up, took a few breaths, surface dived, and returned to put them all on underwater, clearing your mask and snorkel as you re-surfaced. This was the final test, before the instructors let you onto the scuba equipment.

They wanted you to be cool headed, self controlled freedivers first, before you became a scuba diver.

As I said, during the scuba phase, you must then un-learn the breathholding habit. On scuba, you should breath continuously, in , and out, without holding your breath at any time. For students, its a critical skill to learn, with safety and insurance issues, if they do not learn it well.

 

[IndigoBlue]

Hmmm NAUI standards still require that we teach those snorkeling skills.....

I believe that is what I said, about snorkeling. Unlike freediving.

 

[Bob3]

It's a crying shame the basic skills are so often blown right past in order to get tanks on the kids.
You can always tell a person who has made the progression through the skin diving ranks, they always handle themselves so much more gracefuly underwater.