Limits: what they are, why they are important and how to establish them

[The Chairman]

I have a dive buddy that I no longer dive with or DM for because I don't trust his judgement,

Major kudos for this.

There was a time when a guy here on SB wanted to show me how he spear fished. Kewl. I'm open to learning new methods. We're on the Gulf off of New Port Ritchie and 20 minutes into the first dive he shoots an awesome black bass. Before he could give it the coup d'gras, a largish Bull comes right over the two of us and grabs his fish. Then, the fidiot pulls the thrashing Bull to us and starts beating it with his speargun. The bull left when he severed the body from the head. On the boat, he encourages me to change my tank over. "That's OK", I said, "I've got a bone in my leg and need to sit this one out." I wasn't going back into the water with that guy, no matter what. He showed me his attitude towards safety and I didn't like it.

 

[Edward3c]

Great post! I think this goes along with another post about learning. The factor that sticks out for me is Judgement, judgement about your training, judgement about your experience, judgement about conditions and so on sometimes it's flawed and that is when things go bad. I have a dive buddy that I no longer dive with or DM for because I don't trust his judgement, he recently became an instructor with the minimum number of dives "I was the DM for his OW class" and now he is all knowing about diving and is closed off to learning. The way I look at things your never as good as you think, your training never stops and doesn't have to be with an instructor and I have no problem walking away from a dive even if it just doesn't feel right. Now I'm not saying my judgement is perfect I just feel it is a huge factor in life.

When I’m coaching new, or want to be, instructors I make the point that there is always more to learn. There are a few instructors I won’t use when running local training events.

 

[1000RR]

The factor that sticks out for me is Judgement, judgement about your training, judgement about your experience, judgement about conditions and so on sometimes it's flawed and that is when things go bad.

I wonder if this is more often seen as a challenge in new (and younger) divers? The flip side to that, which I have going for me - is my age. With age, many times comes better judgement. I had a discussion with a DS recently and we were talking about deep dives and he described a dive that was beyond recreational depths. He said - there was no way he would take anyone my daughter's age on a dive like that. I told him - you can include me in that as well. I told him - I have no business on a dive of that nature given my experience and training thus far. He looked at me and said - if only all divers didn't carry that same attitude and approach to diving.

 

[The Chairman]

80x10= 800psi ascent pressure.
(3000-800)/2= 1100psi usable gas
3000-1100= 1900psi is now your turn pressure

I'm sorry, but I had first labeled "ascent pressure" also as "turn pressure", but now I have it correctly labeled. Many thanks to @Grey Goose for pointing this out in a PM.

In your OW training, you were undoubtedly taught to always swim into the current at the beginning of your dive. This gives you plenty of gas to use on your return, but if you don't get to the anchor line for whatever reason, start up when you reach your ascent pressure. If you get back to the anchor line with more than your ascent pressure, then look around there! You'll find that there's often a lot of overlooked stuff close to the boat.

 

[Gareth J]

Maybe I should revise the question a little... At what point does increased experience (with no further formal training) increase your limits in diving? It seems that there is a point with experience (plenty of it) that your limits likely begin to expand.

I think there are two different aspects with experience, rather like education.

Initially (when you first start diving). Experience is the part where you cement the existing knowledge (theory) and skills (practical) that you where taught on the course. i.e. you are now comfortable in the environment, (buoyancy, finning, ). You have experience of the types of diving you originally discussed - or like (have the opportunity) to do. This includes the basic skills (often forgotten), mask clearing, regulator retrieval, AAS.
(There are many experienced divers who may have no or extremely limited experience of a particular type of diving i.e. low visibility diving, drift diving, or diving in kelp forests. Because they have not had the opportunity or interest in this type of diving.)
At this level you are ready to progress - i.e. the next course. Your are mentally in a position to concentrate on the new tasks and skills rather than be distracted, concerned over existing skills you should already know.
As an example, it is much easier to teach someone to use a stage cylinder, if they are already comfortable with removing a regulator from their mouth, replacing it and purging it (a basic skill). If they are uncomfortable with this element, they are not ready to progress.

Much later. You have a balance of practical experience, theoretical knowledge and practical skill to discuss and debate new practices and engage in less familiar diving, or develop new techniques to overcome particular difficulties.
But even at this level, there are things I would hope that you understand and foolhardy to attempt without further tuition.
By this i mean real practical tuition by an experienced instructor in this activity.
To me, the most obvious one here is cave/cavern diving.
I have many years of diving experience, practical skills and knowledge. I dive OC, CCR, mixed gas and instruct. BUT, if I started any cave or cavern diving I would want PROPER tuition. Yes I can research it, I can apply knowledge I already have. None of this substitutes for proper instruction by an individual that does this type of diving, understands the rules and the why's. I can debate the rules - using my existing knowledge, and learn why certain practices are cast in stone.

There are many lessons that have been hard earned. There are many standard practices that we now apply to our diving, and teach our students. What causes great sadness, is when new divers fail to absorb these practices that have been so hard earned, or ignore them; with the potential result of serious injury or loss of life.

Like many other things in life, diving is about weighing risk and reward.
There are significant difference in terms of risk when comparing say a shallow reef dive in tropical conditions, to those experienced when doing a deep mixed gas dive in temperate waters 10 miles off shore on a 80 year wreck.
Understanding the risk, and how to mitigate it is part of the education.

 

[boulderjohn]

At what point does increased experience (with no further formal training) increase your limits in diving? It seems that there is a point with experience (plenty of it) that your limits likely begin to expand.

The factor that sticks out for me is Judgement, judgement about your training, judgement about your experience, judgement about conditions and so on sometimes it's flawed and that is when things go bad.

About two years ago I tried to write an article on the topic of this thread. I went into the Instructor to Instructor forum and asked for advice. I struggled. I never got it done, largely because I struggled with how to write about the issue in the two posts above.

The simple answer to the question posed in the first quote is provided in the second. Just use good judgment. Wow! That sure is easy to say, but why is it so hard to accomplish? What is it that leads us to make bad judgments and dive beyond of training and experience? My attempt to write my article was inspired by the death of a friend, a diver with far, far more training and far, far more experience than I. In my opinion, he was diving beyond his limits when he died, but it was hard for him to recognize it because the dive he was doing was beyond the limits of of 99.9% of divers, and well beyond mine.

In my opinion, the problem is that there are factors that cloud our judgment and make it too easy for us to make a mistake.

• Pride: We think we are simply better than we really are, and we are not making enough of an effort to be objective.
• Envy: We want to be like some others we know. We see them doing things that we would like to be able to do, and we want to be able to do them, too.
• Impatience: We have set goals for our development, and we are too quick to think we have arrived.
• Bad feedback: As we get better and better, we may have friends who marvel at our increased ability, and they will feed our egos with praise. They mean well, but they really don't know enough to be able to evaluate our actual skills accurately, and they may drive us beyond our limits. A dive operation in St. Croix recently praised to the hilt a beginning technical diver, saying the he knew more about technical diving than anyone on the planet. That was absurd. He was a beginner. They called him Doctor Deep, and promoted his desire to set a world depth record. Many people tried to stop him, but he tried anyway, and he died as a result.

 

[Akimbo]

In my opinion, the problem is that there are factors that cloud our judgment and make it too easy for us to make a mistake.

There may be another factor that is politically incorrect to discuss. Young males, and I was one, have an underdeveloped sense of self-preservation coupled with an excessive desire for exciting experiences. It never entered my mind that anything I was doing might kill me -- being indestructible and all.

I would have been dead by my mid-20s if the thought of getting killed while diving wouldn't have been utterly embarrassing. My peers didn't cut any slack for stupid. Ignorance happens but ignoring the hard lessons we all learned from others is inexcusable.

The great majority of the cumulative knowledge presented in diving classes at all levels resulted from accidents that scared the hell out of, injured, or killed someone. Thanks to all the pioneers the preceded me, living or not.

 

[The Chairman]

In my opinion, the problem is that there are factors that cloud our judgment and make it too easy for us to make a mistake.

This isn't a bad aside for our discussion, but John was first referring to how to push the known envelope of diving. No one participating in this thread so far can be seen as being in the top %1 of divers, much less the top %0.1 of divers so I don't want us to get distracted by that. However, in regards to Joe Diver, ignorance plays as much a role as the other factors John cited. That would include both individual and corporate ignorance in that we often don't know what we don't know as someone already pointed out. There are plenty of instructors out there who would love to teach you how to safely do a deep and/or deco dive or otherwise safely increase your limits. Yet, many divers will do casual deco dives of just a few minutes and continually build on it. Their plans are for everything to go right, which they usually do, and that makes them even bolder on subsequent dives. It's not necessarily an ego thing, but a decision based on ignorance of what could go wrong. When things do go wrong, we talk about them in our accidents and incidents forum and anguish over their personality flaws. Ignorance is curable while personality flaws are not. This is where training with an experienced instructor can help you to surmount those ignorance issues. They can give you the tools to dive safely, but it's still up to you to use those tools and perfect your skills in using them.

Back to limits:

Your limits need to be established before you splash and honored throughout the dive. Unfortunately, as John pointed out, it's easy enough to justify your bad decisions. So what are some of the warning signs that you're only fooling yourself?

• If you're afraid of posting about your dives here, then maybe you need to revisit your limits
• If others question your decisions or your plans, then maybe you need to revisit your limits
• If you feel reticent about sharing your dive plan with the dive op, then maybe you need to revisit your limits.
• If you can't tell your loved ones about your diving practices, then maybe you need to revisit your limits.
• If you're not proud sharing your dive plan with your instructor, then maybe you need to revisit your limits.
• If you're feeling embarrassed or uncomfortable with any part of the dive, then maybe, just maybe you need to revisit your limits.

News flash Walter Cronkite: THERE'S NOTHING DOWN THERE WORTH DYING FOR!

So please, when someone challenges you here on ScubaBoard or at the dive site, don't take it as a personal affront. If they didn't care, they wouldn't say anything. Learn from the feedback. It's priceless even if you didn't pay a thing for it. What's the worst that could happen? Ah, you won't get hurt because you chose to honor your limits. Think about it.

 

[boulderjohn]

There may be another factor that is politically incorrect to discuss. Young males, and I was one, have an underdeveloped sense of self-preservation coupled with an excessive desire for exciting experiences. It never entered my mind that anything I was doing might kill me -- being indestructible and all.

You are probably right. A couple of years ago I talked about this very thing with one of my students, who was looking back on a lifetime of rock climbing. He said that when he started, his climbs were long on foolish bravado and short on skill. It finally dawned on him that he needed to change that ratio and took the training that allowed him to have that long lifetime of training. With that in mind, he was progressing through advanced dive training step by cautious step.

 

[boulderjohn]

This isn't a bad aside for our discussion, but John was first referring to how to push the known envelope of diving. No one participating in this thread so far can be seen as being in the top %1 of divers, much less the top %0.1 of divers so I don't want us to get distracted by that.

I said that my thinking was inspired by that incident. I believe everything I wrote applies to every diver at every level.