Question Where does complacency begin and end?
- Thread starter Alaskan Scuba Dude
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EFX
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I'll attempt to answer the question directly. Complacency begins when time becomes your master, i.e. there's no time to check the equipment before the dive. It begins when the importance of reaching a goal supercedes the level of your your training. It begins when we don't practice our training thinking I know what to do, why practice. It begins when we disregard our buddy thinking "Oh, he's OK and he's always close to me." It begins when we've reached our safe turn pressure and decide to go a little further, thinking I've got plenty of gas. It begins when we just don't feel right but decide to dive anyway.
It ends with injury or death.
It ends with injury or death.
Complacency strikes when you think you’re "good" when in fact you’re not. The problem with you doing the analysis is how on earth do you know if you are any good?
You get a kick up the jacksie when you’re obviously not paying attention.
One of the challenges with the early days of diving is you don’t know what you don’t know. You’ve probably trained and dived in benign conditions under the watchful eye of an experienced person who knows what’s what and steers you into not screwing up. Your problem is that you probably didn’t even know that they were helping you.
The posh way of describing this is the Dunning Kruger effect. Something you see in all forms of skilled tasks.
However, a better way to describe complacency is "unconscious incompetence". One of the four states in the competence model:
Complacency lives alongside competence.
A perfect example of this in action is your core skills; trim, finning and buoyancy.
You get a kick up the jacksie when you’re obviously not paying attention.
- If you’re listening you’ll learn from it.
- If you’re not listening, you may ignore it — which is a stupid thing to do, but normal for someone who’s not good enough to know that they’re not good enough.
- If you're ignoring it and if your time is up, you’ll die from it.
One of the challenges with the early days of diving is you don’t know what you don’t know. You’ve probably trained and dived in benign conditions under the watchful eye of an experienced person who knows what’s what and steers you into not screwing up. Your problem is that you probably didn’t even know that they were helping you.
The posh way of describing this is the Dunning Kruger effect. Something you see in all forms of skilled tasks.
However, a better way to describe complacency is "unconscious incompetence". One of the four states in the competence model:
- Conscious Incompetence — when you’re trying to learn a new skill and really struggling
- Conscious Competence— when you concentrate, it mostly works, but it’s hard work to do it for long
- Unconscious Competence— nailed it. It’s so easy, like your brain can do it on autopilot
- Unconscious Incompetence— bad habits need much more effort to fix; back you go to Conscious Incompetence to relearn and perfect.
Complacency lives alongside competence.
A perfect example of this in action is your core skills; trim, finning and buoyancy.
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Agree. I'm a creature of repetition. Because of that as opposed to any amount of being "wise" about diving, I doubt I've really gotten complacent. At least about most of my dive habits. Since 2016, all of my diving has been shallow shore diving (though solo), and since 2018, all at local sites that I know backward & forward. But before that when I would do a charter, say, in Florida, I would as you say, bring my "A" game. Even if it wasn't even deeper than 60'. If to 100' I'd bring my A+ game.
I know where my complacency started.
We were digging out a channel for a pipeline and my inflator hose kept leaking, so I bought a new one. In about 10 dives that one got gunked up so I stopped using the power inflator at all.
Next phase of the build was laying down some mats for the pipe and we had to use full face masks with communication. As I found out taking off the kirby to inflate was a major pain in the ass so I droped of some weights, bought a old style 2*10 twin set that has minimal changes in buoyancy and took the bcd out of the equation.
We were doing some long deco times and I noticed i'm not missing the bcd a bit so now unless I'm doing something with multiple stages I no longer carry a bcd at all.
Makes the dive guides go bananas.
I'm gonna guess that my complacency will stop once I realise that regulators are optional too.
We were digging out a channel for a pipeline and my inflator hose kept leaking, so I bought a new one. In about 10 dives that one got gunked up so I stopped using the power inflator at all.
Next phase of the build was laying down some mats for the pipe and we had to use full face masks with communication. As I found out taking off the kirby to inflate was a major pain in the ass so I droped of some weights, bought a old style 2*10 twin set that has minimal changes in buoyancy and took the bcd out of the equation.
We were doing some long deco times and I noticed i'm not missing the bcd a bit so now unless I'm doing something with multiple stages I no longer carry a bcd at all.
Makes the dive guides go bananas.
I'm gonna guess that my complacency will stop once I realise that regulators are optional too.
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During an entire lifetime diving I've never been complacent as I've always known what I don't know!
Intersting path. Substantially opposite to my one...
I started with twin 2x10 liters tank, no BCD and just one reg (Aquilon).
I went to single tank, BCD and two regs.
Still I do not see any complacency both in your path or in mine.
Simply we adapted our equipment and our diving style to conditions. Being adaptable and flexible, instead on insisting on fixed schemes, is a good thing in my opinion.
I find more complacency in divers who insist using a dry suit and a canister light (plus backup) for diving at Maldives, where no suit is required and a simple hand-held mini torch is plenty enough...
Adapting to variable conditions is not complacency, it is using the proper tools for the job.
The best PADI course for me was Rescue. Liked all of the other courses but Rescue gave me confidence. The very best course for me was Cavern through IANTD. It was a course that focused on Buoyancy Trim Propulsion and preparation for Intro to Cave and full Cave. I thought i was ok in the water but it was taught at level of expectation that made day one was a humbling experience. Since then I have Intro to Cave, Cave, and Stage Cave. For me continuing to learn from high level instructors (who typically are instructor instructors) keeps me sharp. Diving in the ocean now seems so easy - does that make me complacent or just relaxed?
Complacency starts at the end of fear, or at out-of-money,
and it stops at a near-death experience.
I was icediving with a single tank and one first stage only. I felt immortal. Bad choice.
Then I was deco-diving without the funds to do that. As a result, I got stabbed with a dive knife (blunt unfortunately) and finished the dive freediving.
and it stops at a near-death experience.
I was icediving with a single tank and one first stage only. I felt immortal. Bad choice.
Then I was deco-diving without the funds to do that. As a result, I got stabbed with a dive knife (blunt unfortunately) and finished the dive freediving.
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