Teaching nothing

[wetb4igetinthewater]

Finning! I knew I missed something.

The "breathe slowly and deeply" thing is off a bit too. It doesn't really translate well for new divers. They tend to think they need to breathe fully in and out on every breath.

Yoga breaths!

I'm still trying to figure out how to use Bruce Lee's "Be like water".

One way I explain that I found even newbies understand is to use half of your lungs, use the middle half when you want to stay at the same level, use the bottom (fuller) half when you need to ascend and use the top (emptier) half when you want to descend.

Here we disagree. New divers tend to be nervous so they retain a fair bit of air in their lungs which messes things up when you weight them properly while relaxed as then they are underweighted (bad).

At the start of the dive, the student is negatively buoyant due to the gas they haven't yet breathed (remember, we check for proper weighting at the end of the dive with a nearly empty cylinder). Descents with emptying the wing and exhaling does the trick.

When ascending, it is just taking a fuller breath and possibly lightly finning.

There isn't a middle as they are always breathing. It isn't possible to empty the lungs fully. The lungs should be on average half full. When approaching an object, they should take in a breath to ascend slightly. Once past it, they then exhale sufficiently to drop back and resume long breath cycles.

Does this make sense?

Honestly, I'd love to have this conversation over coffee with a round table discussion with most of you.

 

[KatieMac]

Yoga breaths!

I'm still trying to figure out how to use Bruce Lee's "Be like water".

Not yoga breaths. That's a totally different technique. Exactly calm and slow like yoga - that part for sure. But not always deep like yoga. Sometimes it must be more shallow, like when you need to descend.

 

[tursiops]

I'm more looking at ideas to get the concept across that may be helpful.

One thing I've learned is that people learn differently; the metaphors and concepts and language need to be adapted to the student, not determined by the instructor a priori. "Doing Nothing" may work for you, it may work for some students, but I'll guarantee it gives the wrong imagery to other students. The Duck metaphor won't work for everybody either. I do not believe there is any one description/language/choice-of-words that works for everybody. So, you need to have a whole toolkit of ways to describe your concept you are trying to get across, and if one way isn't clicking, try another.

I used to have a friend in grad school whose first explanation was always terrible, but he would listen to what he was saying, realize it was not good, and then say," In other words...." and go off on a really good explanation. We other grad students used to try and get him to just think the first explanation, and just start with the second one! He finally did this, apparently just thinking the first one briefly, then he's start his verbal explanation with, "In other words...."

 

[wetb4igetinthewater]

Not yoga breaths. That's a totally different technique. Exactly calm and slow like yoga - that part for sure. But not always deep like yoga. Sometimes it must be more shallow, like when you need to descend.

Okay, my understanding of yoga is limited. To me yoga breaths means slow and deep (which is relaxing) and students get the idea. I can imagine if you were my student. "Um, excuse me Kosta, but you don't know what you are talking about ...." LOL

I try to get students to have 10 second breath cycles at the start, but we practice longer. I like to do a bit of prep work out of the water to make inwater instruction smoother.

 

[KatieMac]

"Um, excuse me Kosta, but you don't know what you are talking about ...." LOL

LOL, probably that would be me.

 

[wetb4igetinthewater]

LOL, probably that would be me.

And I would invite you to educate the rest of us and adjust my words accordingly.

One of the mistakes new divers believe is that instructors are real experts. But there are limits to our knowledge, our expertise, our ability to adapt to different students with different learning styles. There are things that we believe as fact in which are incorrect.

There is only one truth, the problem is the truth often eludes us for various reasons: could be poor training/education, could be ego (a big problem with instructors), could even be cultural where admitting one's mistakes is seen as weakness.

This thread has generally gone the way I expected. I greatly appreciate those who engaged with me, including yourself, in a sincere manner, whether they agree or not.

I remember I surprised one of my better students for his opinion on something. I told him not to be surprised, but that "the wise man can always learn from the fool." Not that he was a fool of course, but even though I had more knowledge and experience, I would be so arrogant if I thought I would never learn from his own unique experience/perspective.

There is the phrase "a good diver never stops learning". I think the same thing applies to instructors. While I have had to adapt my teaching to suit different students, there are many ways I have yet to do so. I'm up to the challenge, and as long as my student never gives up, neither will I.

 

[KatieMac]

At the start of the dive, the student is negatively buoyant due to the gas they haven't yet breathed (remember, we check for proper weighting at the end of the dive with a nearly empty cylinder). Descents with emptying the wing and exhaling does the trick.

Going back to this ... remember the 3mm/5mm discussion? If I struggle a bit to get down a the beginning of my dive because I've been too lazy to change the weights, I pull the neck of my dry 5mm to let some water in. Looks funny as hell but remedies the situation.

 

[BoltSnap]

Burham, when you dive do you just swim for 45-60 minutes or do your life to stop and look at things. Proper weighting and trim helps the diver to achieve these things. Even vacation divers in poodle SP jackets like to look at corral and fish. Teaching them how to achieve balance without waving their arms are having to be moving via find improves their underwater experience.

I wasn't asking for myself actually, I was trying to ask the OP to explain what he is advocating is important to the average and beginner diver (we are in the Basic Scuba forum) who doesn't understand what this is all about. All who are engaged in this discussion appear to be highly experienced divers but the lurkers in this forum who are probably the target of the discus ion don't have the full picture. When one is introducing an idea of a skill to to an audience that probably doesn't see the value in what he is trying to explain, this person needs to show the value and the benefits to the audience first.

Other people have been doing it some other way but not exactly the way the OP is presenting, they need to understand why they should change.

In all of the above, I am not saying that the OP is, or isn't, correct or his thoughts are relavent to the average beginner diver, or any recreational diver.

 

[wetb4igetinthewater]

Looks funny as hell but remedies the situation.

As long as it works!

 

[KatieMac]

I remember I surprised one of my better students for his opinion on something. I told him not to be surprised, but that "the wise man can always learn from the fool." Not that he was a fool of course, but even though I had more knowledge and experience, I would be so arrogant if I thought I would never learn from his own unique experience/perspective.

I remember a relatively new instructor who happened to be the DM for one of my dives. It was just the two of us plus a DMT. After 69 minutes, the instructor had to call the dive because he was low on air. I surfaced with 1200 and he was at 400. The DMT was lower.

I was very flattered when he asked me how I did that.