What is "basic scuba"?

[kathydee]

I remember being in Lembeh Straights for the first time trying to look at the tiny critters. I had about 60 dive, had taken OW & AOW and was diving with a delightful Italian couple, AOW divers, who had about the same number of dives.

None of my former training had covered trim or propulsion techniques so I'm embarrassed to mention the creative tricks we all had to use to stay stationary long enough to look at the 1/8" critters.

Our gymnastics were quite different than the relaxed low impact hover that I have now learned to do.

Last summer I went back to Lembeh. Ah - it was so relaxing & my gas lasted for much longer critter dives .

I find myself a tiny bit jealous when I meet divers who learn these skills in their OW classes .

 

[gcbryan]

I think hovering is about as basic as you can get. I think most people who dive for very long in a silty environment can do this even though most of us weren't specifically "taught" this .

We were taught the concept of neutral buoyancy and with a little work we get there.

I don't think it's hard to be in constant contact with others when you stay for 5 to 10 minutes in a 20 foot spot however.

 

[bowlofpetunias]

Basic concept but the skill development takes some time..more for some than others. I have noticed that some people just can't be bothered expending the effort. This isn't necessarily a result of the "dumbing down" of OW classes. We recently went on a dive trip and watch in horror as people with 20 years of dive experience trashed the coral. They looked more like they were riding bicycles than anything!

The DM wound up giving a lecture about being disgusted watching people "bunny hop" on the coral! Sadly the Dive Ops are too worried about offending/embarrassing people by actually confronting the offenders and gave the lecture to the entire group. The only ones that approached the DM to ask if they were the offenders were the ones who cared too much to BE the offenders. It seems to me that some people are too interested in getting a picture or poking the fish to bother with basic skills.

 

[JKPAO]

Basic in that everyone should have them, but I see you have over 500 dives. How many classes
and how many hours were spent trying to perfect your water skills. Not everyone dives with the same attitude. I am not saying that most don't want to attain a higher level, most just don't even work on the basic hover.

On a side note, I really enjoyed the cave dive video you shared!
See you topside! John

 

[Karel26]

I really did the basic of hovering and i mean the basic. .
Only after 15 dives i started to get the hovering thing
right. . We are some what forced to learn it quickly, because
we do drift dives on Aliwal Shoal due to the Agullas current
and i really enjoy it, because i am a lazy diver. . I just like to fold
my arms stay above the reef and observe. .

What are very sad for me is that there are a lot of divers with
alot of experience and when they come down the faal on the
reef and damagde the reef, wich for me is very sad and they just
dont care even if it is a Marine Protected Area. .

Live to dive and Dive to live. . . . :burnout:

 

[Reg Braithwaite]

how many people who would term themselves basic divers have been taught how to do this?

I recall being taught fin pivots repeatedly as part of my OW and my AOW. I specifically chose Precision Buoyancy to learn something new and to this day I feel ripped off. The best thing I've done outside of actual OW diving is to go to a weekly pool session and work on hovering and trim at 10'-12'.

And therein lies the great conundrum: The people who want to learn it will find a way regardless of how much their LDS tries to sabotage their education. The people who don't want to learn it will fake their way through a typical course and/or find an instructor who cares only about their V(isa)-card.

The question remains, what can be done to help those who aren't self-motivated to learn without direction but are receptive if exposed to the concepts and benefits? It's not obvious to me that any of these folks are on scubaboard. I just found out that someone on my bicycle racing team is a resort diver. She's very motivated to train technique for cycling. But I don't think she's even aware that there is a benefit to learning technique for diving. She's not an ignorant person, but she just hasn't been exposed to the idea that here are different kicks, that being horizontal in the water has a benefit, and so forth.

How do we reach people like her?

Rantus Continuatum:

I wouldn't expect the Big Agency to change its entire curriculum. I wouldn't expect OW trainingto transform itself into Essentials/Fundamentals. But I would applaud if an LDS took it upon itself to show its OW students that a "Master Diver" is someone who has Mastered Diving, not someone who has collected more badges than a boy scout convention. It's easy to demonstrate that lifelong learning has two parallel tracks, and that the skills component doesn't just accrete to the diver like barnacles on a ship.

If the LDS communicates the admiration of divers who have mastered diving to students such that they are aware of the path and aspire to follow it, that would be huge. It would have helped me immensely if that had been drummed into me from the start.

 

[Walter]

To me, these are basic scuba skills. But how many people who would term themselves basic divers have been taught how to do this?

I suspect it is a very small percentage that have those skills after completing their entry level class. To be fair, it's not their fault. They have very likely never been taught those skills. It's not all that uncommon for them to have never even been told those skills are something towards which they should be striving. Over the years, I've seen quite a few instructors who don't have those skills. Of course, right after completing the class, their students still think they are gods. The problem lies in basic expectations. Several agencies don't expect their graduates to have those basic skills. Many instructors have never considered teaching those basic skills. There are a few agencies with those expectations and there are some instructors in all agencies with those expectations. Divers from those programs either do have those basic skills or are very close to having them. It's an easy fix on an individual basis. It's something that isn't likely to change industry wide.

 

[Jim Lapenta]

I teach these skills in my classes and have seen others that do as well. Usually they themselves have taken the time to really work on these and see the benefits. Instructors that are content to push through a lot of students may not care. Or as others have said, even be able to do this themselves because they have never really had to. Buoyancy control is the first skill we work on on scuba. Along with equalizing. By the end of our second session at the latest the majority of skills we will do are done horizontal and hovering. And they will be done like that for the next 5 or 6 sessions. And this is one of the problems. How many of you that are dissatisfied with your performance in this area spent 16 hours in the pool with many of that working on performing skills while in good trim, neutral, and using non silting kicks? And what are you doing about that now?

 

[MXGratefulDiver]

Are those really basic skills?

Motionless hovering --very near the bottom-- in a horizontal position using anti-silting kicks

Yes ... in the last OW class I taught, all students were doing it by the final dive of class. Granted, some were doing it better than others ... but they'd all been taught that this was the proper way to dive, and that they'd get better at it with practice. They got there by doing the same skills every other NAUI OW student does ... they simply learned from day 1 in the pool that they should be doing them without having to kneel on the bottom.

Thing is, if you teach people skills on their knees, and don't stress the importance of good buoyancy control, they won't know any different. Conversely, if you stress the importance of good skills from the get-go, and set a good example, it shortens their learning curve tremendously ...

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

 

[MXGratefulDiver]

I think very few people at the basic level are taught this. However, I think that some people at the basic level do teach themselves this. If that makes any sense.

It makes a lot of sense. I maintain that an instructor does not teach someone how to dive. An instructor explains the concepts, and provides an example. It's the students who put in the effort to learn, and in effect train their bodies to perform these skills. That's why some students perform better than others ... because they have greater aptitude and/or motivation to learn than the others.

For this reason, a class where the instructor stresses the importance of these skills and demonstrates them properly makes all the difference ...

... Bob (Grateful Diver)