Wife fear of mask clearing

[Aviyes]

Did you have your eyes closed? If so, did the chlorine still irritate? I hate the stuff.

I had to keep my eyes closed for drills like the 1 minute no mask or the lost mask buddy swim. But, I had no issues then.

 

[Neilwood]

I had to keep my eyes closed for drills like the 1 minute no mask or the lost mask buddy swim. But, I had no issues then.

I have to say I didn't find the no mask stuff too much of an issue. I was a fairly keen swimmer as a kid and if I went without goggles (if I had forgotten them), I was fairly comfortable doing the underwater portion with eyes shut (we did stuff like recovering a weighted block from the bottom of the pool). Doing the OW stuff like no mask/1 minute swim were just an extension of that.

I certainly couldn't do it with eyes open despite so much time in pools as a kid my eyes just got worse for getting irritated by chlorine over time instead of getting used to it.

 

[homerdoc]

Okay here we go, we have check out dives (hers not mine) this Saturday, I had her get in the water using my Hooka (sp?) at the lake house in 4 feet of water and make sure she was good to go at a lower vis environment. She did great. I am going along to dive other sites while she does her check out at Jocassee this Saturday. Will let you know if all your advice paid off.

JJ

 

[Neilwood]

Okay here we go, we have check out dives (hers not mine) this Saturday, I had her get in the water using my Hooka (sp?) at the lake house in 4 feet of water and make sure she was good to go at a lower vis environment. She did great. I am going along to dive other sites while she does her check out at Jocassee this Saturday. Will let you know if all your advice paid off.

JJ

Good luck and hope things go well.

Just remind her that the skills are not a race - slow and smooth is better than fast and flustered.

 

[motorref]

My wife has decided she would like to get certified. She had her first pool skills the other night. When she came home she told me there was no way she could clear her mask/take it off etc. It "freaked" her out.

I told her, this is the most basic skill and for sure you have to have it. Suggested if having a mask off under water disturbs her, submerge with it off and then put it on when you are on the bottom of the pool. She will see all is okay. She is at round two tonight so we'll see if that helps her.

Has anyone else dealt with this, and have any advice I could give her? I told her it is fine if she doesn't get certified, so there is not big pressure. It would actually save me a lot lugging heavy equipment to places if she doesn't!

JJ

Patience! I went through this 2 years ago when my wife decided to get certified; we spent a couple of Saturday nights at the pool, just practicing in the shallow end. When she got up to 3 minutes without a mask I took her back to redo the class; she passed both the pool and OW mask removal / clearing requirements.
Last month we had to do a refresher (I had open heart surgery last year) and she is still uncomfortable without a mask, but was able to do the maskless underwater swim, as long as I was holding her hand to guide her!

KevinL

 

[MXGratefulDiver]

It's a real common problem ... one I dealt with many times as a scuba instructor. The most common successful approach involves standing chest-deep in water, remove your mask, bend over to put your face in the water, and just stand there and breathe. When you start to feel discomfort, just straighten out and take your face out of the water. Take a couple breaths, and repeat the exercise. After a few attempts it will get easier ... as your brain "rewires" to accept this as not a big deal. After a number of attempts, you'll be able to do it without any discomfort at all. Now, put your mask back on, sink down in the shallow end and try the mask clear exercise. Most times you'll find it so easy you won't even understand why you thought it was hard in the first place. But if there's discomfort, stand up, take a few breaths, and repeat the exercise.

My favorite story from when I was teaching involved a woman who I had already asked several times to clear her mask during her check-out dives. After the third dive ... and multiple mask clearing requests ... she told me that she didn't understand why I kept asking her to clear her mask. My reply ... "Because every time you do it you look like you're struggling. Like it's some kind of crisis. I want to see you do it like it ain't no big whoop ... because it ain't." Next dive I gave her the signal. She pulled her mask completely off, put it back on, cleared it like a boss, and glared at me while giving me the OK sign. I signaled back OK. She signaled back the one-finger salute. We were done ... she got it. And I doubt it's ever been a problem with her since.

It's like every other skill you learn ... the more repetitions you take, the more natural it becomes.

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

 

[offfi]

My wife had this issue aswell. She was afraid of the mask drill. But she wanted to overcome it and practiced whenever possible.
This year on our vacation, when she had only 15-20 OW dives, I was shocked when she completely took off her mask at a wall around 80ft just to defog it.
Just a couple of dives and she was completely comfortable with it.
My story won't help you a lot, yet maybe it will encourage you and your wife.

 

[homerdoc]

Update: she got certified diving Ginnie Springs/Crystal river/Devils den this weekend. Mask clear with several of the suggestions here she go through, only issue the whole trip was she was cold.

I will give this recommendation, if someone has a spouse kid or whatever, that has issues on check out (not sure if I posted the "I aint doing this Jocassee check out dive" after she jumped in), the springs down in Fla are perfect. Just remember don't take them to someplace without great viz until they have several, like a bunch of dives and are very comfortable.

Anyway thanks for your advice wanted to close the loop and let you guys know she did it and was so proud of herself.

Me personally, I don't every want to dive for 1:45 on a river going from 2' to 21' ever again.

Bonaire here we come in 14 days

JJ

 

[Neilwood]

Update: she got certified diving Ginnie Springs/Crystal river/Devils den this weekend. Mask clear with several of the suggestions here she go through, only issue the whole trip was she was cold.

I will give this recommendation, if someone has a spouse kid or whatever, that has issues on check out (not sure if I posted the "I aint doing this Jocassee check out dive" after she jumped in), the springs down in Fla are perfect. Just remember don't take them to someplace without great viz until they have several, like a bunch of dives and are very comfortable.

Anyway thanks for your advice wanted to close the loop and let you guys know she did it and was so proud of herself.

Me personally, I don't every want to dive for 1:45 on a river going from 2' to 21' ever again.

Bonaire here we come in 14 days

JJ

Congratulations to her on getting certified!

Now you have a positive and negative in one post:
Positive - You have a great buddy to dive with now and share all your diving with.
Negative - You have a second set of gear to buy.

I could certainly put up with the negative!

 

[The Chairman]

I'm late to this mask party, but may I suggest a different approach? Have her put on her mask in waist deep water while it's full of water. Then she can stand, and without anything else to deal with, simply learn to breathe with a mask full of water. Don't have her use a snorkel or tank... just normal air. In fact, this is how I introduce mask clearing before we ever put on a Scuba unit.

This reduces her task loading to just one thing: breathing with her nose surrounded by water. For those who don't do this naturally, this really, really helps. They get to concentrate on their glottis control.