Skills to have polished before going to AOW

[tursiops]

OW is about having fun, not going too deep, not staying down too long, and not holding your breath.
AOW is about cool things to do while you are not holding your breath.
Rescue is about what do do when someone holds their breath.
(apologies to Stush Doviat)

If you are really serious, then take the Peak Performance Buoyancy class (2 dives) with a good instructor *before* AOW and then work on those skills. Get your weighting right, get your trim right, get your fin kicks right, get your breathing right. THEN go do AOW (you'll just need 4 more dives, the PPB counts for one).

Compass? Yes, get comfy with it underwater while you are working on your buoyancy.

Remember: AOW requires Deep and Nav, the rest should be electives. You should elect things you are interested in. That will help the focus and the learning....

 

[The Chairman]

So my question is, is there a good way to practice this besides just swimming around? I'm thinking of bringing something to act as a reference, just not sure what yet.

Sure. Get a Gopro or other camera in the pool with you. Learn how to descend properly: Allow the air out of your BC until your head just goes under. and let go. Exhale and you'll descend. Inhale and you'll stop descending. Take a super breath and you'll ascend. Learn to ascend and descend using only your breathing. Then put ten two pound weights in a row on the bottom of the pool. Descend as I just described and pick up a weight. Without using your inflator, re-establish your buoyancy. Pick up another and get neutral again. Pick up at least a third (six pounds) and get neutral, again using ONLY your breathing. Now, see how many more you can pick up. Don't forget to get neutral in between. I can do fourteen pounds before it gets difficult.

The only rule is that you can't hold your breath: your airway must always be open. If you don't understand this concept, then please get some help.

Use the camera to see HOW you dive. If you're using your hands, you're too negative. Your hands should be folded together. You may not realize what your hands are doing during the dive, so the camera is golden. Also look at your trim. Your feet should be higher than your butt. Practice your frog kick. If you aren't sure if you're weighted properly, then research that here on ScubaBoard. Hey, what are you still doing here? Get in the pool and practice!

 

[bradells]

As someone who plans on taking AOW once the water becomes a liquid again, I like the timing of this thread, it'll give me something to work on through the winter in the pool. I've noticed something too... every single reply mentions buoyancy control! There must be a reason for that
So my question is, is there a good way to practice this besides just swimming around? I'm thinking of bringing something to act as a reference, just not sure what yet.

Netdocs suggestion of video is spot on. You may think your doing something, but the video will show you what you are, or not doing. Same with diving with a buddy and asking for immediate feedback (trim, dangles, etc)

Also, for buoyancy in the pool, I usually try to stay 6" off the bottom while practicing kicks. Ascents/Descents, the pool I sometimes frequent has big tiles on the side, and I'll go up/down a few and get neutral again, and go up another few... Same for going down.

Also, I really got used to my BPW and shoulder D rings, swimming around, staying around my target depth (6" from the bottom), purging my backup, swapping it with my long hose, clipping the long hose, swim around a bit. Unclip the long hose, purge it, and swap. Swim around a bit and repeat.

Clipping and unclipping lights, double ender, etc. all while staying around my intended target. (I never attempted the back kick while swapping regs ... might just add that to the list sometime)

Do laps with kicks, Frog, modified frog, flutter, modified flutter and back kicks (still have to work on not dropping my knee's or shrimp walking ...)

BRad

 

[Johanan]

So my question is, is there a good way to practice this besides just swimming around? I'm thinking of bringing something to act as a reference, just not sure what yet.

It's not a bad idea to devote some dives or pool sessions NOT swimming around but mainly for hovering in a horizontal position at a certain depth. Not moving your fins. You will need to balance your rig for that. This is an essential skill because if it is not your nature, it is easy to get into a runaway ascent or sink too deep without even noticing that while you concentrate on some task. If you can hover at a certain depth without thinking about it, you can add whatever skills you want - including safety stops without hanging on the line. Only then you can really "stop, think, act".

 

[Dnaber]

Great advice here and over my last couple dives I have really made some great progress on my bouyancy. Trim I think needs some work but that will be next. For trim, what position should I be looking to attain?

 

[The Chairman]

Great advice here and over my last couple dives I have really made some great progress on my bouyancy. Trim I think needs some work but that will be next. For trim, what position should I be looking to attain?

You've kind of got it backwards. Trim must come first. If your legs are down, you have to be somewhat negative as you swim to counteract the slight upward force of your kicking. When you stop, you'll find that you're suddenly heavy and probably starting to scull with your hands to compensate. The opposite is true if you're pointed down. Getting horizontal IS the key. You should be neutral when you're kicking or when you're not kicking and the only way to do that is to address trim first.

Look at Johanan's most excellent picture. When he kicks, the power from his fins will be straight back. Sure, they will be on another plane, just above his body's plane, but the force will be parallel with his body so his kicking will not push him either up or down. He can kick or stop without touching his BC or adjusting his breathing. Even then, if he has to move up a bit, he probably just takes a bigger breath rather than point himself up. To go down, he exhales a bit more. You should never have to point yourself up or down to adjust depth.

 

[danvolker]

So I recently completed my OW and have done a few dives. I'm really enjoying it and am keen on doing AOW some time in the future. I know you can technically go straight from OW to AOW, but are there any particular skills/techniques I should have absolutely bombproof first to maximise how much I get from the AOW course? Cheers.

If you have access to a 12 to 30 foot deep area where snorkeling could be fun, then this could be a phenomenal opportunity for you to make yourself a much better diver than any AOW course is going to make you....Two components sadly lacking in OW divers, as well as AOW divers, is the BUOYANCY/TRIM skills set, AND the OPTIMAL PROPULSION skill and fitness set...
With some freedive practice and enjoyment doing this, it is "natural" to learn to swim in optimal trim, horizontally, and with kick strokes that are very efficient to allow breath hold dives to get you some place. You have great bio-feedback.

Most scuba divers never learn to kick well, and this includes most of the Scubalab testers in the print magazines, and a large percentage of the dive instructors we see teaching at major Tourism destinations.
Well is sort of subjective...so lets compare to skiing.... most of the dive instructors have their skill sets down as well as the intermediate skiiers do with their techniques on green and blue slopes--they might even look pretty on these easy slopes.......But there is little thought about ever learning the skills that could get them to being good at skiing double diamond slopes, or extremes. Mediocre is what MOST Dive instructors settle for, and the excuse is that diving is not about going fast in the water.

The reality is that having the skill and fitness to go very fast in the water, also translates perfectly to having the skill and fitness to do an entire dive at a heart rate at 50 to 75 beats per minute ( or lower)--to be amazingly good on air consumption because your kicking does not waste energy....and doing this at speeds that most divers consider a normal cruising pace....

This will involve learning the many types of kick shapes you can use to essentially change gears underwater, how to be efficient at each, and how to chose the fins best for yourself when you have these skills and base fitness for underwater propulsion. Again, freediving takes you to the next level for this, much more effectively than scuba will.
Once you gain these skills from freediving, then transferring these skills to scuba makes all the AOW to GUE Fundies type courses, all the easier for you to master.

My perspective is that Diving is partially about "Getting somewhere" underwater...Whether you have to jump off a boat, or walk out from a beach...you have to swim someplace to get where the sights or photos you desire, are going to be found. Good diving IS about getting somewhere...You want to get there by wasting the least amount of air possible...and if you are limited to an hour per dive( as on many boats), you want to get to this desired place fairly soon, so you can enjoy most of your dive at this desired place....In the event of a gear failure or underwater emergency, getting someplace could be getting to the surface, without lift from the BC, or it could be getting to an anchor line against a strong current...your ability to "get someplace" really well....with great efficiency and power or speed if needed, could someday save your life, or that of a buddy....

Sometimes there is this "desired place" , everywhere around you, from the moment you jump in. That's great, apparently you won't need too many propulsion skills when you don't need to swim anywhere. this is what the current training paradigm seems to be about to me, in this world where there is no emphasis on optimizing fin swimming skills, or figuring out which fins really are best for you.

DISCLAIMER***While I say Industry in this discussion, it should be obvious that there are INDIVIDUAL INSTRUCTORS that take great pains to teach good kicking skills, and good trim & buoyancy skills.
Find one of the great instructors, and you are going to end up with pretty much everything you need. But....just like with medical doctors, or with attorneys, MOST Instructors are very mediocre or worse.
To find the really good ones, you practically need to know someone that already KNOWS a great one....and that knows what great is, versus average is.


If a dive shop has one of the great instructors--this is a huge BRAGGING POINT, and the advertising the shop does for it's instruction, should play up this amazing Instructor and what he or she can do for you....Conversely, if the shop is advertising Groupon classes, the big selling point is CHEAP INSTRUCTION...If they had a really great instructor--the instructor you really WANT....they should not want to give away something this RARE and hard to find, at 50% off or more. What you really want, the best...should never be expected to be a "loss leader"...

Many new divers will have no good idea about how to find a good instructor....first they will often need to get plugged into a network of divers like scubaboard....a great place to look for friends that can give valuable recommendations---a place where you don't have to compare one ad to another....

And, you can mitigate this problem by getting some freediving instruction, and then enjoying freediving on your own time--as this will evolve your SCUBA skills and be fun at the same time.

 

[DivemasterDennis]

Buoyancy, trim, compass work. I agree these are the biog three, but in addition, the ability to maintain buoyancy and trim while engaged in a task is a big focus, and if you don't have it, you will get there in my AOW class. I really think the essence of being an "advanced diver" is that you do not have to concentrate on buyoancy and trim, they are almost second nature. Development of this level of skill is done by diving, and diving, and diving some more. I'm glad the op has opted to take some time and get in some diving before jumping right in to the advanced class.
DivemasterDennis

 

[diver 85]

Keep diving with your present skills, AOW classes--per se--won't add a lot of them, only more diving.....IMO

 

[Subcooled]

So my question is, is there a good way to practice this besides just swimming around?

Swim around at a depth of three to nine feet (or eighteen feet). And stay down there. Buoyancy is especially hard to control at these shallow depths. If you can handle it there, you can handle it at thousand feet. If you feel that your lungs are constantly too full, move some air from lungs to the BCD.

The advanced open water course is not that advanced. You just need to enjoy beeing under water, and then the AOW course is doable. I said: enjoy. You don't need perfect skills, but you need to be able to swim around freely and to try new things.

Below, I will try to brutally simplify things.

- The OWD (or similar basic courses) teaches you to safely use a compressed air breathing apparatus (and some other equipment). Result: You will survive under water.

- The AOWD (and similar) teaches you to use a compass and a dive light, and maybe something else, and dive a bit deeper. Depending on agency, there may be more theory/understanding, or not. Result: You can do something under water.

- The RD course teaches you how awfully difficult it is to try to actually rescue someone, so better to avoid the accident. Result: You don't want to be a hero.