Trim "obsession" and Training

I could not think of a good title for this thread, so please bear with me.

There was a brief exchange in another thread that I thought would make an interesting thread of its own. I did not want to hijack it, so I thought I would recreate the post here:

lamont:

Originally Posted by TSandM View Post
The one place where I did have to change was accepting that helping with students CAN require a willingness to be something other than horizontal, and sometimes even dropping fin tips in the silt (it doesn't work very well to try to adjust somebody's equipment underwater, if you are neutral and floating . . . )

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Its also a common mistake in GUE courses to try to remain neutral during the unconscious diver rescue drill -- even after students have been specifically instructed not to do that.

Nowhere have I ever been told by a GUE instructor to always remain in trim and never ever break trim, but somehow that message seems to get received by students to the point that they'll avoid getting negative or grabbing something in situations when it is actually called for.

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Lamont's observation is interesting to me, because I experienced exactly that with my with my UTD instruction as well.

My buddy and I were in a training scenario during which we were given just about every failure that would be remotely possible, including at least one that was not possible. (I was given a left post unfixable while OOA.) To cut to the chase, we ended the dive having lost 7 out of 8 regs, so we did two deco stops buddy breathing a deco bottle while I was maskless.

We handled it pretty well. One of the things that gave me the most trouble was holding on to the knot in the ascent line (so I could tell my depth) with my right hand while reaching back for the rear dump to establish buoyancy in perfect trim with my left hand and trying to buddy breathe (especially hand off the regulator) at the same time. In the debrief, the instructor briefly mentioned that the process might have been easier if we had gone out of trim.

It had never occurred to either of us that going out of trim was an option.

I thought about that while reading Lamont's comment. Throughout my training, I was never told that it was forbidden to go out of trim, but I was never told it was ever OK to do so, either. In fact, I would say that if there is one message I have gotten during my training, it is STAY IN TRIM! If we are looking at film of a diver doing a specific skill, say bottle passing, and that diver's knees drop 20°, you'd better believe that is going to be pointed out. Even if the knees are horizontal, the fin tips have to be up to avoid criticism.

Thus, if staying in trim is a consistent and persistent message in the curriculum, and if the fact that one may occasionally find reasons when it is OK to go out of trim is never mentioned, then it would not be surprising that it would not occur to students that there might be times it is OK to go out of trim. No one has actually said the words, "There is no situation where you are allowed to leave horizontal trim," but neither has anyone said, "There might be situations where horizontal trim is not appropriate."

If an organization wants to promote thinking divers, it might make an interesting discussion as a part of the instruction.

I think sometimes it IS specifically taught. I know two folks here who took a Tech 2 class and almost didn't pass it (did an extra day) because they could not cope with all the failures they were given on ascent without going more than 20 degrees out of trim.

And I think you have to be very careful about the situations where students are okayed to be significantly out of trim -- they should have to explain why it was necessary or helpful in that circumstance, and why the issue couldn't have been managed in another way. I'm basing this on a cave diver I dove with who told me one of his instructors had told him not to worry about staying in trim during a valve shutdown, because "in a real emergency, you're going to silt the cave out anyway". As a result of some discussions with his instructor, I learned that really wasn't what the instructor said, or what he thought he had said. But it was certainly what the student took away, and converting a valve failure (minor problem) to a valve failure in a siltout with a lost line (MAJOR problem) is not a good way for things to go.

I sometimes think the reason we're pounded on so much for trim is that loss of it often reflects a general loss of awareness under stress -- perceptual narrowing to the point where we are unaware of loss of trim or buoyancy.

The cave reference reminded me of something.

In my class I was exiting Devil's Ear, bringing out the reel, which ended in a closed tie off at the bottom of the ear. For those of you who don't know, this is a very high flow situation, similar in concept to exiting a garden hose through its nozzle. I tried to untie the line in perfect trim, hovering inches above the rocky bottom.

It did not go well.

The debrief was pretty clear. What the heck was I thinking? Dump that air and get down on the bottom!

That cost me an extra day of training as well.

TSandM:

I think sometimes it IS specifically taught. I know two folks here who took a Tech 2 class and almost didn't pass it (did an extra day) because they could not cope with all the failures they were given on ascent without going more than 20 degrees out of trim.

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Interesting.

My experience was Tech 2 as well.

EDIT: Perhaps I misunderstood. We had had to deal with so many failures on that ascent that I could not even remember what we had done when we debriefed. Perhaps we were being complimented for staying in trim. I will have to ask.

TSandM:

I think sometimes it IS specifically taught. I know two folks here who took a Tech 2 class and almost didn't pass it (did an extra day) because they could not cope with all the failures they were given on ascent without going more than 20 degrees out of trim.

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I've had a course with the same instructor (a few days after that course you're talking about), and he doesn't say that there's no reason not to come out of trim. And we never got beat up at all for rolling over and up breaking trim to vent drysuits or anything like that. The problem is when there's no reason to break trim but students do that anyway, and don't have default zero degree trim.

I sometimes think the reason we're pounded on so much for trim is that loss of it often reflects a general loss of awareness under stress -- perceptual narrowing to the point where we are unaware of loss of trim or buoyancy.

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That's the problem.

Oh, I don't think anybody got penalized for breaking trim to empty a drysuit. They got penalized for breaking trim without thinking about it, while doing something else.

I remember Joe Talavera telling us he'd had to grab the feet of people taking tech classes to force them to drop their feet to get the gas out of them. He had folks who were so focused on perfect trim, they'd let their buoyancy go to pot, rather than go head up for a moment to move gas around the suit. Me -- I even do it in a cave, if I can find a large room where going head up for a moment isn't going to create a silt problem.

boulderjohn:

My experience was Tech 2 as well..

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You are talking about UTD Tech2 no? TS&M is referring to a GUE Tech2 class which is a different class, different instructors, different agencies, different expectations.

lamont:

I've had a course with the same instructor (a few days after that course you're talking about), and he doesn't say that there's no reason not to come out of trim. And we never got beat up at all for rolling over and up breaking trim to vent drysuits or anything like that. The problem is when there's no reason to break trim but students do that anyway, and don't have default zero degree trim.

That's the problem.

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Agree, default level trim is way different than crappy wobbly trim momentarily justified by the scenario after the fact.

boulderjohn:

If an organization wants to promote thinking divers, it might make an interesting discussion as a part of the instruction.

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I find this interesting, John, because we talked about trim a lot on my Fundies class. Though it didn't come up on T1.

The discussion during Fundies basically revolved around my suggestion that it doesn't matter a rats ar$e or not whether you are in or out of trim - provided you know that you are in or out of trim. There was also some confusion about trim and position.

The example I gave was a drift dive along a wall where I would be taking photographs. My preferred trim would be plumb vertical - I'm not kicking to move, so minimising frontal area to reduce drag is irrelevant. The goal of my dive is to take photos - the easiest position to that in is vertical, it's easier to spot the subjects and prepare for them in advance and get the shot. Team awareness isn't particularly hard in this situation either. So whilst I should be concious of my position (knees bent to take fins away from the wall), "should I be in trim"?

We had a very healthy discussion about this. I certainly came away with the impression that as long as you know what position you are in and have actively chosen to be in that position that it was fine. The focus on trim seemed to be related to those divers who don't know what position they were in or were making "unreasoned" adjustments.

AndyNZ:

We had a very healthy discussion about this. I certainly came away with the impression that as long as you know what position you are in and have actively chosen to be in that position that it was fine. The focus on trim seemed to be related to those divers who don't know what position they were in or were making "unreasoned" adjustments.

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I agree with the concept. The question I originally posed (actually just quoting Lamont) is why do people not seem to understand this.

Let me cite a similar example from my own experience.

My buddy and I were doing a dive along the rock wall of a very deep sink hole. It was very dark. We were under an overhang looking at some crystals emerging from the sediment on the ledge. This was a fun dive--no instructor even in the same state in which we were diving.

Later, we talked about how hard it was to see the crystals above us, just below the overhang, and how much of a better field of view we would have had if we were not in horizontal trim. We joked about the fact that we had become so intimidated on the subject by the nature of our instruction, as I described earlier, that we could not even accept the possibility of going out of trim when diving on our own.

As an educator, I would tell a teacher that if students don't seem to know something that they should, ask yourself when you taught it and how well you taught it.