Teach Different. Dive Different.

[Thalassamania]

Peter has it right. Horizontal hover, face up, face down, vertical over, head up, head down, and everything in between. Even Buddha for the fun of it, head up and head down.

 

[gcarter]

My son does a great Buddha. And a great stand on his head hover. And a great hang inches from the bottom hover. Vertical, horizontal, all points in between. They are simply demonstrations of his good buoyancy control. Does it really matter which pose he tried first? Or that he can do all of them, and others to boot? If I could do a Buuddha as well as he does, I would be well on my way to the same level of buoyancy control he enjoys. How is that bad?

It ain't about the pose, folks. It is just a pose. It is about the skill.

Awareness of where your fins are has nothing to do with buoyancy. I have seen way too many with good buoyancy control kick the reef. It is silly to think the two are the same.

 

[The Chairman]

BTW, Netdoc, your comment about not wanting to do a Budha Hover while looking under something is just one of those comments that perhaps shows you don't understand that everyone should be able to maintain many different "hovers." It is just as bad as being a cave diver and saying you should always be horizontal -- Hmmm, try going UP a small chimney while horizontal when, in reality, you may well want to be (or need to be) vertical. The key is being neutral and controlling your position -- not the position itself, is it not?

Most every time I have seen the Buddha position, it's been a case of "Look at me! Aren't I cool?" When that diver comes out of the Buddha pose only six inches above the reef, what happens to their feet? I am anything but a horizontal nazi. Anyone who dives with me can attest to seeing me upside down, sideways, flat to the bottom (without touching) and more. All the time I am consistently worried about what my feet are doing so I don't kick the reef. NASE really sets itself apart from the other agencies by not setting bad examples for students during the OW dives. One descent/one ascent per dive, doing all skills neutrally and off the bottom, working on gas management and buddy skills from the beginning go a long way to teaching how to dive while the instructor walks the walk as well. It's not that NASE doesn't teach a CESA... we do it horizontally in a pool, where we set a great example by not exposing the instructor to bubble pumping and not giving the students the idea that bounce dives are acceptable. In fact, the student has to show exemplary skills in the pool or it's no OW dives until they do. It's sad that an agency striving for excellence in these areas is labeled by Thal as being "insulting".

From what you are saying: we both don't teach the Buddha position for the same reasons. Trim AND buoyancy are the true measure of a good diver. Situational and buddy awareness go hand in hand with that skill and the Buddha position promotes being neutral while ignoring the other aspects. Hey, I used to teach "Sea horse races" to promote neutral buoyancy until I realized that it promoted divers swimming with their hands. I avoid practices that promote bad habits.

 

[RTee]

That's not a GOOD Buddha.

This one is probably the best one I ever witnessed (DM in Cozumel) even though I have no inclination to emulate for various reasons, the last one being that at my age, after having undergone three knee surgeries, I could end up stuck in that position and divers would need to carry me out and unpretzle me.

 

[SeaCobra]

Most every time I have seen the Buddha position, it's been a case of "Look at me! Aren't I cool?"

And what’s wrong with that? Couldn't the same thing be said about your avatar? Just you having a little fun, it’s OK to have a little fun underwater.

I am glad that folks have found NASE to be a good agency for them and I do plan on stopping by the booth at some point at DEMA for info. But from what I have gleaned during this thread, NASE is not for me. I do not see that there is anything that I do not already have with NAUI, not any significant improvements.
NASE requires 3 dives for OW certification, NAUI requires 5. NAUI has a higher standard and affords me 2 more opportunities to be in the water with my divers. NASE requires 100 minutes of dive time, NAUI requires 5 dives with 20 minute minimum (to count as a dive) so that’s a push. NASE allows the OW dives to be done in 1 day while NAUI requires 2. This allows more opportunity for me to be with my divers and additional time for everything to sink in and improve retention.

NAUI still requires a CESA to be done in open water, this teaches a valuable skill – action! Is there any data showing instructors at risk for performing multiple CESA exercises? I have been teaching actively for 24 years and have a few days with many a CESA without incident. You should conduct the CESA safely with a little common sense; it is done from a relatively shallow depth and with a controlled ascent rate, so I feel it is still a valuable skill for the open water. What if there isn’t a shallow end to the pool, sort of speak? Teaching to swim directly to the surface (the shortest distance) in the event of an emergency is more important than a horizontal swim.

Of course proper gas management, dive planning and buddy skills are much more important and effective for safe diving. Running out of gas underwater is something that just should not happen, but it does. Staying close enough and attentive enough to your dive buddy to be able to render immediate assistance is where we should all be, but sometimes we “see a dog with a fluffy tail” and get distracted.

And I find fin pivots to be fun and a good beginner learning step. It allows the diver to experience the impact a simple breath of air can have. It gets the diver in a laid out position and they start to get the feeling of buoyancy control and gain experience with the inflate and deflate of their bc. It then quickly and easily progresses into hovering off the bottom and then maintaining that position.

Why do people dislike snorkels so much? Snorkeling can be a lot of fun and solid snorkeling skills make you a better diver. Snorkels can be very useful on the surface to swim out to a dive site and conserve your back gas, can make it easier to breathe on the surface with a bit of chop while waiting for your turn on the ladder or for the group to gather.

 

[The Chairman]

Dropped by the NASE booth yesterday and I really liked what I saw. All the pics in the new AOW manual show great neutral buoyancy. The best part was an entire section devoted to enhancing the core skills. This requires the instructor to actually assess their basic skills. While I see this as part of many standards, I rarely see it happen. I like the move to enforce this requirement.

I really like the way the agency is going. They are dedicated to making it right.

 

[nimoh]

I am a little confused by the video.

All of the divers in the video have a yellow octopus up until the end when they demonstrate sharing gas, and then the donor has a bungee backup and donates the primary. However, the primary looks to be about a 40" hose routed under his arm and the bungee backup is coming from the left side.

In the core philosophies list:
The best way for recreational divers to share air? Pass the primary…just as in cave and tech diving.

Would the other divers donate their primary and breathe from their own octopus?

What is the purpose of the bungee backup from the left side?

I have other questions, but perhaps the answers to these two will partly answer the others

 

[davetowz]

Interesting. In 8 pages of discussion NASE has not replied at all, interested in the NASE view of all these posts.

 

[The Chairman]

Interesting. In 8 pages of discussion NASE has not replied at all, interested in the NASE view of all these posts.

NASE feels it's instructors have done a fine job of representing them in this thread. In fact, Scott Evans and I discussed this very thread for some length and he brought out an interesting point. Most agencies have neutral buoyancy as a skill to be demonstrated for a discreet amount of time. NASE requires neutral buoyancy to be demonstrated THROUGHOUT the open water dives: the entire dive.

I was talking to an instructor for another agency last night and he went into great detail how his class differed from his colleagues classes (same shop and same agency). His point was that teaching the entire class neutrally was possible for that agency. Now this was at the most raucous party ever thrown at DEMA so I'm not sure he understood me, but my comment was that the big difference for me is that his fellow instructors would not be meeting NASE standards. I like being associated with other instructors who teach like I do. I don't want to be the exception in my agency.

BTW, the party was hosted by Hog/Edge, NASE and ScubaBoard at Hog and Heifers in old Vegas. It was loud, it was raucous and most kept their shirts on. Hog and Heifers is a true biker's bar where the bar maids still dance on the bar from time to time. I had a blast.

 

[NASEHQ]

They way the video was cut, it actually showed two different methods. We offer both as options, you may read more here:
Which Second Stage? | NASE Worldwide Diver Training Blog . Thanks for pointing that out!

---------- Post added November 20th, 2012 at 12:31 PM ----------

Yes, we have not replied in 8 pages. DEMA, product development, diving and training new instructors has limited any extra time (we do love people discussing us, pro or con) we have and will certainly reply ASAP. If there is something you would like us to address sooner than later, please PM us and I will ensure to jump on it. Thanks for joining this thread!