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My concern is with students practicing "emergency and mishap" skills when my attention is elsewhere. Especially in mask skills, they are done while I am gripping part of the BCD so I can brake anyone bolting to the surface in a panic. If it's not your turn, I am not in the same position to react.Lol, at first I thought you meant to not break the seal at the top as I'm letting water in, but no. I don't let water in through the top as I'm exhaling, He did teach us to hold down the top rim of the mask as we tilted out head upwards.
He also suggested I inhale a little beforehand so I have enough air in my lungs to exhale.
I will definitely try to exhale slightly before I tilt my head up.
My one concern about practicing on my own is the article I read mentioned this.. "Remember, new skills should never be attempted without the supervision of a qualified scuba instructor, and you should only practice on your own after entry level certification."
Are they implying I shouldn't practice this until I'm already OW certified?
The only way I can describe it I have a slight feeling of panic of water going up my nose the moment I tilt my head upward with water in my mask. I know I'm safe, but when I try to exhale, through my nose, it does nothing to the water in my mask.
The problem with this article is that it describes how to perform the skill on the knees. You should never be on your knees in any class. Not in the pool. Not in the open water.I did find this article, which seems to go through a few different methods I may have to try.
Techniques and Tips For Mastering Scuba Mask Clearing
That's unfortunate. Being on the knees requires overweighting (Why overweighting is such a problem, especially for open water students | Facebook) and creates bad habits. You want to perform skills as you would while diving: in a horizontal position, floating in the water column.Why not? I'm usually on my knees while doing the exercises in Scuba class.
What about being in a seated position? For every exercise that we spend submerged in the pool, we are always seated or on our knees (same for the instructor). Keep in mind, this is a 5 ft deep pool.That's unfortunate. Being on the knees requires overweighting (Why overweighting is such a problem, especially for open water students | Facebook) and creates bad habits. You want to perform skills as you would while diving: in a horizontal position, floating in the water column.
Even though a number of SB members wrote this article 8 years ago, http://utahscubadiver.com/wp-content/uploads/USJ2Q11.pdf, the industry has been super slow to adopt teaching open water neutrally buoyant and trim. SNSI and RAID are the only WRSTC members to mandate courses to be taught this way. When I first started teaching, I was admittedly a bad instructor. I didn't know any better, and I put students on their knees as that is how I was taught to teach. Since then (thank God for social media, and it started for me on scubaboard), I learned to never place students on their knees and have them perform all skills neutrally buoyant and trim. The difference in results are dramatic. My retention rate flipped. My students became more proficient in less time.
Simply put, placing students on their knees does them a huge disservice. I'd like to see every single instructor who teaches this way to stop. Either learn to teach neutrally buoyant/trim or stop teaching all together.