Advice please on student anxiety

[Genesis]

is to use a snorkel in the pool BUT NO MASK.

If you can swim with a snorkel and no mask, you can do the skill.

Once you can do that, then switch to breathing in through the snorkel, and out through your nose.

When you get THERE, you've got it. Its just a matter of actually putting on the mask - the actual muscle memory and act of breathing and clearing is taken care of.

The issue is training your muscles. You are going from inhaling through your mouth to out your nose, then back in through the mouth.

 

[Paco]

Thanks everyone. I guess I wasn't too clear. She has the mask romoval down pat, but needs practice with other skills. What happened here is that the class of four students progressed through all the pool skills in one day and without having planned so, they chose to start part 2 the following day. Too much a little too fast. Right now, after having thought about it, she feels much better and is looking forward to tomorrow's training dives. She now has seen the lake, knows what to expect and is more relaxed and ready. I'll let you all know tomorrow night how it went. Thanks again.

 

[Conor]

Most of the good Scuba advice has been given, but there may be a different angle on it.

Is she generally an anxious person ? If so it may not be due to any REAL fear of inability to do it, it may be just that she has a memory of the fear from the first time and that that fear builds while she is waiting on her turn, left alone with her own thoughts on the training platform. I guess what I am thinking of is more akin to a performance anxiety, i.e. it builds during the time that she is waiting for it to be her turn.

Of course if she is nervous about the skill she should practice it as much as possible until she is comfortable that she could do it in an emergency, but do you think it would have been different if immediately after demonstrating the skill the instructor had asked her to do it? if so getting over the hurdle in front of the instructor may turn out to be the end of the issue.

Just an idea

Conor

 

[Conor]

Oops, I think you posted while I was typing, glad to hear it appears to be sorted.

Hope the next session goes perfectly

 

[AquaBob]

Paco once bubbled...
... She has the mask romoval down pat, but needs practice with other skills. What happened here is that the class of four students progressed through all the pool skills in one day and without having planned so, they chose to start part 2 the following day. Too much a little too fast. Right now, after having thought about it, she feels much better and is looking forward to tomorrow's training dives. ....

My wife is in about the same boat. She and my son are ready for their last pool session before OW. There are only 6 student in the class, so it is moving along fairly quickly. My son is doing great.... just like you'd expect from a kid.... and she's doing pretty well considering the first time she put on a mask and snorkle she couldn't breath. I think in her case, a larger class that moved a little slower would be a help.

She really wants to do this, but it has been a slow road to the bottom of the pool. I've been very patient; encouraging her to TAKE HER TIME with every skill and not move on until she's comfortable. This seems to be the key.

The first time she saw me clear my mask, she thought she could never do it. Now, there is no problem. Here is the odd part...

In the last pool session, the instructor had the students play a little game of 'pass the mask'. All students kneeled on the bottom in a circle, and on her instruction, they would remove their mask and pass it to the person on their left. This was to not only provide practice with mask clearing, but dealing with some minor stress of having an unfamiliar piece of equipment. That was just a little to much for my wife. After a brief struggle with trying to clear an unfamiliar mask, she heading for the surface. She didn't bolt, but she didn't stay down either.

Now, after a little time to think about it, I'm sure she will do fine. Today, she and my son will play the same game in our backyard pool to reinforce the skill before the last pool session.

During one of the classroom sessions, the instructor told them that when she first started diving, she was VERY apprehensive and really did it to be with her husband. She went on to explain that it was his patience and understanding and gentle encouragement that got her through the anxiety. She also said that at the beginning, she often felt that she was holding him back, but HE never made her feel that way. He was always delighted with any level of dive that she felt comfortable with.

That was about 15 years ago. Now they run a dive shop, teach the full NAUI cirriculum, and lead groups all over the world.

I don't plan to open a dive shop or lead groups, but I do hope that 15 years from now my wife will be able to have the same encouraging things to say about my behaviour during her training.

I hope the same for you.

 

[DrSteve]

My wife too...she went through the pool sessions and did very well. She was supposed to check out in the Keys, but the conditions were a touch too rough and she panicked during mask clearing/removal. After that she tried one more time and that was it.

Since then she has had a personal private lesson and couldn't manage it. A year later she did a "come and try" session and said she felt better.

I have not pushed her - I've told her I'd like her to be a diver so we can dive together, but I'm resigned to her not doing it. Now she has signed up for another course and we'll see how that goes. Trouble is, she doesn't realise that wearing a 7mm rubber suit and carrying a big tank on your back and breathing through a tube is anything but natural! Time will tell. Good luck!

 

[AngieDiver69]

She obviously doesnt have the ability to be a competent diver. If she has to be 'coached' to do the mask replacement, whats gonna happen when something goes wrong when your on your own?

Come on people, why are you encouraging this woman to keep diving? Remember what you all write about incompetent divers?? Well, THIS IS ONE OF THEM. She gets freaked out in a pool for christs sake.

Tell her to take up snorkeling.

 

[Walter]

Angie,

In my opinion, you might be right, but we don't have enough information to know. It is more likely her class was inadequate. There are some, apparently you are one, people who take to the sport naturally. Most of us need to learn. There are techniques to teach people to dive that can transform most people into very competent divers. These techniques are not widely used. I'm still waiting for the answers to the questions in my original post. Until they are answered, we simply don't know if this is not her sport or if she simply needs an instructor who knows how to teach diving.

 

[helliott]

I'm pretty new to this board, so I'll just say that I'll be 68 years old in September, was originally certified in 1971 by NAUI, dove very actively (200+ dives per year) for 15 years, but had not been diving since 1986 until my wife and I did the SAS trip in Epcot's Living Seas tank. That night, she told me she wanted to get certified for SCUBA. I said, "Great, I'll get recertified."

I'm going though the complete OW course with her because I could quickly tell that things had changed too much for just a refesher. We have our last pool session, tomorrow, and the OW dives start on Saturday.

My wife has had a few glitches with her confidence, but the instructor and I have worked with her and she's now looking forward to the OW dives and is confident that she'll be OK.

According to some posters on this board, we should have given up on her at her first sign of trouble. According to others I have no business diving because I can't perform like a Navy Seal.

It seems to me that some posters, here and elsewhere, feel that this should be an elite sport for only the top physical specimens. If you don't want to dive with me, that's your loss. I dove for 15 years with no BC and no pressure gauge, just a J valve rig, without killing myself or anybody else. I have shared air without an octo from over 80 feet and gotten my buddy to the surface in good shape.

Lighten up. It ain't rocket science or SEAL training.

 

[diverbrian]

A couple of the instructors at the shop both had wives like this. They took seemingly forever and many pool sessions to be comfortable (at least accordingly to my dive instructors). But, (much like Genesis' SO) they are now two of the best and most avid divers in the shop. I personally watched another woman like this. She went through two sets of pool sessions. We spent one of those sets of pool sessions with her swimming around the pool accompanied by a divecon watching her. She also loves to dive now.

If she really wants to do it, she will. It may be a matter of time and patience to ease her in which case a patient instructor will be a huge benefit.