I decided to do these two together. I'll kind of bounce back and forth.
It seems to me that diving is like 98% just swimming around neutral (we hope). Yet the way I was taught, the way I was taught to teach and many of the classes that I've seen included very little practice at that.
We spend a lot of time just swiming neutral and working on horizontal trim and finning technique.
Of course a student needs to be able to clear water from a reg or mask so they don't drown so we get started on some of that right after putting on scuba.
At this point students can't yet stay off the bottom but I keep them prone. It's natural for us to want to be vertical but it's not the best position to dive in. Besides some students have more trouble learning to keep their balance while kneeling than they have learning to hover unless they're over weighted.
We also spend a good deal of time working on ascents and descents. These are dynamic times during the dive and it's usually when divers have problems and it's also a common time for them to be seperated. This shows up in lots of accident reports and in the early days we lost each other all the time on descent.
Through all this a student is expected to stay with a buddy. They have a hard time at first because it takes so much concentration for them just to dive. That's why we practice it though.
As we introduce individual skills we progress to doing them while staying off the bottom and with a buddy. Simple.
Once a sudent can dive a little most skills come really easy. The ones that divers sometimes have trouble doing off the bottom are mask R & R (no surpeise there) and believe it or managing a free flowing reg. We run into some cold water around here and free flows happen so I won't dive with some one who can't do this. It doesn't matter who it is or why we're doing the dive. If they can't do it they need to be in confined water.
Let's go back to the neutral swimming, trim and finning technique. This really starts in the classroom. I hear over and over how new divers can't do this. Only, I know for a fact that that's a false statement. They usually can't because they're never told how.
In class we explain the mechanics of it. What I mean is that when an objects center of buoyancy and center of gravity are the same there are no apposing forces so it'll just stay where you put it. How much weight do we need and where? How much do we want to be ditchable? It's a little more complicated in diving because as we dive things change. The tank get's lighter, wet suits compress and get less buoyant as we descend and so on. A divers boddy position effects those centers also and can be used to compensate for those other changes or to change it on purpose in order to change position.
So...we start work on boddy position and finning technique in the classroom (or at poolside) on the floor or a table..whatever.
I show some video of great divers and some not so great divers.
There's a few other things that I do to support this. One is a quick review of the DAN accident report. There's a lot that it doesn't say but it does show that buoyancy control problems and rapid ascents are often part of the equation.
What all this does in relation to a PADI text is ties together chapter 2 (equipment and buddy diving) and chapter three (emergency response and solution thinking)
Every class I teach views a video called "A Decptively Easy Way to Die". It does a great job of warning divers of the dangers of diving in overhead environments without the right training and equipment.
Of course we talk about buddy divng, communications and how to position ourselves in relation to a buddy.
We talk about how being able to maintain position while doing something especially when responding to a problem keeps things under control and even how equipment configuration can effect this.
I try to get video of students but I can't always arrange that. It's such a help though that I almost think it should be a requirement.
Dive planning in general and especially gas management gets a good going over. In 30 ft of water it might be enough to tell some one to end a dive with 500 psi left but it seems that students head right to Cozumal and dive much deeper. The point here is to make certain that you have enough gas to get both divers back to the surface in the worst case situation where one diver has lost all gas at the furthest point in the dive.
There's of course lots more details but I'll leave it there for now.
It seems to me that diving is like 98% just swimming around neutral (we hope). Yet the way I was taught, the way I was taught to teach and many of the classes that I've seen included very little practice at that.
We spend a lot of time just swiming neutral and working on horizontal trim and finning technique.
Of course a student needs to be able to clear water from a reg or mask so they don't drown so we get started on some of that right after putting on scuba.
At this point students can't yet stay off the bottom but I keep them prone. It's natural for us to want to be vertical but it's not the best position to dive in. Besides some students have more trouble learning to keep their balance while kneeling than they have learning to hover unless they're over weighted.
We also spend a good deal of time working on ascents and descents. These are dynamic times during the dive and it's usually when divers have problems and it's also a common time for them to be seperated. This shows up in lots of accident reports and in the early days we lost each other all the time on descent.
Through all this a student is expected to stay with a buddy. They have a hard time at first because it takes so much concentration for them just to dive. That's why we practice it though.
As we introduce individual skills we progress to doing them while staying off the bottom and with a buddy. Simple.
Once a sudent can dive a little most skills come really easy. The ones that divers sometimes have trouble doing off the bottom are mask R & R (no surpeise there) and believe it or managing a free flowing reg. We run into some cold water around here and free flows happen so I won't dive with some one who can't do this. It doesn't matter who it is or why we're doing the dive. If they can't do it they need to be in confined water.
Let's go back to the neutral swimming, trim and finning technique. This really starts in the classroom. I hear over and over how new divers can't do this. Only, I know for a fact that that's a false statement. They usually can't because they're never told how.
In class we explain the mechanics of it. What I mean is that when an objects center of buoyancy and center of gravity are the same there are no apposing forces so it'll just stay where you put it. How much weight do we need and where? How much do we want to be ditchable? It's a little more complicated in diving because as we dive things change. The tank get's lighter, wet suits compress and get less buoyant as we descend and so on. A divers boddy position effects those centers also and can be used to compensate for those other changes or to change it on purpose in order to change position.
So...we start work on boddy position and finning technique in the classroom (or at poolside) on the floor or a table..whatever.
I show some video of great divers and some not so great divers.
There's a few other things that I do to support this. One is a quick review of the DAN accident report. There's a lot that it doesn't say but it does show that buoyancy control problems and rapid ascents are often part of the equation.
What all this does in relation to a PADI text is ties together chapter 2 (equipment and buddy diving) and chapter three (emergency response and solution thinking)
Every class I teach views a video called "A Decptively Easy Way to Die". It does a great job of warning divers of the dangers of diving in overhead environments without the right training and equipment.
Of course we talk about buddy divng, communications and how to position ourselves in relation to a buddy.
We talk about how being able to maintain position while doing something especially when responding to a problem keeps things under control and even how equipment configuration can effect this.
I try to get video of students but I can't always arrange that. It's such a help though that I almost think it should be a requirement.
Dive planning in general and especially gas management gets a good going over. In 30 ft of water it might be enough to tell some one to end a dive with 500 psi left but it seems that students head right to Cozumal and dive much deeper. The point here is to make certain that you have enough gas to get both divers back to the surface in the worst case situation where one diver has lost all gas at the furthest point in the dive.
There's of course lots more details but I'll leave it there for now.
