Skills

[fisheater]

people ask me what i am, what do i do. I tell them i'm a diver. They get a confused look on their face, and ask if thgat's what i do for a living. I tell them "oh, you mean what do i do for money? That's different, that's just for money, i thought you wanted to know what i really am, what i do, i'm a diver."

exactly!

 

[boulderjohn]

Personally, I think attitude dictates skill.

There are those who research and set goals to improve, and there are those content with what they have.

I've seen divers with double-digit logged dives looking far more effective in the water than some with 3 or 4 digit logged dives...

This past October I was part of a group of three divers on a basic reef dive in Mexico. The reef was just a short hop from the resort area, and everything was set up as one tank dives. One morning we had a new DM who had not been with us before. At the end of the morning dive, he took us aside and said we were the only ones signed up for the afternoon dive, and he asked if it was OK to go to a site more befitting our abilities. We said sure. When we prepared to get on the boat, though, we saw we had been joined by another couple, and we were concerned because we saw beginner signs as they prepared. Sure enough, they weren't nearly skilled enough in buoyancy and trim for the complex site to which we were taken. The DM even gave the wife a lesson while we watched. I saw the DM skip some of the passageways through the coral that he had clearly intended us to take and stay more in the open areas of the site.

After the dive, he apologized. He said that the other couple had signed up at the last minute. They only had about 20 dives, so they did not have the vast experience we had and could not handle that dive site. He was quite surprised when I told him that the couple I was with had just completed their OW certification the day before. He had just witnessed their 5th and 6th logged dives. The difference was that as their instructor, I made sure their weights were properly placed for optimal trim from the first time they got in the pool. I made sure they focused on buoyancy and trim from the very start of class. The class itself took no more time than any typical OW class.

If you are never taught proper buoyancy and trim, and if you keep on diving the way you were originally taught, then you will never really progress. If you start working on that from the beginning and have a proper image of what diving should look like from the beginning, you will leap past more experienced divers very quickly.