*Really* New Diver Practice Routines

[ccie7599]

Hello-

My daughter and I certified for OW very recently, and before we got in the water for our first post-cert dive, we wrote this list of exercises. We practice one of our choice (and brief on it), once at the start, and at the finish. We do all practices at 25 ft or less.

-Primary breather gone
-controlled ascent
-air share
-weight dump
-lost buddy

I have no idea if this is right or wrong, and I'm sure we will pick up additional skills practice if things actually go wrong. I'm looking for feedback on what others are doing, and from skilled people that might have good ideas.

Thanks!

 

[iztok]

1. What is "primary breather gone"?
2. Every dive should hopefully end with a controlled ascent.
3. Air share is good to practice at end of the dives while one does safety stop.
4. Are you actually dumping weights at depth or just removing once at the surface?
5. Practice staying close to the buddy instead during the whole dive.

 

[bradells]

Well, you could learn and practice what some people refer to as the basic 5 (your already doing some it seems)
1 primary regulator remove and replace
2 regulator remove and secondary replace
3 long hose deploy
4 mask clear
5 mask remove and replace


The first 3 build on sharing air and being comfortable without a regulator for (a very brief) period of time.

Mask clearing and replacing are very handy, I just see blobs underwater without a mask, or a broken, leaky and foggy mask.

Other drills to add (as you learn them) is air sharing, smb deployment, finning techniques (frog kicks, flutter kicks, back kick, helicopter turns) and working on buoyancy, touch contact communication ..... And the list goes on. If you happen to have a camera down there, take some videos of each other while one performs the task. Great feedback about what you may be doing right, nearly right or not quite right.

It doesn't have to be a whole dive, once you've come back into the shallows on a shore dive, or on your safety stop when current and other conditions comply, do a drill or few to pass the time for a few minutes.

Once your proficient, add a few together, say an air share with a smb (better done with 3 divers, 2 on the air share, with the third deploying the smb to start out)


BRad

 

[PhatD1ver]

My list:
1) BUDDY CHECK - to me, this is the most overlooked diving skill that there is... B W R A F (Bangkok Women Rarely Are Female - it's a Thai thing, maybe you had to be trained there)...

Let's review why I say this with a few simple examples from my OW training and subsequent dives with a group that changed a little daily during my four days there...

B - BCD/Buoyancy - the idea is to check inflation and deflation - but people don't and guess what somehow people end up in the water without their air on... HOW?

W - weights - this is supposed to be both a check to see if they buckle is reachable in a dump situation.. but if you are diving with a buddy, shouldn't THEY check to see if they can find your buckle? I weight 300 pounds +, I have a little ROLL that hangs a little over my belt... it prevents me from easily releasing the buckle, so for sure it would my buddy if they don't CHECK it... the other thing is that for this reason, I rotate my belt to have the buckle right under my Alt air source... easier to reach, and the buckle releases like a charm - but again, simply for the sake of common sense... if you don't check... invariably, someone ends up in the water WITHOUT their weight belt or integrated weights in place.

R - Releases - this also seem kind of repetitious or stupid, but with all the gadgets that divers attach to themselves these days, it makes sense to check which is which, where a knife might be, where an alt light, etc... more importantly, someone wont enter the water with just their waist band fixed and the waist and chest releases still undone... want to see panic in the eyes of your buddy? wait until they jump in and find out they are going to the bottom with just a belt of lead on their hips while their BCD and tank are floating above them... luckily, the DM caught it first...

A - AIR - already pointed out, but is it on? you'd be amazed how many times people forget, and they put the reg in their mouth and roll or stride without a second thought, and also no air.... is there enough air for your dive in the tank? or did it accidentally get passed over as the DMs and boat bunnies were doing tank refills.... the other part of this is WHAT KIND OF AIR!!! If you are doing a deep dive, is your dive plan for Nitrox? Did you prep a nitrox tank? is that what is on your back? Did you test it? Did you change your dive computer over for the mixture %? In a buddy situation, you are going to potentially use your buddies alt air source in an emergency... wouldn't you like to know it works? Did you test it? Did they test yours and know if it's tucked up under a BC strap, or on a magnetic release? or in the pocket... lots to consider over just checking it's turned on....

F - Final Check - are you both feeling all right? are you both happy with your hand signals? And ready to dive?

2) Mask off - mask on - learn to lose your own mask, learn to pull your backup (do you have a backup?) practice clearing, practice swimming and ascending without it..

3) Lose the 2nd stage - practice at a nice sandy spot on the bottom, pretend YOU are the instructor, demonstrate it, and then have your buddy do it, get used to finding your regulator

4) Dead/flooded flashlight - do you know where your spare is? can you remain calm while you get it lit up? what happens when your backup fails? Do you carry a high-vis chem stick in your BCD pocket? which one? Can you find it and activate it in the dark, underwater?

5) Knife - where is it? If you ask me, I will say.. WHICH ONE?

Anyway, I have a whole 20 dives to my name... but the aviator and my military training have taught me never to take anything for granted, and checklists are important, because they create good habits...

When I was flying $6MM helicopters, I could easily go thru the startup procedure from memory, but there is a reason they have someone READ it to you.. mistakes happen when people are allowed to control CHANCE...

As a note, for the buddy check above, during those four days with the dive boat we had 22 different divers with a core of 8 who dove every day... I personally witnessed each of the failures (some more than once) mentioned... the scariest of all was that gal who would have potentially gone to the bottom as she slipped out of her BCD...

Pay attention to the details is my motto, the rest, I can practice in the water...

 

[TSandM]

I was working with a student in the pool tonight, and I told him, "Practice being still, because being still is the heart of everything. If you can be still, then you can move wherever you want -- up, down, forward, or backwards. If you can't be still, you can never guarantee you'll be where you want to be.". And certainly, if you can't be still unstressed, you will NOT be still -- or stable -- when handling problems.

For me, the number one skill to practice is hovering quietly. When you can do it, try doing the basic 5 and maintaining that stillness. Try sharing gas and retaining that stillness. When you can be still, quiet, and stable while handling complex tasks, you have diving very well mastered.

 

[Redshift]

I was working with a student in the pool tonight, and I told him, "Practice being still, because being still is the heart of everything. If you can be still, then you can move wherever you want -- up, down, forward, or backwards. If you can't be still, you can never guarantee you'll be where you want to be.". And certainly, if you can't be still unstressed, you will NOT be still -- or stable -- when handling problems.

For me, the number one skill to practice is hovering quietly. When you can do it, try doing the basic 5 and maintaining that stillness. Try sharing gas and retaining that stillness. When you can be still, quiet, and stable while handling complex tasks, you have diving very well mastered.

Very true. I have done it as well. Threw a reel in the pool and told a diver I was giving guidance to hover without moving, just looking at the reel. It's surprising how difficult it is for some people. This kind of exercise will help you to notice better what you're doing under water, your position, if you are balanced (often people have to keep fining to keep balance and a proper trim)...
After that you can try some of the other mentioned exercises while maintaining your position.


Also, an important exercise is to keep your brain on during the dive. I mean, don't just go through the dive, but notice what is happening, pay attention to your trim, take note of things that are not going so well and try to correct them. I do that all the time. Notice if you touch the bottom, if you are kicking up silt, if your position with relation to your buddy is the best, if your gear is well secured and easily accessible or if you should change it, if you are using your hands, etc.

Practice other types of fining kicks, do frog kicks, turn in the same place without using your hands (helicopter turn) and you can also try going backwards. You may need some guidance for these skills, but there are many videos online explaining them.

Lots of things that you can do have been mentioned, go slowly and don't get overwhelmed trying to do them all straight away!

 

[ccie7599]

All- thanks for the advice and sharing. I appreciate the list-out of the basic 5- I had been looking for a similar checklist to that, and hadn't found one so thanks for sharing. We are going to pepper that in with our practice in fin-kicks, staying still, economy of movement, neutral hover, and being as "quiet" as possible. It all sounds so analytic written out, but in practice it's much less so- we're out there having a very fun, relaxed experience, and the exercises are a labor of love.

The LDS closest to me (I took my courses at an LDS closer to my winter home) has a local dive tonight. As my daughter is pre-disposed with teenager plans, I'm heading there myself. I don't know anyone there but I hope to have a good time and get more experience with an unknown buddy. If anyone new is in a similar scenario (away from the people that you met during certification, that "built-in" set of people with the same level of experience as you), I think that would be a great way to not only dive, but to learn the groundwork of heading to a new place with new people on a dive trip.

 

[FM1520]

.....

---------- Post added June 24th, 2014 at 09:03 AM ----------

All- thanks for the advice and sharing. I appreciate the list-out of the basic 5- I had been looking for a similar checklist to that, and hadn't found one so thanks for sharing. We are going to pepper that in with our practice in fin-kicks, staying still, economy of movement, neutral hover, and being as "quiet" as possible. It all sounds so analytic written out, but in practice it's much less so- we're out there having a very fun, relaxed experience, and the exercises are a labor of love.

The LDS closest to me (I took my courses at an LDS closer to my winter home) has a local dive tonight. As my daughter is pre-disposed with teenager plans, I'm heading there myself. I don't know anyone there but I hope to have a good time and get more experience with an unknown buddy. If anyone new is in a similar scenario (away from the people that you met during certification, that "built-in" set of people with the same level of experience as you), I think that would be a great way to not only dive, but to learn the groundwork of heading to a new place with new people on a dive trip.

The biggest impediment (IMO) to continued diving beyond certification is finding a buddy. Hooking up with a local club or dive shop that does local dives is an excellent way to meet potential buddies and establish a network of people to dive with. I think you are absolutely on the right track.

 

[ccie7599]

Back from the dive tonight- I share this in case other newcomers are looking for ways to get more diving in and have good experiences...

It was fun and sloppy on my part (if I had a nickel...). I was lucky to get paired with a very experienced rescue diver, and he took great pains to be calm, friendly, helpful, patient, and cool.

Executive summary- terrible air consumption, terrible buoyancy, got cold, etc. Still had a great time and buddy was perfect despite probably diving 1/3 of his expected time paired with me.

I would do it again, and I will practice with my daughter every chance I can get. I love this, I am thrilled I've been able to dive now for 4 days straight. I am going to try to keep the streak up!

 

[Dr Dog]

Buoyancy and proper finning will do wonders for your diving game as well.

Its never too early to start learning to stay off the bottom