Young divers VS Old divers

[scubadada]

This may be the stupidest thread in the history of the Internet.

Agreed.

I'm moderately old, I've adapted reasonably well to modern times, diving is easily my favorite sport/activity/hobby...I'm pretty happy, I'm through

Good diving, Craig

 

[tedj101]

Why must we continually pit one group of divers vs another? Old vs new. DIR vs non-dir. Split finners v. non-splitfinners. AI-comp users vs non-AI-comp users. Agency 1 vs Agency 2. Crickey! When will enough be enough? Dive, and let dive for cryin' out loud.

I have to agree. As divers we have a lot in common. We should be hanging together and differentiating ourselves from non-divers rather than trying to differentiate ourselves from other divers.

I am an older diver (I find it really difficult to say that, but it is getting harder and harder to remain in denial). However, I dive with younger divers all the time and don't see that there is any relevant difference between us. The only place that they seem to have a real advantage over me is swimming against a strong current. Other than that, our wants and needs are about the same.

Just my POV,
<TED>

 

[tedj101]

sorry nudediver, i generally agree with you, but totally disagree with your perspective of diving not being a sport. it is a sport, period. it is accepted as a sport worldwide, and always has been. if golf can be considered a sport, i fail to see why diving wouldn't be. all joking aside, it depends on what type of diving you are doing. there is a lot of deep diving, and timed cavern diving that you must be in great shape to participate safely. also, generally the better shape you are in, the higher degree of safety you have in diving. this has been proven in many studies of dcs, and ean depth limits previously done by the navy. you generally do not see any fat, out of shape people diving on wolf and darwin islands in the galapagos, north sulawesi or raja ampat. the conditions are too rough, and out of shape people just aren't able to complete a full dive in these conditions. certainly there are easy condition diving, where you need little athletic ability to negotiate the dive. but that is only one kind of diving, and i can tell you from experience, that there are many places where i have worked, where out of shape people have been denied a chance to dive certain sites, for this very reason. trust me, this is a sport my friend.

Well, that is true of many/most lower impact sports. Walking/hiking is a sport participated in by a huge number of older people. It can be low impact and it can be high impact. (Take a walk up K2 some time.) That isn't what most people think of when you say walking, though, and the extremes of diving aren't what most people do. I don't find it very productive to use the extremes as examples, though. While there are places on the edge of the sport where really old people probably shouldn't go, that is not the norm and in the main stream of diving there isn't much that is done that separates older divers from younger ones.

In fact, what you are talking about isn't really age at all, it is conditioning. Older divers in good condition can do the types of dives that you refer to. Younger divers in poor condition (and, yes, there are many of them) probably should not. The go/no/go decision should be made on condition, not age.

Just one man's POV,
<TED>

 

[BDSC]

"Sport" goes way before Webster, who must be rolling in his grave at the depauperacy of his descendant. It comes from Middle English "sporte", a shortened form of "disporte," which arose from Old French "desport," meaning pleasure, from the verb "desporter," to divert. On might say, even today, that one goes diving to desport one's self. Well, you might say that ... I'd pass.

Excellent! My gramps would be very proud of you. You are a man after his own heart.

 

[BDSC]

I think your ancestor Noah would roll over in his grave if he saw you using his name to make a moot point that serves no good purpose.

Actually, my mother comes from a long line of gypsies and I had her check with him before I made the post and he was cool with it.

 

[tedj101]

I've never noticed any animosity between young and old divers, except for maybe the music choiced

I couldn't have said it better myself!

<TED>

 

[tedj101]

The earth is warmer than in the last pre-Holocene ice age, cooler than during the Cretaceous. Oh well, things come and go and nothing ever stays the same for long.
N

I'm glad to see someone else on here old enough to remember these events <g>!

<TED>

 

[DA Aquamaster]

Are you serious? Wow. OK, well, think of being in shape as a requirement for athleticism. It's a pre-cursor. A pre-requisite. Kind of like.....you need to understand basic Algebra before you can understand the equations of Trigonometry. As for competition, there are MANY things that involve competition that do not require being in shape. Hell, some of those things are even called "sports". Bowling, Poker, darts, billiards - lots of things.

How about a tactical rifle and pistol "competetion". Is it s sport? It takes a high degree of coordination, muscle tone and control to make a shot placed well enough to hit the target, let alone to do it fast and do it consistenly over the whole course of fire. Then there is the running parts in between the gunning - which offers an advantage to those who can run versus waddle there.

However, I note the old guys like me who don't run quite as fast often shoot better and/or plan better which counts in a "sport" where slow is smooth and smooth ends up being fast, end up winning and or placing much higher in the standings than the younger faster shooters. So physical condition counts, but it is not all of what counts.

Since that is arguably true of many sports - ie: an older more experienced quarter back often performs better than a younger, faster, but less seasoned rookie - then a definition of "sport" based only on athletic ability or physical condition is really just an issue of degree (or perhaps semantics) and in the end makes a really poor definition.

 

[Nemrod]

I'm glad to see someone else on here old enough to remember these events <g>!

<TED>

Yeah, and reading all this is just making me get older and older and older.

N

 

[NudeDiver]

How about a tactical rifle and pistol "competetion". Is it s sport?

If you're talking about the events where they run around and hide behind stuff, shoot, move, shoot, etc. etc. etc. - MAYBE. I'd have to think more about it and be more familiar with it (I've seen such events in the past, in person too) - but my inclination is that the "athleticism" involved doesn't reach the level for me to consider it a sport.

If you're just standing there shooting at stuff, definitely no.

Now - the bi-athalon - shooting and skiing - yeah, I'd call that a sport for sure.

FWIW - I'm not being discriminatory in my considerations either. There are lots of recreational activities I enjoy and that I participate in that people call sports - but I don't consider them sports, even though I'm a participant. It's not a case of, "I don't do it, so it's not a sport."