Teaching nothing

[billgraham]

It's the hardest thing in diving.

 

[TMHeimer]

I like the OP's OP. I think it ties in with the move toward teaching the (24 PADI?) OW pool skills neutrally. I have posted often that though I agree with this, it doesn't make much of a difference if the student is comfortable in water before the course begins. That's an old opinion from me. In my case, being taught skills on the pool bottom, it took maybe 5 dives after the course to dial in my buoyancy. At times I do practice hovering, especially close to the surface and swimming back to shore within 3 feet of the surface. But, I see the other side of the discussion-- Being a shell collector, I am rarely motionless in the water column--either moving or reaching down for a shell or to poke spear a flounder. The only real time I'm motionless is when I specifically do that for fun. It's a great skill to have, and one that everyone should have, though how often you use it depends on your type of diving. I guess if you can easily be motionless it is a help when you add/release BCD air or use breathing to control buoyancy. But if you can't easily be motionless you can still probably have a good dive and not crash into the bottom, etc.

 

[Bob DBF]

I agree trim is often used to mean orientation, "In horizontal trim".

But it also means trim "tanks" say on a submarine to shift ballast distribution, which are used to achieve up or down bow angle. (some submariners can step in to correct me, a sub may have few reasons to be out of a horizontal orientation when not moving, and not last long with an unbalanced weight distribution.)

Trim tanks on a sub are used to shift ballast to maintain a horizontal trim, fore and aft, when the ship hovers. The first dive of every cruise is a trim dive to insure that any weight changes on board, stores or equipment, are compensated for. Any attitude changes are made with the planes. Understandable because of context, but when the planesman has an ordered 10 degree up angle, and is at 9°or 11°, he is out of trim.

When we wanted to screw with a new Ballast Control Panel watch stander, we would get 20 or more guys into the foward torpedo room and when the trim was right all would get as far aft as possible in the engine room, which would screw up his trim. We would move about 2 tons from one end of the boat to the other and see how long it took for operator to figure out he was being played.

 

[Gandalf-the-Diver]

We would move about 2 tons from one end of the boat to the other and see how long it took for operator to figure out he was being played.

 

[DeepSeaExplorer]

A) You and they are constantly flailing about and unsteady on your feet. Arms, hips and upper body are moving all about just to stand up or to move in roughly some desired direction.

This is a good analogy for this discussion because we’re expecting someone that just learned to stand to be able to dance like a pro.

Perfect trim and buoyancy take experience and experimentation to develop and fine tune. That means time in the water. It’s unrealistic to expect from someone that just learned to dive, and barely knows how to assemble rental gear.

If this were a requirement, SCUBA classes would be unaffordable for students and unprofitable for instructors, due to the amount of time students would be in training.

We’re talking about probably less than 20% of divers that have high-level skills, but newly certified divers are supposed to have skills most experienced divers don’t? Doesn’t make sense.

 

[mcohen1021]

Joining this one a little late but... yes the b less active you are, your air consumption will improve. But nothing helped more than weight loss. I dropped 34# from 198 to 164 and not only did I waterski more competitively, but my resting pulse dropped below 50 and my air consumption is within 100 psi of my wife's who is 5 ft tall and 115#.

 

[Lorenzoid]

This is a good analogy for this discussion because we’re expecting someone that just learned to stand to be able to dance like a pro.

Perfect trim and buoyancy take experience and experimentation to develop and fine tune.

I recall my Fundies instructor analogizing the process of learning to dive skillfully to a baby learning to walk. First, we learn to “crawl.” That is, begin by learning the absolutely most rudimentary skill: staying still and doing nothing at all. THEN, we can learn to “walk,” i.e., do a real dive. Fundies ends without teaching the student to “dance,” but to me the analogy sounds like it might be technical, cave, etc.

 

[boulderjohn]

When highly experienced divers, including highly experienced instructors, come to me to start technical diving training, hovering motionless in horizontal trim is just about the hardest part of their training, and I can assure you there are technical divers who still struggle with that. I am having a hard time understanding why it is so necessary for a new OW student to master that skill.

When I was a new technical instructor, I had the grand idea of teaching classes to bring those skills to the recreational divers associated with the shop where I worked, and there are a lot of recreational divers associated with that shop--they have three full time employees working on dive travel for them. I discovered that those divers had close to zero interest in that. They were very content with their current skill levels. That includes the other instructors working there. They had zero interest, and my attempts to convince them of how much better diving would be for them was met with a general "Meh! I'm happy where I am."

In the years since, I have come to peace with that. When I do recreational diving in Florida each winter, and when I went on my most recent trips to Australia, Bali, Palau, Roatan, and Cozumel, I saw plenty of divers who almost certainly could not hover motionless in trim but who were nonetheless plenty capable of doing their dives and having a good time doing them.

 

[tursiops]

When highly experienced divers, including highly experienced instructors, come to me to start technical diving training, hovering motionless in horizontal trim is just about the hardest part of their training, and I can assure you there are technical divers who still struggle with that. I am having a hard time understanding why it is so necessary for a new OW student to master that skill.

When I was a new technical instructor, I had the grand idea of teaching classes to bring those skills to the recreational divers associated with the shop where I worked, and there are a lot of recreational divers associated with that shop--they have three full time employes working on dive travel for them. I discovered that those divers had close to zero interest in that. They were very content with their current skill levels. That includes the other instructors working there. They had zero interest, and my attempts to convince them of how much better diving would be for them was met with a general "Meh! I'm happy where I am."

In the years since, I have come to peace with that. When I do recreational diving in Florida each winter, and when I went on my most recent trips to Australia, Palau, Roatan, and Cozumel, I saw plenty of divers who almost certainly could not hover motionless in trim but who were nonetheless plenty capable of doing their dives and having a good time doing them.

This thread is kind of like, “What’s good for General Bullmoose is good for everybody!”

 

[Vicko]

When highly experienced divers, including highly experienced instructors, come to me to start technical diving training, hovering motionless in horizontal trim is just about the hardest part of their training t.

THIS
I have been working in or around tec diving oriented dive centres for 8 years now and there is maybe 1 in 100 divers that are diving in trim, surprising amount can't hold a deco stop without a rope or bottom for a guide.