DaleC
Contributor
Don't get hung up on the forced part. I'm not implying instructors are made to do something or not. What I'm saying is that, in the past, people primarily came to SCUBA from a skin diving background. All of the older training books have extensive sections on it and clubs had skin diving as a pre-requisite component part of their experience. Those divers brought something to the table when they then took SCUBA training which is less common than that which the non diver of today, or their instructors, bring. So you have non divers seeking, and instructors offering, equipment solutions to elementary issues, that should/would have been resolved at the skin diving level.
Ex: My first OW training dive had me wearing 42lb's of lead. 42lb's. Why? Because that would solve some tendency to pop up I suppose, or so I could do skills on the bottom, or perhaps the instructor did not understand how to weight divers. I really don't know. What I do know is that the only way I could control my buoyancy in those conditions was by using a buoyancy compensating device (BCD). An equipment solution. Along with that came terrible trim and buoyancy control.
What was suggested as a solution?
Take additional training in the form of a PPB course, in which the same instructor would fine tune my weighting issues.
Fortunately, I never got there and began vintage equipment diving instead. While doing that I reconnected with the skin diving roots I had developed in the past and realized they had an intrinsic role to play in SCUBA diving - something that was never spelled out in training. Up until then it would have seemed skin diving and SCUBA diving were two unrelated and mutually exclusive activities.
So, to get back to the OP. If I was to wish for anything I guess I could wish my instructor had emphasized the role that skin diving played in compressed air diving and that SCUBA was just a natural extension of those skills. I believe my outlook towards the role equipment plays would have been a lot different, sooner. But I don't think that would have happened because I don't think he had the knowledge of skin diving himself to pass along. I think he just started diving, and became an instructor, and just passed on what he himself had been taught.
However, as I began to advance in my diving, and began soloing in earnest, I met another instructor who acted as a mentor in some regards. His skills as a technical diver did come in handy to help me view dives beyond BOW levels in a different (safer) light.
