What to self-teach, how to self-teach it, an how to practice it.

[Thalassamania]

Lots of folks on another thread agree that there are many things that can be self-taught. Here's a thread for exploring that concept in greater breath and depth. Let's start with dry suits, if you are self-taught ... tell us the details of the process you went through. Other items and skills are fine too,

 

[TSandM]

I didn't self-teach drysuit, but I self-taught doubles. I purchased a set and played with them in my garage (making some really embarrassing phone calls in the process) until I understood how everything worked. Then I met up with two friends who were used to them, for my first dive. I got some feedback on my trim, and then I just set about diving the tanks a lot. I didn't do valve drills for a while, until I felt stable in the tanks. Then I started playing with valve shutdowns. I read everything I could find on line from people who had had trouble doing them, to learn what they had figured out to make it easier.

It all worked fine. I had no untoward events during the learning process, nor did I learn anything incorrect. I did need my trim polished a LOT, which was done in the first class I took in them.

 

[DevonDiver]

I was on a boat (in the UK) once with a guy who self-taught doubles. He had a problem with his primary (it fell off his hose, because he hadn't tightened it sufficiently) and he promptly closed down his secondary reg and switched to it.

The scary thing was...he was also in the 'process' of self-teaching the art of solo diving...and only chance intervened with a last minute addition to the boat...and the guy concerned got given a buddy (who saved him with a AAS ascent) at the last moment.

So much for 'learning' off the internet....the guy knew the shut-down drill...he had read about it...and practiced it. The trouble was...he had no benefit of an experienced instructor, to make sure he was actually able to perform this skill at a moment of crisis by drilling him properly.

...................

What have I self-taught?

Wreck diving (recreational and technical)...and the more I learn now...the more I realise that I didn't know before...and how unprepared I truly was...whilst thinking I was safe. Every diver should get properly wreck trained before thinking about penetrating wrecks. You can't learn this from the internet...ever.

Boat diving...sure, this course is pointless in 99.9% of cases. I class it as an 'interest only' course.

Underwater Photo...no snags with doing this...but I had over 1000 dives when I first got into it...so no issues with loss of awareness of time/depth/ndl/buddy etc My dive awareness was instinctive...but this is not the case for inexperienced divers who start using cameras.

Night Diving...again, no snags with this. I see this course as 'only for those with an above-average amount of trepidation for diving in darkness'. The benefit of the course lies in the security of having instructor supervision for those first few critical night dives.

Dive Computer. Yes, I just read the manual (briefly), strapped it on and went diving. No snags. However, this course would be of more value if users were taught how the computer responds in a (simulated) decompression situation. I've seen too many divers accidentally skip into deco and then just look blankly at the computer screen...baffled by the word 'ceiling' and the numbers displayed...and then head straight to the surface to ask about it on the boat.... :shocked2:

Twinset construction/configuration. No snags with this...all the info is on the internet. Later I did a really good twinset familiarisation with Mark Powell...and realised all the bad purchasing choices I made (cost me lots more money than the course cost) and substantially improved every aspect of my diving doubles. go figure...the expert taught me more than I taught myself.... :mooner:

 

[Rick Inman]

Dry Suit:

I read a bunch here on SB. I watched some of my betters and asked questions. I started a thread here on SB asking some questions (THREAD AUG, 2003). Then I went out to a place in the river that was shallow and clear and I practiced.

One of the things I practiced was recovering from the dreaded feet first ascent (which has never happened to me in real life, but I have seen it happen to other divers). I grabbed a log on the bottom, filled my feet until I was in the handstand position and let go. Tuck-flip-dump, and I back in control. Worked the first time and every time after that.

Diving the drysuit sucked for a time while I got used to it. But like everything in diving, the best answer is more diving.

 

[MaxBottomtime]

I made my first drysuit dive relatively shallow (35-40'), left the dump valve open and used my wing for primary buoyancy. The suit pretty much took care of itself. On the second dive two hours later the neckseal flooded and I had water up to my waist when I climbed back into my boat. Still, no problems with buoyancy, no panic, no issues other than 52F water soaking my undergarments.
I've had a few more complete drysuit floods over the years but never had to abort a dive because of them. Never had any buoyancy issues either.

 

[knotical]

Dry suit: ScubaBoard didn’t exist yet, but I’d been hearing others talk about dry suits for years, and had read a few articles. I bought a suit, read the manufacturer’s manual and a training agency’s instructor guide carefully; and practiced in the pool. Like Rick I found everything, including the feet-first ascent drill, pretty straight forward. Might not have been the case without having first done the reading and listened to the sea stories.

I determined independently that (for me) adding air to the dry suit only to compensate for depth and using the BC to compensate for gas depletion was the way to go. At least one agency (mine) teaches using the dry suit for buoyancy control in general, but I consider that only an option, not a primary approach (but still worth practicing).

About self-teaching in general, it seems to me that:
Academics make more sense to self-teach than skills.
Some people are better candidates for self-teaching than others.
Some people think they are better candidates than they are.

Do you learn things well from books? You might be a candidate for self-learning academics.
Are you a tinkerer? Do you often successfully self-teach yourself non-diving skills? You might be a candidate for self-learning skills.
Is trying to save money a major motivation? This might not be the best reason to try self-teaching.

My personal inventory is that I learn well from books, and am a tinkerer, but I’m not a natural at skills in general. So I probably should have gotten a coach for at least the skills portion. Instead, I allowed convenience to guide me. But I did practice a bunch.

Finally - the more risk associated with the activity, the less it should be considered for self-teaching.

 

[captain]

Living in the south I never really gave a dry suit much thought until recently, but as I got older I got less tolorent of being uncomfortable (cold). I bought a dry suit and pretty much followed RicK Inmans method of learning.

 

[timegan]

Thal ....thank you for this post. I'm in heaven,pumped,..Hey...am not alone! Did OW, AOW, Nitrox #1...WITH an instuctor/s ..Self learned: 7' hose config, slinging a 40, repair and sevice of my own equippment, regs as well. Shorten my corragated, and diving the drysuit as well. In so doing, have ailienated the local divers in my area. Apparently have NO right to self train anything. Am a danger to myself and any one I dive with. So guess what I did? ..self taught myself to solo as well. I'm now the midnight black sheep! Found out however that I really love to solo. (bonus). But alas, (I'm told) a'm gona die a tragic death....damn! But on the lighter side, it's very very uplifting to read that I am not alone or crazy. Thank you all.... Penetrate a deep long cave, or wreak dive to 200>' well...ya training is a must! There are limits to what can be "self taught" Thanks again Thal... In my arena just posting your topic would get you tar and feathered. LOL....

 

[Thalassamania]

Thanks - what arena is that? I'll stop by

 

[Diver0001]

Drysuit.

Ok... I bought one. The guys at the store said "try it out in shallow water first" and i was good to go.

I took their advice making a series of shallow dives with it. I had to first work out how much weight I needed. I tried 1500 lbs but that was a bit too much.... so every dive I took off a little until I was left with what needed.

At the time we all used horse-collar BCD's so I soon found out that using the suit for buoyancy control was better than using the BCD becasue the BCD would ride up around my neck, especially with the 1500 lb weight belt, making me feel like my BCD had become an enormous elephant-man like double-chin. My buddy told me that I made me look like I was being hung on a rubber inner tube.

Unfortunately using the suit for buoyancy control had it's own draw backs and lead to me making feet first ascents. finally when my buddy surfaced beside me and yelled "THAR SHE BLOOOOOOWWWSSS" I decided I needed to do something about that and started playing around with doing things like buoyancy checks, redistributing weight etc etc until I was only yo-yo-ing through the water instead of losing it completely. In those days they didn't have automatically venting shoulder valves so one little slip of concentration or failure to anticipate an ascent quickly lead to you having to hold up the tiny little dump valve on the wrist, push it in and hold it up, breath out and pray....

My preferred technique, however, was just to go vertical and pull open the neck seal, which immediately dumped all the air, stopping the ascent but leading to a free fall that only ended in an audible "THUMP" when I hit the bottom. Naturally, it also defeated the purpose of dry suit so it took several dives before I actually had one that was really "DRY". It made me feel at the time like I had overcome bed-wetting.

After about 10 dives I was starting to feel like I wasn't going to kill myself if I went deeper than 30 ft.

Some years and many dives later I've had every imaginable problem with a drysuit aside from the inflator valve popping out and I'm pretty sure that I have it nailed now.

R..