Yelled at for MOF

[Eric Sedletzky]

I knew an old salty instructor that I never actually took any classes from, but was around him enough to know him. I used to help him out once in a while with his open water classes, etc.
So, during the ocean portion of his classes, he would tell students that if he caught them with MOF that he was going to rip it off their head and throw it as hard as he could into the ocean, and they better have a spare mask, or do the class without one, or retake the class.
How do you like that for old school blow hard!!
I still remember that, and to this day still automatically pull the mask down around my neck, even though I fundamentally see nothing wrong with MOF,...as a fashion statement of course.
BTW, wearing the mask backwards on your head is no better, if you're looking at it in those terms. It can be lost just as easily by a wave as MOF.

 

[xmass-Eve]

I teach my students to do not do a MOF for 3 reasons:
* sign of stress
* to many masks have got lost because it falls of their head or they simply forget it on their head and they knock it of. In a current environment, you won't find it back and masks aren't cheap. For sure not if you need to replace lots a week.
* lately, with so many people wearing a headband gopro, they put their mask on their head, their gopro comes of and they loose their toy. We may go and look for it and they are angry we don't find it.

I put my mask around my neck or, in the pool, backwards on my head. I think that instructor was an a-hole. You are not in his class, you do what you want.

 

[Spudlet]

I am no expert as you can see by number of dives, I love nothing better than putting my mask on my forehead after a shore dive and fining back to shore on my back talking to my buddy

 

[Coop42]

View attachment 428079

I was diving @10 years ago in Bonaire with a group traveling with a local PADI Course Director. I had DM trainee throw my rig into the water because I dared to leave it standing while I turned to help another diver.
The Course Director had to intercede, and explain to the brain dead witch that she was only seconds away from flying into the ocean herself, and that she was to NEVER touch my gear again!

Now that's an application of the "five second rule" I've never heard of..

 

[stuartv]

I was taught not to do it because you're more likely to lose it when a wave knocks it off your head. I'm willing to be Stuart could find it in the pool!

If I'm somewhere with waves, I will keep my mask on my face!

Stuart,I knew there was a point I wanted to make way back and figured it out. So the instructor booked the local pool and you and your buddy joined in. You mentioned the instructor said he was "in charge" of the pool. You mentioned there were also a lot of swimmers and coaches there (sounds like the pool we used to use). Was the instructor just "in charge" of the deep end, or the divers? You paid $25 entry fee (our local public one is $4 Canadian). Anyway, what sort of responsibility did the instructor have legally for you two? That may change things. If not, I figure you were not in either of his courses so your MOF was none of his business since you weren't putting anyone else in danger.

I paid the dive shop, not the pool.

The pool had movable gang planks laid across it that divided it into sections. So, there was one of those separating the deep end (where we were) from the rest of the pool.

My interpretation of the situation was that the dive shop I paid was responsible for (I.e. had liability for) everything and everyone in the deep end. Essentially, I was a paid participant of an event that that shop was putting on. So, I guess that instructor did have some level of responsibility for me. I would think, however, that his responsibility ended at my safety. Not my compliance with "rules" his shop teaches their OW students.

But, I had no problem complying with that shop's rules... Once I knew I was being told by an instructor from that shop. Like I said, their pool, their rules.

 

[stuartv]

To your point of it getting knocked off by the first, stage, it usually is because they have the mask strap up on the top of their forehead instead of down by their eyebrows. Basically impossible for the mask to get knocked off that way.

Other good reason is that when on your forehead the mask has openings in the skirt and your defog can get washed out. If that gets in your eyes it tends to burn.

Slap straps are popular amongst the locals. It looks to me like if you pull a slap strap down that low it would cover your eyes. My tech instructor is one of the people I personally witnessed to lose his mask from having it turned backwards. Coincidentally, he uses a slap strap with his name stitched on it.

An even better solution for not getting your eyes burned from defog is to use No More Tears Baby Shampoo for your defog. Then, not only can you have MOF without concern for burning eyes, you also won't have to worry about it if you forget to rinse your mask or don't rinse it well enough after applying defog.

 

[Ayisha]

I hate to steer away from bacon back to the OP, but that story is the type of BS that makes me hesitate to take classes. I recently dove with a group that included an instructor from our LDS as DM. He heard me doing my buddy check and telling my buddy my primary was my donate (DIR setup). He then told me that was not the way they taught it and that my donate was the wrong color and asked me to use my necklaced backup for the dive. I said my buddy and I had dived together before and we would be fine, which my buddy agreed with. The DM backed off. I would have been happy to say no if he had insisted, as happily he was not my instructor.

I have no interest in in being a lemming in the herd. Care, thought, and research go into my setup and how I dive. If someone wants me to do something different, they better be putting at least as much thought into it as I did. And of course they don't. It's just institutionalized BS. I hope when I get to tec classes that will go away. If I just did what the instructors I have had told me to I'd be doing it wrong, as far as I am concerned. Example: 55' dive, only the "Deep Diver" student was supposed to do a "free ascent." Which apparently meant not using the anchor line. What kind of certified scuba diver worth his or her C-card cannot hold a safety stop in no current!? How can this be an "advanced skill?" That requires a class to learn? Ugh.

Is there a point where instructors stop the BS and teach like their students are not 12?

Gotta choose your instructors wisely. You can interview them to make sure there's a good fit between their teaching and your learning styles, and hopefully you will have seen them in action. If you've seen them dive, do they look the way you want to look or have the skills you're seeking? If there are people in your area who dive the way you want to dive, maybe you can gravitate toward them and find out who their instructors are. Ask around about instructors you're considering. You can just book a course with an unknown instructor at an unknown dive shop as many do in the early years, but you have the right to choose an instructor that has similar philosophies to you and can help you attain your goals. Of course they should be respectful and positive no matter how you find them.

 

[Dan]

....
* to many masks have got lost because it falls of their head or they simply forget it on their head and they knock it of. In a current environment, you won't find it back and masks aren't cheap. For sure not if you need to replace lots a week.
.....

Lost my 8 years-old mask that way. During a surface interval on a 2-tank boat dive, I went to relief myself by jumping into the water. When the SI was over & we were gearing up for the 2nd dive, I went to look for my mask, then realized where it was, at the bottom of the sea. The boat crew lent me a spare mask. Learnt my lesson. Since then, after getting on the boat, I pull it down to wrap around my neck before taking the BCD off.

 

[NAM001]

The attitudes towards MOF is insane. and indication that my car A/C is bad is the window down. How ever it is not a tell all. 99+% take it off and and MOF cause they want to talk and can not see form fogging. It does not fit on the neck cause you cant move your head. Especially with a reg necklace, and you cant put it on backwards cause of the top of the tank knocking it off. Some one needs to put an article in cosmo that says the sophisticated diver wears his mask MOF and this argument will be dead forever, or until the next cosmo addition. MOF is more an indication of a soon to be maskless diver than a distressed diver.

 

[lermontov]

The attitudes towards MOF is insane. and indication that my car A/C is bad is the window down. How ever it is not a tell all. 99+% take it off and and MOF cause they want to talk and can not see form fogging. It does not fit on the neck cause you cant move your head. Especially with a reg necklace, and you cant put it on backwards cause of the top of the tank knocking it off. Some one needs to put an article in cosmo that says the sophisticated diver wears his mask MOF and this argument will be dead forever, or until the next cosmo addition. MOF is more an indication of a soon to be maskless diver than a distressed diver.

alternatively start a new DIR agency with MOF at the top of the list