How do you just 'practice'?

[Nosnhoj]

Hi, new diver with a few dives under my belt, and many more to come over the summer. I'm diving with a club almost every weekend and learning more and more each time. What I would like is to just pratcice my skills at my own pace. Sure I can learn kicking techniques while following a speedy buddy, or work on buoyancy while diving with a photographer... But I would like 'time' to work on these things myself in real world environments (because I figure everybody will say 'get in a pool'. A heated pool in a 7mm suit and vest just isn't the same...

I figure people are wary about insta buddies as it is, so I can't imagine asking someone to just 'hang out' a bit while I fart around with buoyancy.

I suppose I could pay for more courses, but my aim is to build on what I already know, and then take it to the next level.

How did all y'all do it?

Thanks
G

[Tfast78]

With not wanting to working a pool it looks like your option would be to ask someone to hang out while you practice. See if you can find someone in the same boat you're in that wants a little practice. You could also ask someone who does video to film you practicing your skills so can review them later and they would get to do what they love, video. Best of luck and hope someone else has the perfect answer for ya. Stay warm my friend!

[Insta-Gator]

Agree with Tfast78. You can't be the only rookie in town. Ask another rookie to hang with you and you both will progress.

[Quero]

Just pick one skill at a time to focus on, and let your dive buddy know that you want to practice that one thing during the dive. If you are wanting to practice finning, explain that you would like to go at a fairly slow pace; or if you want to work on your trim, ask your buddy to "spot" you and let you know when you get out of trim; if you want to review alternate air source use, ask your buddy if it would be okay to do that on the safety stop, for example. Most experienced divers don't mind helping out a newbie to a limited extent, and often they will actually be pleased to be asked to work with you on your skills. Don't be too shy about it, just ask! If you don't make it a huge part of the dive so that your buddy can't have a proper dive tour, I would be willing to wager that s/he won't mind at all.

[krawlings]

with my dive buddy we always do our skills practice (fining ,buoyancy, air share ,ect.....)at the end of the dive . usually we have done all we had set out to do. and the hang at the safety stop is a perfect place and time to work on your buoyancy . trim is some thing you work on through the hole dive . at the end of the dive ask your buddy to critique your dive . don't be shy as stated before most will not mind to help and work on them with you

[Firefyter]

Agree with Tfast78. You can't be the only rookie in town. Ask another rookie to hang with you and you both will progress.

I'm not sure I would ask another rookie. I know in my case, I learn more when I'm diving with people whose skill level far exceeds mine. They are more apt to spot issues and solutions, plus I learn a lot from emulating them. You normally can't get that type of input from a rookie.


Most experienced divers don't mind helping out a newbie to a limited extent, and often they will actually be pleased to be asked to work with you on your skills. Don't be too shy about it, just ask! If you don't make it a huge part of the dive so that your buddy can't have a proper dive tour, I would be willing to wager that s/he won't mind at all.

+1 on this. When I'm diving locally, it's usually with no agenda other than to get wet. I wouldn't want to spend vacation dives tutoring, but I'll spend all day locally helping someone. Most divers I know are the same way.

[g1138]

You'd be surprised at how much practicing in a pool in full cold water suit helps you. Remember buoyancy control is a lot harder the more shallow you are.

Keep a bucket of ice water and a rag nearby and be ready to take your hood off.

[DivemasterDennis]

I "practice" skills on every dive, as do you. Hovering, buoyancy and body control, finning, etc. If you want to focus more on a skill during a dive, before the div, go over your expectations and goals with your buddy. I think most divers will be happy to take at least a part of each dive and join you in your exercises. Don't be timid. Speak up. Lots of divers feel (or felt) the way you do. You are active, and hooked up with a local club- both excellent aspects of your early diving routine. You might also suggest a specific club outing the purpose of which is to practice skills. A small group playing games like follow the leader, or "copy me" for 15 minutes at the outset of a dive can be fun and useful along with just practicing "at your own pace" as you say. And of course, taking more courses is also a good idea. Consider peak performance buoyancy and the AOW classes, and others of interest to you.
DivemasterDennis

[Bob DBF]

I figure people are wary about insta buddies as it is, so I can't imagine asking someone to just 'hang out' a bit while I fart around with buoyancy.

Actually you need to ask. During the dive plan, I find out what my buddy wants to do on the dive. Then we either split up the dive or do two dives each with a different objective.

Personally, if you asked me, we would be doing a buoyancy dive but you wouldn't be farting around. Buoyancy is serious, it can turn a dive into a rescue in nothing flat.



Bob
------------------------
I may be old, but I’m not dead yet.

[Doc Harry]

Make "practice" a game that both you and your buddy can enjoy together.

I used to suspend a Hula-Hoop from the bottom using a 5-pound weight. We took turns trying to swim through without touching.

Great fun! Good practice! The possibilities for such practice are endless.

[TSandM]

Practice in things like finning and buoyancy control are part of every single dive, no matter who you dive with. If you are circling a wreck, you are controlling buoyancy to move up and down to look at things, or to stop and inspect them. You are practicing your kicks as you move throughout the entire dive. As you ascend, you are practicing stability (assuming you aren't hanging onto a line).

It doesn't sound as much as though you need to find specific buddies for practice, as that you need to find buddies whose vision of how the dive goes is the same as yours. I found photographers to be great to dive with, when I was working on my stable platform, because they gave me a lot of time to work on just hovering. If you ask the person to take a couple of pictures or some video of YOU, you get incredibly useful feedback, too.

I don't know where you are doing most of your diving, but I do know some people in the Ottawa area who would be quite receptive to a new diver wanting to improve his skills . . .

[j2s]

Practice any where/way you can......I drive 8 hrs round trip to dive [solo] at a place just to test/practice new equipment/changes in set-ups, rebuilds etc.....I go through drills w/reels, practice basics like trim, buoyancy, kicks, flooded mask, computer-out etc......It's only 40' deep but I get to do it at my own pace and when I'm done I have the confidence my equipment works properly.....It's a simple thing but it's surprising how relaxing and how much confidence it builds w/o the distraction of other divers.....Gives you time to think........

[Nosnhoj]

Thanks all! I'll just keep on doing what I'm doing - and lots of it. I never thought of 'pratcicing' during the saftey stop, but I'll keep that in mind.

Im pretty good at learning by doing... So I'm going to keep doing!

Thanks again

[TMHeimer]

Agree with Tfast78. You can't be the only rookie in town. Ask another rookie to hang with you and you both will progress.

While I agree that diving with an experienced buddy is of course better for input, going with another rookie means you have a lot in common and he/she may be more prone to wanting to work on skills. I also did not do very much practising in the ocean at first --and should have--my buddy was also new. At the risk of getting into a different arguement, most of the OW skills can be practised solo. I would not at all advise this at first, but it was a good choice for me later on. I don't do any practising of skills by myself unless it is a very "benign" dive site that I know, with little or no current and good viz. Another idea is to review the skills from your manual out of water--ei.--memorize and go through the motions on something like OOA routine, 5 point descent, ascent--stuff that requires a buddy. If you have a buddy not interested in a lot of time spent practising maybe he would agree to just do one skill on a dive? Practising in 10-20' of water wouldn't take much air--a couple of minutes at the start of a dive also takes little time from the dive. Sometimes I have more air left than expected, so I practise reg. retrieval, CESA, etc. The other stuff you mention like buoyancy, finning should improve just by diving lots without a lot of conscious "practising".

[spectrum]

I think if you just dive with a spirit of continuous improvement you will get what you need. Before long you will get to lead dives with either newer divers or mentors. Then you can set the pace and pick the challenges.

At the end of a nice shore dive when everyone still has air and knows the exit is at hand is a good time to start poking around practicing stuff. By then everyone has gotten what they came for and they will be grateful that you extended the experience.

Pete

[gcbryan]

The best "practice" to me was always by just doing. I did as some mentioned a lot of diving with other newer divers who had the same needs that I did.

After you get the basic mechanics down all you need IMO is just more experience which you get by just diving.

[ppo2_diver]

I suppose I could pay for more courses, but my aim is to build on what I already know, and then take it to the next level.

How did all y'all do it?

Thanks
G

I wouldn't take another course just to practice. It sounds like you need to find some buddies that are willing to work with you. I've spent many times in the water just hovering with people. Trim, propulsion and buoyancy control are something you should focus on every dive. I've found the best practice sessions I've ever had was a simple day at our local quarry with good friends and a nice BBQ. :)

[nolatom]

Buddy with the most inexperienced divers you can find, at least some of the time. I've learned more, faster, from a buddy's mistakes or shortcomings that I had to try to help fix or compensate for, than I have with 'good' buddies.

Of course, afterward have a debrief with one of the more experienced divers, tell what happened, what you did, and whether that was correct or there's a better way.

It's not just the better divers that teach you, it's also the worse (or newer--not always the same thing) divers that "make' you learn.

[James R]

Make "practice" a game that both you and your buddy can enjoy together.

I used to suspend a Hula-Hoop from the bottom using a 5-pound weight. We took turns trying to swim through without touching.

Great fun! Good practice! The possibilities for such practice are endless.

This is a good suggestion.

You can take it to the next level by having a contest with your buddy: who can hover inside the hoop without touching it for the longest time. It's a lot harder than simply swimming through it. Good fun...loser buys lunch :crafty:

[Teamcasa]

You've been given some excellent advice so far but allow me to add to it. Skip diving with other new divers if possible. Find a mentor, one that you'd like to emulate and dive with them. Most would be more than happy to do a drill or two during the stop. But one way or the other, they will teach by example, watch and learn the right way first.

[Firefyter]

You've been given some excellent advice so far but allow me to add to it. Skip diving with other new divers if possible. Find a mentor, one that you'd like to emulate and dive with them. Most would be more than happy to do a drill or two during the stop. But one way or the other, they will teach by example, watch and learn the right way first.

Gee, this sounds kinda familiar :D

[Teamcasa]

Gee, this sounds kinda familiar :DSometimes, good advice bears repeating. ;)

[RonFrank]

You will figure out quickly that you are constantly learning while you dive. Lynne indicated this as well but its worth repeating. The best way to increase skills is just by diving. Classes may help but diving on a regular basis is the best medicine!

[TSandM]

I went out today with a fairly novice diver (20 dives) who wants to work on basic skills in preparation for a Fundamentals class at the end of July. So here's what we did: We swam out to a buoy and descended, using the buoy line for reference, and stopping at 10, 20, and 30 feet. (People rarely practice controlled descents, but that's how you keep buddies together on the way down, if you aren't actually hanging onto the line.) At the bottom of the line, we stopped short of the sediment, and hovered, and my friend checked his pressure, which involved unclipping his SPG, looking at it, and returning it to its clipped position. That went fine.

Then we went diving, and every few minutes, I'd find somewhere for us to hover, and ask him to do a basic skill like regulator remove and replace, or regulator exchange, or mask clearing. He found out that staying at depth and in position while doing these things is harder than you would think. When we found structure, we went up and down and around it, using buoyancy skills and breath control, and trying to be able to hover very still and look at whatever was interesting.

On the way back to shore, I found several pilings, and we did little ascents -- up three feet, back down three feet -- and tried to nail our depths and stay in good position, and quiet.

We saw about six different species of nudibranch and some cool decorator crabs, some tubesnouts, some rockfish, and although we looked for warbonnets and giant Pacific octopuses, we didn't find any.

The dive was awesome fun -- I got to practice and so did my friend, and we got to sightsee and enjoy the improving visibility. THAT's how you practice!

[dwhthediver]

I too use the hula hoop in the pool, I always have an extra night in the pool during o/w classes, hula hoop suspended from bottom and spend the whole time working on kicking and buoyancy.

[Ulfhedinn]

If you find a diver like me practicing "training" is as fun as wondering around looking at stuff under water. I cant be the only one. Seek buddys with a similar mind set as you.