Video from a Training Dive with John Chatterton

[Zack-Bloom]

Not singling anyone out in this particular scenario, but good divers are not always good teachers. Good teachers are not always great divers. Good people may be neither, and great divers may be sh*t humans. Ones accomplishments outside of teaching don't necessarily make one a good teacher. A great diver doesn't make one a great gear designer. None of those are mutually exclusive, neither correlation.

For the record, our experience with him as our teacher was he was excellent, we learned much more than we expected. It was an incredibly productive use of time and money. Please don't put too much into the opinions of a few people in this thread.

 

[lermontov]

The point of that analogy wasn't that figure skaters are better skaters than hockey players. The point is that they don't avoid hitting a wall or other skaters, right?

cleverly disguised as elitism

 

[rvojr]

I appreciate you posting the video. It was very interesting and was helped by the narration. Obviously it took a lot of time to do. It was on my list of trainings to do.

 

[StefinSB]

After seeing the interesting video, I realize again how grateful i am for my cave instructors and will buy them another dinner when back in Tulum.

 

[rjack321]

For the record, our experience with him as our teacher was he was excellent, we learned much more than we expected. It was an incredibly productive use of time and money. Please don't put too much into the opinions of a few people in this thread.

It seems like everyone who's taken a class with him says he's fabulous
and everyone else, based on your video and others

questions what was so amazing about the instruction if your buoyancy, trim, kicks, SMB, linework and other basic skills seem to be below what we expect from intro to tech students.

 

[Protondecay123]

Is this about us actually developing the skills you describe, or is it about something else?

I would guess that Chatterton would say, if you have a solid surface which won't be damaged by kneeling, why wouldn't you save some work, effort, and CO2 and kneel on it? You need to have the skills to dive well, but the game isn't to make every moment of your dive as hard as possible, particularly when learning something new.

And also the stability formed by the triangle of the surface and your knees, femur's, pelvis. It gives you significantly more stability from rotational and lateral forces rather than simply hovering in the water. I'll quote and old Byrd's song ( and Ecclesiastes), " To everything there is a season.." and you must crawl before you walk, walk before you run.... At some point here none of us knew the alphabet. Did anyone start learning to read by a teacher handing them of copy of "War and Peace"? Thanks for sharing your experience. You can PM me if you like, but I certainly would be interested in your opinion of the class. I've entertained the idea of going to Florida for the Advanced Class with Deco.

 

[doctormike]

most people dont have the time to become intimately acquainted with the wreck to use progressive penetration maybe they are only there for a few days and then back to work etc and even then id use a line for pretty much most penetration dives esp once I leave the light zone.
agreed it is sometimes situational but I've never heard of cave dives using progressive penetration in favour of a line so why differentiate, use the method that gives you maximises your margins

Caves and wrecks are different. A cave line isn't going anywhere. A wreck line can get cut on a sharp edge.

A cave line can go for thousands of feet, of course you aren't going to do progressive penetration in a cave. A wreck penetration might be 10 feet. You don't need to memorize endless deck plans, but you should have some familiarity with where you are going. If you are just going in a short way, you could learn where the walls are before your first visit, to find your way out in a silt out.

On the other hand, if you are relying on a line so that you can do your first dive on a big wreck and get deep into it, without knowing the layout because you have a line leading you to open water, you may end up in big trouble if the line gets cut, or if a placement pulls free because it's around some rusty flange.

So if you don't have time to learn a bit about the wreck, maybe don't do that sort of penetration just because you have a line.

 

[johndiver999]

I noticed two issues, the first, which as mentioned in the narration, was that the initial ascent rate was fast. It looked to be around 60 feet per minute for a full minute - going from 130 to around 60 feet. I often do the first 30 feet of an ascent that fast, but generally not for 60 feet. Was the computer complaining about that?

The other question, I had was about the technique of BC inflation and putting air in the smb at depth. I don't think I would have any questions about that, IF the smb was released at depth. However, presumably the diver is neutral or close to it on the wreck, he dumps most or all of his air into the smb, As indicated in the narrative, this preserves the perfectly neutral condition. However, this seems to be a potential big problem.

What happens on ascent? The smb is expanded and pulling the diver up and he has little or no opportunity to vent the smb. I can see how, depending on the amount of air added to the smb at depth, that this could cause an ascent to get out of hand quickly. If the diver were using a BC and dry suit, he might have to be dumping air from three different sources to control things. I didn't notice you venting the smb on ascent. I really don't see any benefit in this.

I would think, it would be preferable to either add a little air at depth and let it go, or ascend to a reasonable stop depth and inflate the smb and let it go, but carrying a partially full smb that is expanding during a good portion of the ascent seems to add task loading and potential negative consequences for zero benefit that I can identify. Is this issue partially why the ascent was kinda fast from 130 to 60 or so? Is there a benefit to partially filling and then carrying the smb?

And I should mention, the OP should be recognized for exercising considerable patience while receiving a lot of less than positive feedback on this thread.

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A ScubaBoard Staff Message...

A Moderator is taking the liberty of singling out this excellent observation with boldface. @Zack-Bloom is to be congratulated for keeping this thread on a very even keel, despite some not-so-veiled criticism.

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[hammet]

Not sure what's up with all this heavy criticism. I've seen a ton of spearfishing guys who bring incredible kills up to the surface who don't give a rat's ass about a proper frog kick or what ever makes you guys feel superior. If JC gets the job done using his methods, who's to say his methods is wrong?

 

[rddvet]

Caves and wrecks are different. A cave line isn't going anywhere. A wreck line can get cut on a sharp edge.

A cave line can go for thousands of feet, of course you aren't going to do progressive penetration in a cave. A wreck penetration might be 10 feet. You don't need to memorize endless deck plans, but you should have some familiarity with where you are going. If you are just going in a short way, you could learn where the walls are before your first visit, to find your way out in a silt out.

On the other hand, if you are relying on a line so that you can do your first dive on a big wreck and get deep into it, without knowing the layout because you have a line leading you to open water, you may end up in big trouble if the line gets cut, or if a placement pulls free because it's around some rusty flange.

So if you don't have time to learn a bit about the wreck, maybe don't do that sort of penetration just because you have a line.

Who says you aren't going to do progressive penetration in a cave. You absolutely should learn the cave before continually poenetrating further

Not sure what's up with all this heavy criticism. I've seen a ton of spearfishing guys who bring incredible kills up to the surface who don't give a rat's ass about a proper frog kick or what ever makes you guys feel superior. If JC gets the job done using his methods, who's to say his methods is wrong?

What spearfisherman do don't have any bearing here or to the discussion on quality of instruction. There's crappy looking cave divers who pus 1000s of feet. That doesn't mean they can teach safely.