Buddy awareness 101

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piikki

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I see the concept ‘buddy awareness’ dropped into the discussion now and then. Can you guys tell me more about this – how’d you describe a buddy or team member who is aware of his/her surroundings in a way that s/he’d score high on your buddy awareness meter? What they do/don’t do and how, what kind of attitude they have?

Is this terminology faction-bound and/or too obvious to be discussed? What could I do to get better at it? It’s like I can imagine things this must include but there must be so many other things that haven’t even occurred to me yet. This was not covered much in the OW and even less in AOW (PADI). Basically the ‘lesson’ was not to lose your buddy or respond to your buddy’s communications and that’s it. Not really what I would call laying the brickwork for creating great buddy awareness.
 
I think that buddy awareness can exist on multiple levels.

1) You need to look at your buddy and make eye contact on a regular schedule. You can do it every third breath or whatever the conditions require.

2) You need to be able to communicate with your buddy. There are a lot of different ways to ask "How much air do you have?" and oftentimes signals get misunderstood. Go over the common ones that you will use in the course of a dive to make sure you and your buddy are on the same page, even if you use different signals for different things you will know what to expect. Who knows, you may find out that both of you know ASL fingerspelling and can do more complex communications underwater than if you'd both assumed that the other did not know it.

3) In a regular buddy you will get to the point where you can read their body language, etc. to sense stress, happiness, or whatnot. This helps you to anticipate a problem or know when to pause for a moment to let them look at something that they are interested in that you might not be, and they can do the same for you.

4) In a regular buddy you will get to the point where your "routine" is down to the point that very little time is spent communicating anymore and very few hand signals are used. If my wife looks over and smiles a bit I know that she's good on air, her equipment is working just fine, she's happy with our location, happy with her options should we run into trouble, and is enjoying the dive. - all without having to use any signals.

5) Buddies look out for each other through the planning stages of a dive until the post-dive briefing. Things like, "Last time we tried X you were a bit unhappy, this dive may have X again" allows for advancement because they may say, "I've thought through what happened on that dive and I'm ready for X this time." or "Oh, I didn't realize that, I really don't want to get into that situation again." Now you, as a team, know what to keep tabs on through the dive.

This is just a basic list of my $.02 of what I think makes a good team.
 
I know some will critisize this approach but I hold hands wiht my buddy (girlfriend) at all times. Most of the time it is barely a finger to finger light hold but we 'talk' through our hands all the time. A slight pressure to move up, down, a squeeze says look at me and then I see when she is equalizing, asking to look over at something, wants to check my air, etc... I quickly tired of looking for her all the time and worrying abotu her. I had this mental image of me staring at a pretty fish while she was behind me panicking and drowning. Now we are in constant contact and I even know when she is getting cold cause I feel these slight pre shivers she gets.

The only time I have dove without holding hands was during my certifications when we were paired with DM's and I know on multiple ocasions I had to speed up to swim up to them, pull on their fin a little to get their attention and then show them what I needed/wanted to say. This caused us to stop, turn around etc... I know if I was out of air I really dont think I would want to go throuhg all that. If my GF or I get into an OOA situation Im sure the panicked squeexing or tugging of the hand that was already being held would significantly shorten the time from OOA to a octo being taken and used significantly.

I have also noticed how far apart even very experienced divers get from their buddies and realisticly I think 10 feet is about 8 too many to even say you have a buddy. I know if I go to take a breath and get a closed 2nd stage on an out breath (worst case scenario) I have about 4 seconds before uncontrollable adrenaline rushes through my veins and I am maybe another 10 from a panic situation. I want my buddy no more than an arms length or less away at that point.

I cant see any way besides holding hands that I can gaurantee I will be that close to my buddy...hence why until I find a negative side to hand holding you will see me do it every dive, every moment I am under water, especially with the woman I love.

To me, that is buddy awareness.
 
BTW, try this some time:

In the shallow end of a pool take your regulator out and set it right in front of your face on the bottom of the pool. Count the seconds until you get a panicky feeling where your body is almost uncontrollably telling you to pick that sucker up and jam it in and take a deep breath. Now, try it when instead of taking a deep breath and then taking the reg out do it on an outbreath, you might resist it 10 seconds.

Now, get in the pool, have a guy swimming in front of you at a regular pace with you trailing behind say 5 feet from the back of his flippers, how many seconds until you can get to his flipper and get his attention?

Combine that with the fact that you might be 100 or more feet down when all of this happens and the panic stress will set in MUCH faster. What if the dive is extreme, cold water, low vis, deepest youve been, whatever that adds to your stress level.

The thought of what I might be able to accomplish in a true sudden OOA situation under circumstances like that reinforces the fact that I want to be no further than a hand squeeze away from my buddy.
 
TyTy:
In the shallow end of a pool take your regulator out and set it right in front of your face on the bottom of the pool. Count the seconds until you get a panicky feeling where your body is almost uncontrollably telling you to pick that sucker up and jam it in and take a deep breath. Now, try it when instead of taking a deep breath and then taking the reg out do it on an outbreath, you might resist it 10 seconds.

Here's a quote from one of the references I posted above:

"There are many comments in regards to the speed to get to a pony bottle vs. the speed to get gas from a buddy. Those of you that have such a concern could have a very enlightening experience after taking a cave course. "Take off your mask, take your reg out of your mouth. Follow that line until you feel your buddy, and get gas from him". You will quickly learn that while it may take a little longer, it is -much- better. There is no psychological relief when you contact your pony bottle because your pony bottle can't do **** for you after you touch it, better hope to hell you don't fumble that reg. Your teammate? As soon as you get to them...you're in good shape [and take special note of my use of teammate vs. buddy in that last statement]."

With more experience, you will get more comfortable. I know when I was first playing around with my scooter I'd take off from the surface and be a good 20 seconds in before I even realized that I forgot to put my damn reg in my mouth.

Now, get in the pool, have a guy swimming in front of you at a regular pace with you trailing behind say 5 feet from the back of his flippers, how many seconds until you can get to his flipper and get his attention?

Read some of the posts above, and the thread I referenced. You've got a dramatic flaw in your logic right here. I'll leave it to you to read the other descriptions of buddy awareness and see what you're missing. Holding hands is a crutch for a lack of buddy awareness.
 
Basically a buddy can only be useful under the worst circumstances if they are never more than arms reach away. Since this is not a diving reality in my opinion I prefer the notion of self sufficiency (i.e. configured as a solo diver) with the added bonus of having a buddy nearby.

There is also the reality of full panic. A person in a full panic state will have herculean strength and zero reasoning ability. The best buddy on the planet will be able to do little to remedy the panic. In this regard I think we are all really diving solo even if surrounded by divers.

To the original question, stay close to your buddy and pay attention. Keep in mind the moments you are looking away at something else could be the time when your buddy is experiencing an emergency.

--Matt
 
Spectre:
Read some of the posts above, and the thread I referenced. You've got a dramatic flaw in your logic right here. I'll leave it to you to read the other descriptions of buddy awareness and see what you're missing. Holding hands is a crutch for a lack of buddy awareness.

Thats your opinion. I will never cave dive, never get comfortable in these extreme situations nore will my GF. I am in real estate and will most likely go on somewhere between 0-20 dives a year for a while. Maybe it is a sign of weakness, maybe what I need is to dedicate more of my life to increasing my diving skills but that just is never going to happen (not until I retire at least!).

I have seen some REALLY experienced divers buddy up and then seen them 10, 15, 20 feet away from eachother, go on oposite sides of a coral formation from eachother, unless they have ESP they were not communicating or aware of jack.

I guess what Im saying is Id rather air on the side of being to close and too dependant on my buddy than the opposite. Ive heard a bunch of times that it is a crutch but I really dont see where it is going to hurt. We are both more than comfortable underwater, we have never gone beyond our abilities, we have the same exact number of dives and experience, we dont pull eachother, we dont do anything except communicate throuhg hands. I see it as being a cheap way of having those walkie talkie masks. I am a finiky person and I tend to overdo things and constantly looking at my GF was ruining my dive experience. I wanted to be looking at that fish or that coral but I was constantly looking to maintain contact wiht her. Plus when I wanted to show her something it was an ordeal versus now our dives are completly relaxed, never do we fall out of instant comunication, we move less, have more bottom time and see more.

Ill play the devils advocate and say that I thing and see a lot of experienced guys getting so far away from eachother they might as well not have a buddy. You can talk up your skills till you are blue in the face and you will never convince me that being that far from your buddy is a positive.
 
matt_unique:
Basically a buddy can only be useful under the worst circumstances if they are never more than arms reach away. Since this is not a diving reality in my opinion I prefer the notion of self sufficiency (i.e. configured as a solo diver) with the added bonus of having a buddy nearby.

There is also the reality of full panic. A person in a full panic state will have herculean strength and zero reasoning ability. The best buddy on the planet will be able to do little to remedy the panic. In this regard I think we are all really diving solo even if surrounded by divers.

To the original question, stay close to your buddy and pay attention. Keep in mind the moments you are looking away at something else could be the time when your buddy is experiencing an emergency.

--Matt

Full panic is exactly what I think a buddy is there for. Yes, Im sure there is a circumstance where full panic would set in and a buddy will do no good, in that case there was nothing to be done except the person should not have paniced for whatever reason. To me a buddy is there to prevent full panic or at least make it less likely to take place.

What Im saying is to me buddy awareness is being close enough so I dont panic if I run OOA. Buddy awareness to me is when I can go 'oh crap, I am gettin no air, I better reach over and grab that octo'.

I would be curious to know how many of these guys that have all these opinions on how they will react in a true OOA emergency versus how many have ever actually been in a true OOA emergency. THe primary reason I want to be arms length from my buddy is cause I dont know how I will react. I hope and think I will reason logically through it but heck, I dunno. If I go to take a breath and suck at a closed valve with little to no breath in my lungs I know no matter what my adrenaline is gonna zing up pretty good, after that if I have the choice to stop, think logically, take an action that will result in saving myself or just grabbing the octo than is hanging in my face...Ill take the octo hanging in my face every time.

The reality of my diving is that for both my buddy and I there is always a second source of air hanging in my face as well as a buddy that can help me right next to me, every time all the time.
 
BTW, here is something to think about. That guy that was a world record technical diver that died on a relatively shallow solo dive for him. That dive was nothing compared to what he had done and he probably had thousands of dives under his belt but something on that dive caused his death, some situation that he entered into and was not able to remedy by himself even though he was probably among the top .01% of skilled divers in history.

I think being dependant and having skills is important, no doubt but I think the logic behind buddy diving is that you are never alone, never HAVE to depend on your skills and equipment alone, there is always someone there that can help.

Relating this back to buddy awareness I would say that buddy awareness is never being farther than you need to be to help your buddy in an emergency. If you and your buddy are confident that distance can be opened up then I guess go for it but my question to that would be is that distance realistic or cocky?
 
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