As Kathy drove by me at the Breakwater on Sunday, she said, "It's about time you took one of these classes". I couldn't agree more! 
Doug Chartier and I took the course as a team of two - we organized it on really short notice, and finding a third just wasn't in the cards. Don Chennavasin (ae3753) taught the course, with some assistance on day 3 from his lovely wife. Additional pre-dive intimidation was provided (gratis!) on day 3 by Andrew Georgitsis (and his pack of dogs, no doubt trained to sniff out people with poor trim), who was nice enough to let us gawk at the UTD rebreather setup for a bit when he showed up on Sunday.
Anyway, onto the "report"...
I won't get into the details of what this course covers - there are tons of reports that contain way more detail than I think my brain is capable of recalling at the moment. Sufficed to say, the emphasis in this course was on buoyancy, trim, propulsion, and team. While I knew going into the course that team was going to be a huge factor, what I didn't realize was just how much team was going impact proficiency in the other three areas.
I learned a LOT from this course.
Sure - I learned the little things, the skills. My back kick is functional a lot more consistently now (even the small ones I can now do to hold position while ascending). I know what's wrong with my frog kick, and what I need to do to fix it. I learned that my intuitive understanding of a helicopter turn is inverted, but I know what to do now. I know what good trim feels like. I know how to move my gear around during an S-drill*.
All that stuff is comparatively small potatoes though, when compared to the effects of team.
Doing a mod-S in trim requires decent buoyancy control and calm feet on my part. By the end of day 1, I did what I felt was a mod-S I could be reasonably proud of, all things considered. Doing a full S-drill in trim requires both divers to be in consistently good control of their buoyancy and positioning. Any significant unanticipated deviation on the part of either diver can very quickly start a chain of deviations for both divers if not managed properly (especially on a 5' hose - Doug, buy a 7' hose). Now do it while ascending, and holding your stops. What's that - did Don just ask for a 5' stop? Eep.
Communication was a big deal, especially as we were first getting used to the new skills (or old skills performed a new way). Don was acting as our virtual third teammate for the dives (communication-wise), and by the end of day 3 we had made a lot of progress. Signals were starting to slow down a bit - though I still rush them - and we were relaying signals through the team. As I got back a bit of the mental bandwidth I'm used to having over the course of the weekend, I found myself able to appraise situations better and communicate more significant plans (mostly) effectively.
Doing my DM training (and working as a DM) had some interesting side effects on this training, both positive and negative. One significant negative is that I've developed a very real, ingrained tendency to want to be in a "survey" position, rather than a smaller team-centric position. Good positioning for observing the tail end of the tour group in an OW class is very different from good team positioning, and I'll need to work on this. One very real positive is stress management and environment (if not team) awareness. "The long hose will get caught if we ascend this way during the S-drill - better move it around the line before it's a problem." "I've lost the up-line. Let's find some well positioned kelp to ascend on instead." There were a few key moments throughout the weekend when I felt I came up with a good plan, and it felt really good.
Interestingly enough, video review was not so bad. Part of this is absolutely because Essentials of Rec isn't a pass/fail scenario, but another thing I learned is that I'm really hard on myself, possibly even bordering on hyper-critical in some cases. Barring a couple of really nasty S-drills and S-drill ascents, the most common thing I said was, "it actually didn't look as bad as I thought." Don was always quick to point out things we did well, and how to improve the things we didn't, but looking back on it I was probably harder on myself than I had to be in a lot of cases. Somebody hug me before I eat a sadness cake. :depressed:
Alright, time to wrap this up - I'm tired of typing. Here's the summary version...
Doug was a great teammate. Don is a great instructor, and I highly recommend this course to anybody looking to improve their diving. Doug and I progressed a lot over the course of the weekend, and we definitely left with a set of things to work on. More importantly, we left with the tools to improve them.
Thanks to Don and Doug for a great weekend!
* Don made me try both ways - I like the light cord under the long hose while deployed.
Doug Chartier and I took the course as a team of two - we organized it on really short notice, and finding a third just wasn't in the cards. Don Chennavasin (ae3753) taught the course, with some assistance on day 3 from his lovely wife. Additional pre-dive intimidation was provided (gratis!) on day 3 by Andrew Georgitsis (and his pack of dogs, no doubt trained to sniff out people with poor trim), who was nice enough to let us gawk at the UTD rebreather setup for a bit when he showed up on Sunday.
Anyway, onto the "report"...
I won't get into the details of what this course covers - there are tons of reports that contain way more detail than I think my brain is capable of recalling at the moment. Sufficed to say, the emphasis in this course was on buoyancy, trim, propulsion, and team. While I knew going into the course that team was going to be a huge factor, what I didn't realize was just how much team was going impact proficiency in the other three areas.
I learned a LOT from this course.
Sure - I learned the little things, the skills. My back kick is functional a lot more consistently now (even the small ones I can now do to hold position while ascending). I know what's wrong with my frog kick, and what I need to do to fix it. I learned that my intuitive understanding of a helicopter turn is inverted, but I know what to do now. I know what good trim feels like. I know how to move my gear around during an S-drill*.
All that stuff is comparatively small potatoes though, when compared to the effects of team.
Doing a mod-S in trim requires decent buoyancy control and calm feet on my part. By the end of day 1, I did what I felt was a mod-S I could be reasonably proud of, all things considered. Doing a full S-drill in trim requires both divers to be in consistently good control of their buoyancy and positioning. Any significant unanticipated deviation on the part of either diver can very quickly start a chain of deviations for both divers if not managed properly (especially on a 5' hose - Doug, buy a 7' hose
). Now do it while ascending, and holding your stops. What's that - did Don just ask for a 5' stop? Eep.Communication was a big deal, especially as we were first getting used to the new skills (or old skills performed a new way). Don was acting as our virtual third teammate for the dives (communication-wise), and by the end of day 3 we had made a lot of progress. Signals were starting to slow down a bit - though I still rush them - and we were relaying signals through the team. As I got back a bit of the mental bandwidth I'm used to having over the course of the weekend, I found myself able to appraise situations better and communicate more significant plans (mostly) effectively.
Doing my DM training (and working as a DM) had some interesting side effects on this training, both positive and negative. One significant negative is that I've developed a very real, ingrained tendency to want to be in a "survey" position, rather than a smaller team-centric position. Good positioning for observing the tail end of the tour group in an OW class is very different from good team positioning, and I'll need to work on this. One very real positive is stress management and environment (if not team) awareness. "The long hose will get caught if we ascend this way during the S-drill - better move it around the line before it's a problem." "I've lost the up-line. Let's find some well positioned kelp to ascend on instead." There were a few key moments throughout the weekend when I felt I came up with a good plan, and it felt really good.
Interestingly enough, video review was not so bad. Part of this is absolutely because Essentials of Rec isn't a pass/fail scenario, but another thing I learned is that I'm really hard on myself, possibly even bordering on hyper-critical in some cases. Barring a couple of really nasty S-drills and S-drill ascents, the most common thing I said was, "it actually didn't look as bad as I thought." Don was always quick to point out things we did well, and how to improve the things we didn't, but looking back on it I was probably harder on myself than I had to be in a lot of cases. Somebody hug me before I eat a sadness cake. :depressed:
Alright, time to wrap this up - I'm tired of typing. Here's the summary version...
Doug was a great teammate. Don is a great instructor, and I highly recommend this course to anybody looking to improve their diving. Doug and I progressed a lot over the course of the weekend, and we definitely left with a set of things to work on. More importantly, we left with the tools to improve them.
Thanks to Don and Doug for a great weekend!
* Don made me try both ways - I like the light cord under the long hose while deployed.
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