What is so overwhelming?

I read this a lot on scubaboard and it truly has me baffled. I know not all people go into OW courses as engineers with multiple high level math and physics courses in their educational background. I know not all people are truly comfortable in the water before they start OW but I don't understand what is so overwhelming about OW courses that this mantra keeps getting pushed here.

OW classes used to teach a whole lot more theory and prior to that basically taught no theory (if my understanding of diving history is accurate). Yes, the "full course" used to be significantly longer than the "typical" modern weekend/4 day courses but what's so overwhelming about understanding gas compression at an intuitive level (balloons make excellent visual aids) even if you don't truly understand gas theory? At least the course materials used in my PADI OW and my TDI Nitrox classes were low enough level that you could get through them with not much more than an elementary education in math. Same goes for the actual physics concepts.

I understand that in-water skills can be difficult and get where that might be overwhelming, but I think I can come up with 12 things that are really new material for anyone who's graduated high school and most of those are in-water skills.

So what exactly is so overwhelming?

fjpatrum:

...//... So what exactly is so overwhelming?

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You hit a nerve. Answer: HOW IT IS TAUGHT.



Like there is anything in there that I'm going to remember! Let's look at the same problem a different way. The mother of all dive equations is ATA. ATA x Fraction of gas of interest is the pressure of that gas that you experience. Why not this way:



So you put numbers in for everything (except EAD) then solve for EAD.

(0.78, 0.79 -your choice)

Breathing under water is not natural, and I think that is what is difficult to get past for a lot of people. I have witnessed a number of people who have done well in the classroom on the theory side of things, and have a panic attack in the water. There are a lot of skills to learn in such a short period of time, and processing all the information can be a bit overwhelming, IMHO.

lowviz:

You hit a nerve. Answer: HOW IT IS TAUGHT.

Like there is anything in there that I'm going to remember! Let's look at the same problem a different way. The mother of all dive equations is ATA. ATA x Fraction of gas of interest is the pressure of that gas that you experience.

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This is my point. Yes the math in some of the texts suck, but it's not particularly difficult math for anyone who's graduated high school in the last 25 years. Is it well written? No. Is it difficult? Not particularly, but more importantly, most of the actual math isn't particularly relevant to the practice of diving. Planning, sure (assuming you don't use a planning tool and do it all by hand). During a dive, I suspect never. The concepts required simply aren't that complicated.

NorthernLights:

Breathing under water is not natural, and I think that is what is difficult to get past for a lot of people. I have witnessed a number of people who have done well in the classroom on the theory side of things, and have a panic attack in the water. There are a lot of skills to learn in such a short period of time, and processing all the information can be a bit overwhelming, IMHO.

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I come up with about 14 "new" (to people who have any water experience at all) skills, all of which are quite simple for most people (assuming no panic) after one or two tries so what are the "lot of skills to learn in such a short period of time"?

mask removal
no mask swim
mask clearing
ear clearing
regulator recovery
air sharing/ooa procedures
free-flow procedures
cesa
buoyancy control
finning techniques
equipment setup/breakdown
weight release
diver tow
hand signals

I'm not talking about learning how to be comfortable, I fully understand why that can be overwhelming for people. I'm talking about the "information overload" that so many people talk about. There really just isn't that much to learn, when you break it down. It's a few basic physics concepts and a bunch of practical skills.

none - my daughter (even though she is dyslexic) watched the videos and pretty much could ace the quizzes at 10. She is 12 now, and her reading comprehension is finally clicking. She gets it......

Now, condense the whole thing into a weekend, and you have the skydiving training scene from Fandango.....

(short version)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q9g7sBVUFMs

(long version)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T8F5MkP484E

There is what they were taught

There is what they know when you meet them.

It is never the same. Some continue to learn. Some do not remember what they were told/read/saw.

You just have to watch the folks shoot up from the safety bar, don't look at their gauge when checking the reg, or as the instabuddy told me "I am working on my SAC by trying to hold my breath longer between inhales." to realize this. They approach it like they do a class in high school or college. The goal for some is to pass the test and get the credit and not learn the material.

But then the test requires what, 70%. That means there is 30% they do not take out the door with them and the test is pretty simple. I know, I know, they have to go over their mistakes and get the correct answer. But that does not mean they necessarily actually learn that part. Hearing it one more time from an instructor does not mean it is internalized.

fjpatrum:

. . .
I'm not talking about learning how to be comfortable, I fully understand why that can be overwhelming for people. I'm talking about the "information overload" that so many people talk about. There really just isn't that much to learn, when you break it down. It's a few basic physics concepts and a bunch of practical skills.

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I think the dividing line is fuzzy between the "learning how to be comfortable" type of issue and the "information overload" type of issue. Can you point to an example of someone arguing that OW courses are "information overload"? I'm just not sure I have seen this argued "a lot" on SB and it would help to see examples of what you're referring to.

As I recall, what was challenging for me in OW class was not mastering any skill individually, and certainly not the written quizzes, but rather trying to conduct a dive using several skills together: wearing the gear properly, BC inflation/deflation, ear clearing, etc., all while experiencing the novelty of wearing a neoprene straitjacket, gloves, hood, fins, etc. Taken all together, it was a lot to remember, especially while feeling discomfort. I was constantly fumbling with my gear, wondering whether I had forgotten to do something. I don't know how many times I forgot to clear my ears on descent because I was fumbling with something or focused on something else. I'm not a natural multitasker. In this sense, it approached "overload."

I hesitate to use an analogy because somebody is going to take a point and then the thread will go off in a tangent.

However, it is a little bit like computers. For certain people the thought of computers is that they are too complicated and too tricky to learn. Take older adults who grew up and got used to life well before the computer was invented. Some of them are so intimidated by the notion of learning how to use a computer they often can't use one no matter how hard you try to teach them. You can point out to them that many grandparents have learned to Skype, send emails, surf the internet. If school kids can be taught as early as 3rd or 4th grade to do Powerpoint it can't really be that complicated (Even though I have to get my 11 y.o. daughter to help me since I can't do it).

I suspect many people also find the notion of scuba diving very intimidating. They may have a sense that if it seems complicated it must be complicated. It is the notion of over thinking the room.

I think having any kind of applicable engineering/physics/science background, and/or an intuitive sense of these things, makes a big difference. It makes much of the stuff easier to deal with, and therefore causes the overall load to be less too. If you naturally "get it", it's easy to take it for granted (and perhaps be less sympathetic to those who just don't.) 3 or 4 in my OW class were engineers and had a much easier time with all of it.

I know a diver who seems to have no intuitive grasp of physics - let's say their talents lie in the verbal realm. While they can study and answer all the questions correctly, after 50 dives they struggle with bouyancy control and anything else that sense would be useful for. I don't know what if anything will help. (Spouse of said diver is actually a long-time instructor, who I think alternates between trying to help, and trying to stay out of it...we know the pitfalls there.)

I think for some people, problems arise when they go into a class with a pre-conceived idea of how the class is going to be and how easily (or not) they will master the skills but the reality doesn't match the idea. If a student believes going into the class that it's going to be easy, but there is a topic that they just can't seem to grasp or a skill that they don't feel they're mastering, things can go downhill quickly.

A few months ago, I was helping out with one of the pool sessions for a OW class. One of the students was having trouble with mask skills, they couldn't seem to believe they had cleared their mask on the first try and continued to try to remove the water that was no longer there. Moving on through the skills, the student could perform them reasonably well, but since everybody else was taking to the skills quickly, the student felt they were not doing well and was holding the class back. The student aced the quizzes and exams but has yet to come back to finish the pool sessions.