Blue982
Contributor
I believe that much of the time "old ways" are no longer applicable especially in equipment heavy sports like diving. When a piece of equivalent comes along to supplant a skill, knowing how to use that device well will result in better overall skills (if this is not true than the equipment is pointless.) You don't need to know most old diving skills to be a good diver today, but much of the time they help develop modern skills faster.
For example; I'm sure buoyancy control and weighting were different things before BCDs, and not particularly useful skills now that no-BCD diving is rare. If someone had to choose, learning the nuances of controlling an air bubble and the how long to hold down "inflate" to get the desired effect is more useful. Weighting can be off by a few pounds and not cause any serious problem in comparison to the time before BCDs (although the closer you get it, the easier everything becomes.)
But, if a diver learned to control his buoyancy without a BC first, even for an hour in the pool during their OW class with the power inflator disconnected, they would ultimately be a better diver. They would at least know that lungs can be used for fine tuning, and they can practice that skill during the rest of their diving career. If they had never had that hour without a power inflator, they may have taken much longer to realize the usefulness of lungs for buoyancy.
This is similar to flying, where there are two styles of landing gear. There's the tricycle gear (one wheel in front, two in back) and the taildragger or "conventional" gear (the older configuration, with two in front and one in back). Most people don't take the time to learn how to fly a taildragger - there just aren't that many around, so the utility of learning the skill is limited for the majority of pilots.
However, if you learn how to fly the unstable taildragger, the skills transfer back to a newer tricycle gear. Pilots who fly or have flown taildraggers usually have much improved speed and rudder control - things that some pilots don't develop until later on. The old skills and ways accelerates a pilot's learning significantly; you can be a good pilot without knowing how to fly a taildragger, but it's easier to become better faster if you do.
In both cases, learning how to do something the old way, the hard way, forces a person to develop a skill faster. I think skin diving and no BC diving skills make a modern scuba diver much more competent over a diver who never took the time to learn the skills. Plus who doesn't want to learn about how someone dives in control with only a mask, tank, some straps and two one-piece rubber fins?
For example; I'm sure buoyancy control and weighting were different things before BCDs, and not particularly useful skills now that no-BCD diving is rare. If someone had to choose, learning the nuances of controlling an air bubble and the how long to hold down "inflate" to get the desired effect is more useful. Weighting can be off by a few pounds and not cause any serious problem in comparison to the time before BCDs (although the closer you get it, the easier everything becomes.)
But, if a diver learned to control his buoyancy without a BC first, even for an hour in the pool during their OW class with the power inflator disconnected, they would ultimately be a better diver. They would at least know that lungs can be used for fine tuning, and they can practice that skill during the rest of their diving career. If they had never had that hour without a power inflator, they may have taken much longer to realize the usefulness of lungs for buoyancy.
This is similar to flying, where there are two styles of landing gear. There's the tricycle gear (one wheel in front, two in back) and the taildragger or "conventional" gear (the older configuration, with two in front and one in back). Most people don't take the time to learn how to fly a taildragger - there just aren't that many around, so the utility of learning the skill is limited for the majority of pilots.
However, if you learn how to fly the unstable taildragger, the skills transfer back to a newer tricycle gear. Pilots who fly or have flown taildraggers usually have much improved speed and rudder control - things that some pilots don't develop until later on. The old skills and ways accelerates a pilot's learning significantly; you can be a good pilot without knowing how to fly a taildragger, but it's easier to become better faster if you do.
In both cases, learning how to do something the old way, the hard way, forces a person to develop a skill faster. I think skin diving and no BC diving skills make a modern scuba diver much more competent over a diver who never took the time to learn the skills. Plus who doesn't want to learn about how someone dives in control with only a mask, tank, some straps and two one-piece rubber fins?
