Valve drills and light signals

[nadwidny]

Brian,

Your guess with regards to training of the students is wrong. I have observed this practice in multiple students from multiple GUE course including Fundamentals, Tech I, and Cave I.

Then there's something in the water that's making these guys universally loopy. Signalling all the time while doing a valve drill, yes. Stowing the lighthead and still signalling, never heard of it.

Also, I believe this to be a recent trend. If your experience on this issue is based on a class you took with AG when he was with GUE, you probably weren't taught to do your valve drill this way.

Never took AGs class. My classes were with Chris in Mexico. We never stowed the light. And neither do any of my buddy's with who are AG, Dan MacKay, Chris , Danny, and/or JJ trained.

 

[TSandM]

Well, I just finished Cave 1, and we were asked to signal through the valve closure. We did not signal while opening the valve (we were specifically told not to). I believe that the purpose of signaling through the drill is to make sure that, as you reach up to close a valve, you begin to signal. It is easy to forget, if you are wound up in what's happening behind you.

As somebody said, signaling AT ALL in a valve drill, if signaling has the purpose of attracting one's teammate's attention, is superfluous, as one has just communicated with a teammate or teammates about one's intention to perform the drill.

And in practice, in both Rec Triox and Cave 1 AND in a couple of situations in "real" dives, I've not seen anyone continue to signal once it was clear that the buddy was aware of the situation and on his way in to help. I don't think, in general, that people have trouble understanding that one is a drill and the other is a scenario where what's important is the communication.

(I have to admit that I have also been taught in another class to signal while CLOSING the valve, which is just silly.)

Edited to add that at least one of us in Cave 1 got chewed out for forgetting to deploy the light before doing the drill. It is not to be done with the light stowed.

 

[Gombessa]

Is this a GUE-specific phenomenon? IIRC, 5thD-X's intro to tech DVD also teaches signaling with the light simultaneously as you shut down a post (in order to build muscle memory). I recall Delia reinforcing that specific point in Essentials, though this is admittedly pre-fundies and non-GUE.

 

[AndrewJD]

So the consensus is that the problem was not waving empty hands but rather that our hands were empty.

And I shouldn't be concerned about this messing up my chance to pass fundies as long as I have good buoyancy...


Brian, funny that you mention Chris from mexico, since he was the instructor who trained one of the students and told him that he wanted to see him waving his hand light in it or not. (There was a reason why the primary light was not in hand at the time but I forget it)

J

 

[Sloth]

Its funny you mention this. I was trained that way in fundies and my TDI tech instructor (GUE Trained) also teaches this way. I've seen students deploy there light for the drill and then stow it after just for the signaling part, as well as seen the light less ones wave there empty hands. That makes me laugh.

The signaling throughout makes sense as it gives you the muscle memory to always signal whenever you shut down a valve. The rubbing stomach, patting head like motion is the first thing out the window when you are tasked loaded so it makes since to do it every time until it is muscle memory.

In regards to a real or simulated failure you are probably going to signal your team that you are shutting down a post and once you get someones attention you are probably going to stop and have them work through the failure for you. So after touching and signaling on the first post failure you probably wont touch another valve until your buddy clears the trouble or signals a broke post.

The tough part about this drill in fundies is like you said buoyancy and then also buddy awareness. Really follow in your head what your buddy is doing during the valve drill. If you let your buddy switch back to his primary without turning back on his right post you can probably wave goodbye to a tech pass. Even though your buddy screwed up the drill you take the hit for letting your buddy go to a dead reg. Sadly I did this to my buddy in fundies and cost him a tech pass.

 

[BarryNL]

In regards to a real or simulated failure you are probably going to signal your team that you are shutting down a post and once you get someones attention you are probably going to stop and have them work through the failure for you.

At fundies level? Nope, you are probably going to go to your buddy's long hose and thumb the dive. Valve drills are basically a task loading skill at fundies level and also start building the skills you need for tech and cave diving but they don't, at this level, really provide you with a full usable skill.

The tough part about this drill in fundies is like you said buoyancy and then also buddy awareness. Really follow in your head what your buddy is doing during the valve drill. If you let your buddy switch back to his primary without turning back on his right post you can probably wave goodbye to a tech pass. Even though your buddy screwed up the drill you take the hit for letting your buddy go to a dead reg. Sadly I did this to my buddy in fundies and cost him a tech pass.

I doubt that. It would have to be one of the real 'boot camp' instructors to deny a tech pass for that.

 

[nadwidny]

Brian, funny that you mention Chris from mexico, since he was the instructor who trained one of the students and told him that he wanted to see him waving his hand light in it or not. (There was a reason why the primary light was not in hand at the time but I forget it)

J

It's been suggested earlier that a big part of the light waving thing has more to do with adding to the task loading while doing the drill and less to do with "muscle memory". Given the above statement and looking back on my own experiences, I would tend to agree with this.

 

[Sloth]

At fundies level? Nope, you are probably going to go to your buddy's long hose and thumb the dive. Valve drills are basically a task loading skill at fundies level and also start building the skills you need for tech and cave diving but they don't, at this level, really provide you with a full usable skill.

My point was to highlight that signaling throughout the skill is just a muscle memory building exercise and not something you would do during a failure or simulated failure. You are right that this is beyond fundies. I was merely trying to explain why you should do it during the valve drill and don’t need to do it for actually failures or failure scenarios. Even though we are talking Fundies there is no reason not to explain how it is built upon at the next level.

I doubt that. It would have to be one of the real 'boot camp' instructors to deny a tech pass for that.

You mean an instructor like Steve White? The guy (we call Fish) that I caused to fail got fours and above in everything but team awareness. Team awareness was his only sub-four score. He had no other team awareness gigs throughout the class. Steve was very adamant about how much of an issue letting a team member go to a dead reg is. Frankly I understand what he meant. Fish still gives me grief about causing him to miss his Tech pass

 

[BarryNL]

You mean an instructor like Steve White? The guy (we call Fish) that I caused to fail got fours and above in everything but team awareness. Team awareness was his only sub-four score. He had no other team awareness gigs throughout the class. Steve was very adamant about how much of an issue letting a team member go to a dead reg is. Frankly I understand what he meant. Fish still gives me grief about causing him to miss his Tech pass

Well, I'm not going to start second-guessing GUE instructors. It's simply my understanding of the tech pass that it means you are ready to take tech/cave training (not necessarily ready to pass that training (any more than you need to be ready to pass fundies to take that). Does missing your buddy going to a dead-reg mean you are not ready to take tech1/cave1? I don't know, that's a call for GUE to make. Personally I would think being in good contact during the drill and donating your long-hose efficiently if/when needed is sufficient. Then again, a similar lack of observation duing a gas switch might not be considered acceptable - but for me that is stuff you learn in tech training.

 

[nadwidny]

You mean an instructor like Steve White? The guy (we call Fish) that I caused to fail got fours and above in everything but team awareness. Team awareness was his only sub-four score. He had no other team awareness gigs throughout the class. Steve was very adamant about how much of an issue letting a team member go to a dead reg is. Frankly I understand what he meant. Fish still gives me grief about causing him to miss his Tech pass

Just another wild guess but was this Fish's first go at DIRF?