The big list of drills

[TMHeimer]

I do some of the listed drills once in a while. Some, as stated, are just part of normal diving. I don't practise buddy ones because any rare time I'm with a buddy it's almost always someone new, so we just cover the basics. One drill not on the list that I do practise almost every dive is a CESA from 15-30'. I figure it may someday come in real handy. For those that I can't/don't practise regularly I do review them all once a week on land-- ei. "go through the motions". I have found this is enough to keep me quite capable of assisting a student in an OW class. At least I haven't had any complaints.

 

[ozzydamo]

We practice ditching the weight belt and doing a controlled buoyant ascent by flaring out.
We practice buddy breathing, with and without masks.
We practice ditching the entire scuba unit and swimming up and then back down to retrieve it.
We practice removal and replacement of the tank underwater.

I don't necessarily recommend that any of these drills be done. They are ones that I think are essential for comfort with the gear.

This video, starting at 0:55 minutes shows some of the stuff I am teaching my daughter on her third time using a tank..


[video=youtube_share;NmeQmWZ_tzY]http://youtu.be/NmeQmWZ_tzY?t=1m[/video]

You need to change your tank O-ring its leaking and your alternate/inflator(on your left side) its leaking as well(probably overdue for a service).

I don't like how she's got a inflator/alternate reg to start with.

I would be careful she loses interest because she's being taught too much unnecessary stuff to soon- like rig removal underwater, that's a dive master skill not a 3rd dive with a tank sort of thing.

She looks to have good form, she must be a reasonably good free diver anyhow, so probably not so much a challenge all the same.

Why not a ESA with reg out of mouth, blowing out slowly and done independently, it's probably the most vital out of everything and gives great confidence if practiced until it is absolutely comfortable.

We dive firstly because it's fun, if it isn't fun it might be dropped over time. So the first 54seconds was the most important .......don't get me wrong I think it's great you train your daughter- just to be a counter thought for you.

Comfort with the gear comes with hours spent using it, so pushing it faster won't really do much extra benefit the learning curve is there 20 dives to 50 dives they are all discovery and familiarising of the equipment, really confidence begins at 50 dives. Making your hand signals slowly, overt gestured, whilst keeping good eye contact is more important then the task, on the 3rd dive. Tortoise always wins the race to the finish!

Fun and safe diving,
Damon

 

[ShootingUnderwater.com]

So which OW skills would you practice for safety considerations only? No one mentioned safety sausage or signaling devices. Would you or do you have a line on a spool attached to your safety sausage? How long is it? How often should you check it?

~ R

 

[boulderjohn]

I am having trouble understanding how the word "drill" is being used here.

To me, the generic sequence of dive instruction is to learn a skill at a basic level, drill to mastery, and revisit the skill for practice as needed. For example, when I learned cave diving, I had to learn to lay line. I was shown how to do it, and I practiced it. I even practiced it in a swimming pool using a number of objects. I would call that drill. Then I did a lot of cave diving, but by far most of it was done with someone else laying the line. My skills got rusty.Consequently, last week I went to a dive site with a bunch of rocks on the bottom and revisited the skill to resharpen my skills. If on the majority of my cave dives I had been the one laying the line, I would not have felt the need to do a special dive to revisit and drill on that skill.

Note that each step of that process was determined by where I was in my own diving development. I sure don't think laying line should be on the list of drills for an OW diver with 50 logged dives.

A couple of years ago we had another thread in which someone listed the drills he did regularly in the pool, and I thought he was getting ridiculous. For example, he spent part of each practice session perfecting the fin pivot. What is the point in that? At no point in his pool sessions was he trying to learn anything new--he was just perfecting his most basic skills.

I think you have to make a constant evolving inventory of your skills and then allocate your training time appropriately among past skills you need to practice and new learning. For example, I did not spend as much time on my dives last weekend working on laying line as I had hoped because I was using a new side mount rig and it was taking me longer to acquire those new skills than I expected. I can't imagine working from a set list of skills on which I need to drill.

 

[Storker]

No one mentioned safety sausage or signaling devices.

For me, that's the way I dive, just like finning techniques, positioning/trim and compass navigation. When I dive from my boat, I routinely shoot a sausage from my safety stop, because 1. It tells the boat tender we're due to surface in some 3 to 5 minutes, 2. it makes it a lot easier for the boat tender to spot us and pick us up (particularly if there's a little bit of chop), and 3. it makes it a lot easier to go re-e-a-l-l-y slowly from my SS to the surface, something that I know reduces post-dive fatigue quite significantly.

Would you or do you have a line on a spool attached to your safety sausage? How long is it?

A spool with 30m of line and a double-ender is always attached to the sausage, and they live together in my left thigh pocket. Since I'm shooting it quite often, it's a hassle to have to assemble the kit every time. Besides, IMNSHO, if you're not familiar with shooting a sausage, I think the added task loading of having to attach the line to the sausage is something that could well be avoided in a stressed situation.

How often should you check it?

Since I shoot my sausage (am I the only one who feels that this sentence might be understood in an NSFW meaning?) about every second dive on average, that's how often I check mine. Besides, it's not exactly a complicated contraption, a quick look should tell you if it's OK. I do that every time I kit up and put the sausage/spool assembly into my thigh pocket.



EDIT: When that's said, I don't have enough dives to not work on some aspect or another with my diving. Breathing pattern, trim (i.e. DS bubble control and placement), buoyancy control, finning technique, positioning, buddy contact, and situational awareness are all things I (almost) always try to improve on every dive. For me, improving my skills in anything I'm doing for fun, be it diving, mountainbiking, shooting, alpine hiking, cross-country and downhill/Telemark skiing, photography, or cooking (or, for that sake, my job) is something that brings me quite a bit of satisfaction.

 

[TSandM]

To me, a drill is a deliberate practice of something in which I am either weak, or do not do regularly (or, often, both!). For example, I shot a bag on a dive a couple of weeks ago, and noticed some buoyancy instability when I did so. I came home determined to make some opportunities to shoot bags, as I do not do them often in the diving here at home. That makes it a drill. Air sharing is almost always a drill, because the number of times I've had to donate gas to another diver for real (none of which was for being out of gas) is very small. I rarely do it, so the only way it gets done is as a deliberate practice, or drill.

 

[TMHeimer]

To me, a drill is a deliberate practice of something in which I am either weak, or do not do regularly (or, often, both!). For example, I shot a bag on a dive a couple of weeks ago, and noticed some buoyancy instability when I did so. I came home determined to make some opportunities to shoot bags, as I do not do them often in the diving here at home. That makes it a drill. Air sharing is almost always a drill, because the number of times I've had to donate gas to another diver for real (none of which was for being out of gas) is very small. I rarely do it, so the only way it gets done is as a deliberate practice, or drill.

Yes. There aren't a whole lot of the "20 basic skills" you ever do for real on a dive. Mask clearing of course. Deep Water Entry. Haven't had to retrieve my reg yet in 9 years. Removed the unit twice on the surface and put it on in water occasionally. So you must practise them to keep them up to snuff.

 

[kathydee]

That's how you dive *now*. At some point you practiced the drills until you got them right, didn't you?

To me, the generic sequence of dive instruction is to learn a skill at a basic level, drill to mastery, and revisit the skill for practice as needed.

Well said. Exactly what I did and do. When learning new skills I practiced much of what is on the OP's list. When working towards meeting certification standards or prepping for a new class about 40-60% of every 4th dive was dedicated to practice.

Now I just use the skills on most dives, so that's practice in it's self. Occasionally I do put in extra designated practice time as needed as needed. I also end up doing skills when helping newer divers master new movements. To keep emergency skills automatic, I'll often do a V-Drill and S-Drill (gas share) with a new to me dive buddy or occasionally with regular dive buddies.

Unless training for something specific or learning new equipment - at this point, it's very rare to dedicate an entire dive to skills. If we need to work on something, we mostly just incorporate skill practice into dives. For example, I recently decided to refine kicks a bit, so a couple minutes during a dive was spent videoing various kicks. I watched the video clip at home, consciously made an effort to play around with my kicking technique for the next few dives - then we shot another video clip so I could check the progress. To practice reel work we just go cave diving

More often than not, we just dive !

 

[Oldbear]

What kind of drills do you guys practice now and then?
Here are the ones I can think of.

Kicking techniques:

Positioning:

Drills:

Out of Gas:

Free Flow:

Navigation:

Alewar,

You have a nice list of skills/drills to practice in your quarry; all of which will make you a better dive than most other divers. Here are my suggestions:

1. Practice your skills/drills not only for accuracy (how well you can do them) but now include precision (how well you can do them while maintaining your orientation and position in the water column). Example: Can you hover in a nice horizontal trim; can you hover in a nice horizontal trim without ascending/descending more than 1/3m?

2. Start to combine them. Example: I know the S Drills are progressively building upon the last drill; but what about navigation with the four flutter and frog kicks? How about deploying a SMB w/out a mask? You can think of many other combinations.

3. What I did not see on your list was Dive Planning. Plan your dives to the level of your training in detail, then compare the actual dive with your plan. Set a pre-determined goal(s) for the dive...not just a goal to have a "good dive".
Example:
You plan to dive to 30m for 10 minutes, while there you do drill/skill #1, #2, #3, and #4;
You ascend to 20m at a rate of 10m per minute and then do drill/skill #5, #6 and #7 all within 10 minutes;
You ascend to 10m at a rate of 10m/min hover for 15 minutes and practice drill/skill #8, #9 and #10;
You ascend to 5m for your 3 minute safety stop and while hovering practice drill/skill #11 and #12;
Upon completing the safety stop you ascend to the surface and practice skill/drill #13 and #14.

Once you have conducted your dive do a self evaluation; did I maintain my pre-planned depths and times, how well did I estimate my gas consumption, how well did I execute my skills/drills in terms of both accuracy and precision, and most of all did I accomplish my goal(s) for this dive?

I think by just asking your question you way ahead of most divers...

~Oldbear~