How long were you a "newbie"?

[Mo2vation]

I just hit 60 (dives) last Sunday. And I was partnered up with this Hoover who had about 15 or so dives. And after about 5 or 6 dives with this guy I started feeling pretty good about myself - I'm not bouncing off the bottom, I can drop like a stone and put on the brakes a few feet from the bottom and hover, I don't come out as fatigued as I used to, I'm not a chuckwagon harvesting kelp all along my dive, I'm using less weight now and consuming less gas now, and its all good. I’m silently thinking “I rule…”

Its at these times that I feel most vulnerable. I make a conscience effort to never lose that great respect and scary edge. I dive with a higher confidence level than I ever have, but I know that (as FredT once told me) fear is at my elbow...just don't let it into my suit.

I need to keep that newbie edge.

I noticed the change when I moved to the Drysuit. For me, it was a no brainer. After about 45 dives in a 7mm wetsuit, I got in my 50/50 and first dive, nailed it. I watched many of my peers (and my wife...who has 3 times as many dives as I do) cork out, or wig out, or just struggle with it...I'm fortunate to have never had that problem. Reading the Fundy's book a few times brought into words what I've been suspecting for a while:

"diving ability involves knowledge, natural aptitude, and practiced technique..." It goes onto say that knowledge and technique are within the control of a motivated diver, and basically that some are gifted with natural ability. Before the book (and this board) I was on the road to relying too much on my "gifts" and THAT is where the danger is.

Understanding the need for improved techniques and skills to complement my natural ability, and to keep on the training path (new courses, dedicating some dive trips solely to practice and not sightseeing, etc.) is what will, hopefully, keep me a newbie forever.

The foundation is there. The base line skills came very quickly – but relaxing on that and becoming king scuba dude in my little circle is easy and alluring. Seeking out new stuff and demanding more out of myself and approaching the new skills and courses with intensity is what keeps me a newbie. I don’t want to be a fat diver who thinks he’s all that – the boats are loaded with these people (heck, me and one other new diver I had to pull my PADI OW instructor out of La Jolla cove on my first ocean training dives… nice.) I want to know there is more to know. Like UP, I’m looking forward to DIR/F setting the bar and becoming a newbie again.

K

 

[Diver0001]

seadog once bubbled...
Just wondering how long it took until you thought you actually were a DIVER?
I know it took about 35 dives before I finally had most things worked out = bouyancy, trim, gear configuration, air consumption (could last as long as most on a dive), etc.

Someone recently said that this was like reverse evolution. AFtre 20 dives you think you know a lot. After 200 you're not so sure. Aftre 2000 you become a newbie.

It certainly applies in my case. The more I can do, the more intensly aware I am of the things that are still out of reach. This seems to match well with the experiences of the others who responded too.

Nevertheless I don't think this was the answer you were looking for. I'll tell you what I think.

There are three kinds of divers. The first type (let's call them naturals) look good on their first lesson and have skills far above their experience level after just a few dives. I was on a training dive this weekend and one of the students we had along was one of these. It was his *first* open watre dive and I caught him a couple of times hanging motionless a metre above the bottom in 6 metres of water in a dry suit (which he had used for the first time in the pool the day before) and he more or less immediately picked up on frog-kicking after seeing us do it. Later on that same dive the suit got away from him but it will probably only happen a few times before he has it nailed.

The second type (let's call them the norm) pick up the skills fairly easily but need a little practice to get confortable and get a good handle on buoyancy control. I was one of these. I wanted to be a natrual but I just wasn't. This group, in my experience gets things under control in 20-30 dives and they start looking good in about 60. Aftre about 200 they started to look really good and after another 200 their skills (including good and bad habits) don't seem to improve much more unless they consciously work on it. If I had the power, these numbers would also be the experience requirements for the various courses. OW dives 1-25, AOW dives 25-60, Rescue Dives 60-200, DM after 200 and Instructor level after 400. In the tropics you could probably do with 1/2-ing those numbers.....

And the last type, which we know don't need to be named, started off ploughing along the bottom, were still ploughing along the bottom after 20 or 30 dives and improve very slowly if at all. The good news is that bona fide bottom-ploughers are more rare than bona fide naturals.... The bad news is that bottom-ploughers have excellent taste and almost exclusively dive on coral reefs....

Does that sort of answer your question?

R..

 

[DiverBuoy]

Often quoted: "The more we learn the less we realize we know." It's like the teenager who knows everything about everything, until life slaps them and they realize they know nothing.

It usually takes new divers between 20 and 30 dives to get the entire "big picture". It takes at least that long to make all the fundamentals second nature. I've seen that environmental awareness in students at that point in their dive experience - where the tunnel vision is finally gone - and they come up from the dive expressing - I get it! It's almost always after the 15th dive.

 

[livestodive]

prolly always will be.

New enough to learn and not new enough to be led into somthing over my experience level.

New enough to want my buddies to call the dive whenever the need arises.

Not so newbie that I have had to tell a buddy to call the dive. I hate having to worry that they won't call the dive when they should.

See a newbie, and always will be

 

[Beachman]

This definition certainly oversimplifies the subject...but I do so for purposes of illustration. Generally speaking (with people that have a normal learnng curve and physical ability), experience with a bit of guidance will produce capability and confidence....i.e., not a newbie.

By this same definition, if one does not have the experience with a bit of guidance, they are still a newbie in that aspect of diving. The number of dives, the years diving, the breadth of experience....none of these make any difference if you ain't "been there, done that" a number of times successfully under that particular set of circumstances.

So I would suggest that even the most accomplished diver is still a "newbie" in some aspect of diving.....and I also suspect that the most experienced and accomplished divers would be the first to agree that in some aspect of diving they feel they are still a newbie.

 

[Amber]

I'm STILL a newbie. lol. I'm working on it though.
Amber

 

[scuberd]

at the time I felt experienced as soon as I was handed my cert card, now I would begin to say I'm intermediate with about 100 dives

 

[lanun]

dive number 62 was a turning point because i realized i'm still not 'there' yet as a diver, but started then to realize the extent of my shortcomings.

the dive wasn't logged. it was that special . my hover @ 2feet off the bottom was too far away to see the flatworm. during debriefing the inst said 'i could show you more but you need to be 6" off the bottom'.

and that was only on bouyancy control.

oh, am about to become a newbie again - just started my rescue class and the first order of business - repeat all 18 or so OW skills. oh joy

so i guess i still am a newbie.

 

[Butch103]

with what many have already said.....

I feel I am a newbie the first couple of dives each year....and each time I begin a new phase in my diving......

As with most things in life, I am on a learning curve with no end in sight......There are always different things to learn....

I am very comfortable in the water, my bouyancy isn't too bad, I am working on different swim kicks (eg frog, mod frog), and my SAC rate is improving.....So I guess I am still a newbie.

 

[raybo]

always will be.

Drysuit was a rude awakening. 10-15 dives with it and I'm still trying to figure things out.

Seem to learn "something" on every dive. Not always a skill, but something.

Good habit for life in general, I think.