Your dives: Practice vs enjoyment

[gcbryan]

Are most of your dives about enjoying the dive or are most of your dives about practicing your skills to be primarily used later on a specific dive?

Or maybe I should rephrase this since I'm sure all of us enjoy whatever we choose to do on a dive...are most of your dives done to improve your skills primarily by practicing skills or is improvement of your skills more or less a by product of diving for pleasure (looking at fish or wrecks).

Mine are for pleasure and I'm guessing that is true for most people even if a small part of the dive is used to practice skills for some of you. I'm not entirely certain of the answers to this question however and that's why I post. I occassionally get the impression that skills improvement is the main enjoyment of diving for some of you rather than it being a by product of diving.

 

[TSandM]

I do a mixture of "sight-seeing" and practice dives. On the sight-seeing dives, I'm still aware of what I can do to practice skills as an integral part of the dive -- I'll play with my back kick while my buddy takes photographs, or practice buoyancy control by going under one piling and over the next. But the purpose of the dive is to poke around and see what's there and enjoy the marine life, and sometimes to play with the camera.

The practice dives are done for the sole purpose of working on skills, although we aren't above stopping to enjoy a very friendly stubby squid if one presents himself. Those dives are also great fun, in a different way. I think it's necessary to do some specifically designed practice dives, because some of the things I want to practice (ascents and stops, for example) really shouldn't be done at the end of a longer, deeper dive, given my current level of incompetence. So we keep the practice dives very shallow and keep them safe.

I do both types of dives with the same people. We just know ahead of time what we're going into the water to do.

 

[Wildcard]

I try to work on at least one skill on every dive, ususaly several be it alt air exchange or bouyancy control or mask clearing, whatever. I dive for fun but also try to get just a little better with each dive. If Im waiting on a photo buddy to get the shot, I work on my hover, if someone is having a problem, I do the PADI demonstration. Sometims I just do things to tune up, BC doff and don ect. It's all good.

 

[gcbryan]

I find that if I'm bored or waiting on someone I tend to mentally challenge myself just by estimating my SAC rate and applying it to my expected depth for the next 10 minutes to predict gas usage and then checking my SPG 10 minutes later to see how close I got. I also like to guess depth and time before checking my computer.

All of the other things that have been mentioned except for valve drills and air sharing I consider that I'm always practicing during the coarse of any fun dive. I do more challenging dives that do reinforce my previous experience but rarely do large portions of a dive just to practice (not that is not a good idea).

I would rather do an actual open water ascent with stops for practice than to do it shallow for practice but I understand the logic of doing otherwise.

I have heard of those practicing week after week in a swimming pool and wander why not just do it in the real environment. Practice only goes so far it seems to me. If you don't live near OW then I can understand using a pool but otherwise I'm not sure how useful it is. There is a point where you need to just do it.

 

[onfloat]

There is something to be said for muscle memory and conditioned response.

 

[dive_lover88]

I'm not sure if i'm answering your qn...so here goes;
1st and 2nd dives of my trip is normally dedicated to practising and tuning my boyancy and breathing up.The rest would be pleasure dives.

 

[Charlie99]

I dive to see the fishies. Scuba is what gets me there.

Sometimes I'll take a few moments and practice some skill, particularly when just burning up some time during a blue water ascent, but outside of a few formal classes, never have I done a dive where the primary purpose was training or skills practice.

 

[Divin'Papaw]

With only 16 dives, every dive involves practice, refine and improve. I certainly enjoy it or I wouldn't be doing it, but being very new to the sport means that every dive involves practice and improvement. I am looking forward to a time when I am competent enough that I can go out a purely enjoy a dive, whether it be a wreck, reef, wall or simply some bass and bluegill to have fun with in a quarry.

 

[vkalia]

I dive to see the fishies. Scuba is what gets me there.

Sometimes I'll take a few moments and practice some skill, particularly when just burning up some time during a blue water ascent, but outside of a few formal classes, never have I done a dive where the primary purpose was training or skills practice.

Me neither.

Vandit

 

[Rick Murchison]

Are most of your dives about enjoying the dive or are most of your dives about practicing your skills ... ?

Yes.
Rick