Katana 2

[JBFG]

So today I did my second dive with my K2.
I'm still adjusting the tanks so no commenting on it yet (grantctobin).
I realised that my right attachment point was too low,
the right tank over rotated a bit, the left not enough and the bungee on both could be a bit tighter.

 

[lostsheep]

^^^Looks pretty good for still dialing it in.

 

[JBFG]

Thanx! I was pretty impressed after dive #2. I didn't get footage after dive #1 so I made some adjustment on how it felt.
I also decided to move my butt bag to the bladder attachment point. It was hanging too low on the drop D for me (I'm short). No issues reaching it there at all.

 

[rddvet]

Edit: Have a K2. If I wasn't diving a Sidewinder, I'd probably have a Stealth Tec or Rec (depending on height). You'll get two very different opinions depending on whomst you learn from. Obv you can dive an XDeep with a Sidewinder but I'm not thrilled with having to modify it and those that don't modify the dump generally argue that you shouldn't have gas in your ccr wing and wear it as a harness.

couldn’t agree more. If I were a student that came out of class like that I would not be happy. And why is it everyone’s goal to Superman tanks?

Would be much better if you could expand on your comment instead of just making a vague opinion, not really sure if this is the proper place to express your opinion on my instructor or training as well. Feel free to private message me if you would like to share some observations on how we might better our diving.

pretty much everyone’s tanks in all of the phots look awful. They are not properly trimmed and it looks really bad. A good instructor would not let you leave class looking like that. All of you need your tanks adjusted significantly. Out of curiosity was this a PADI class? Also, a good sm instructor would not likely want 5 students in a class. That is a lot of adjusting to do for one person let alone 5. You guys should have been taught how to adjust tank trim (aka where to attach tanks, how long bungees should be, and how long rear attachments should be as well as where bottom camband should be. You all should get together and video each other and pick one person at a time to get adjusted to perfect. When you’re done with one guy, move onto the next. I wouldn’t ask that instructor for help because he didn’t do a great job to begin with. I’m sure all of those comments make me sound like an a-hole, but unless those photos are all from the first 15 minutes of your first sm dives with an instructor you should be dissatisfied.

 

[lostsheep]

pretty much everyone’s tanks in all of the phots look awful. They are not properly trimmed and it looks really bad. A good instructor would not let you leave class looking like that. All of you need your tanks adjusted significantly. Out of curiosity was this a PADI class? Also, a good sm instructor would not likely want 5 students in a class. That is a lot of adjusting to do for one person let alone 5. You guys should have been taught how to adjust tank trim (aka where to attach tanks, how long bungees should be, and how long rear attachments should be as well as where bottom camband should be. You all should get together and video each other and pick one person at a time to get adjusted to perfect. When you’re done with one guy, move onto the next. I wouldn’t ask that instructor for help because he didn’t do a great job to begin with. I’m sure all of those comments make me sound like an a-hole, but unless those photos are all from the first 15 minutes of your first sm dives with an instructor you should be dissatisfied.

I feel obligated to defend myself here in case I was included in "everyone."

I am one of those A554)les who never took a side mount class. I've had guidance by others who were side mount trained by "experts". My initial "training" was from an instructed, instructor but not a side mount instructor himself. I've dived with mentors who I can only call experts. I've been critiqued by a recognized "expert" who shall remain nameless but I guarantee all of you using side mount know who he is.

The only pics of me on this thread were preemptively acknowledged as my best guess on the first dive without doing pool work first. I like to pretend its gotten better but will post pics as soon as I get more recent ones.

If your critique is aimed at SM instructors than please disregard the following.

Not all of us learn well from "instructors" and I agree with you that many (if not all) instructors suck. IMHO the mentor / apprentice / practice route is the only way to actually learn. Unfortunately for most, diving is not like all of the other disciplines I partake in and a "class" is the only way to proceed for many. As I get more and more experienced my disdain for this model only continues to grow. Without some semblance of a mentoring role I do not take any instructor seriously; they are all in it for a paycheck. This is antithetical to my other unrelated disciplines where there are no certifying agencies (boarding, ~freediving, rockclimbing, wheeling, bmx / freestyle mtb, fabricating etc.) FWIW, I have a bunch of cards I consider meaningless from well known instructors and agencies; what I've learned has been primarily from practice with mentors.

@rddvet , I have no idea what your background is but I would encourage you to adopt more of the mentor role than the critic role. I realize you are primarily critiquing the instructors but you called it how it comes across.

I see a lot of what you see, but have deliberately been reticent.

 

[Zack-Bloom]

There are good instructors and bad instructors just like there’s good fish and rotten, it’s your job to pick. You are absolutely correct that if you walk into a random scuba shop and ask to take a class it’s going to be pretty bad. This is an economic reality of the industry. Conversely though, if you research and communicate with specific instructors you respect, you can find incredibly committed teachers and mentors who are not there for just the paycheck.

 

[rddvet]

I feel obligated to defend myself here in case I was included in "everyone."

I am one of those A554)les who never took a side mount class. I've had guidance by others who were side mount trained by "experts". My initial "training" was from an instructed, instructor but not a side mount instructor himself. I've dived with mentors who I can only call experts. I've been critiqued by a recognized "expert" who shall remain nameless but I guarantee all of you using side mount know who he is.

The only pics of me on this thread were preemptively acknowledged as my best guess on the first dive without doing pool work first. I like to pretend its gotten better but will post pics as soon as I get more recent ones.

If your critique is aimed at SM instructors than please disregard the following.

Not all of us learn well from "instructors" and I agree with you that many (if not all) instructors suck. IMHO the mentor / apprentice / practice route is the only way to actually learn. Unfortunately for most, diving is not like all of the other disciplines I partake in and a "class" is the only way to proceed for many. As I get more and more experienced my disdain for this model only continues to grow. Without some semblance of a mentoring role I do not take any instructor seriously; they are all in it for a paycheck. This is antithetical to my other unrelated disciplines where there are no certifying agencies (boarding, ~freediving, rockclimbing, wheeling, bmx / freestyle mtb, fabricating etc.) FWIW, I have a bunch of cards I consider meaningless from well known instructors and agencies; what I've learned has been primarily from practice with mentors.

@rddvet , I have no idea what your background is but I would encourage you to adopt more of the mentor role than the critic role. I realize you are primarily critiquing the instructors but you called it how it comes across.

I see a lot of what you see, but have deliberately been reticent.

I was specifically comenting on the photos that mouse posted. Sorry if that wasn't clear. I was only commenting on his photos and grant's comment.

I was pretty specific that they should be upset that their instructor let them out of class with that level of tank trim. Students unfortunately rely on their instructor to guide them, and shouldn't have to go it alone if they're paying fro a class. At the same time, the guys in those photos should be able to look at their photos and compare to other sm photos and see something isn't right. As for being self-taught, that's up to you. It can be done, but the best and easiest way to get setup in sm is to learn from a good instructor.

As for mentoring, that's pretty hard to do over the internet. But I was also directly answering his question he posed to grantcobin. Grant didn't answer what looked bad in the photos, so I did. I also suggested the guys as a group (if their friends) work together to clean each other up. Even in crappy sm courses the instructors should be able to give enough basics on trimming tanks that the students can figure out how to do it when they get home. Hopefully these guys did. If they weren't then they need to seek a competent sm instructor. If they have specific questions I'd be happy to help them out. Unfortunately I don't believe in candy coating things. If I see someone posting photos who looks like crap, I'm going to be honest with them. I would expect the same in rteturn. If I ever post a photo or a video of myself looking like crap in the water or doing something dangerous or stupid, I want a direct and straightforward comment. Sadly people can't handle that nowadays.

 

[RayfromTX]

I was specifically comenting on the photos that mouse posted. Sorry if that wasn't clear. I was only commenting on his photos and grant's comment.

I was pretty specific that they should be upset that their instructor let them out of class with that level of tank trim. Students unfortunately rely on their instructor to guide them, and shouldn't have to go it alone if they're paying fro a class. At the same time, the guys in those photos should be able to look at their photos and compare to other sm photos and see something isn't right. As for being self-taught, that's up to you. It can be done, but the best and easiest way to get setup in sm is to learn from a good instructor.

As for mentoring, that's pretty hard to do over the internet. But I was also directly answering his question he posed to grantcobin. Grant didn't answer what looked bad in the photos, so I did. I also suggested the guys as a group (if their friends) work together to clean each other up. Even in crappy sm courses the instructors should be able to give enough basics on trimming tanks that the students can figure out how to do it when they get home. Hopefully these guys did. If they weren't then they need to seek a competent sm instructor. If they have specific questions I'd be happy to help them out. Unfortunately I don't believe in candy coating things. If I see someone posting photos who looks like crap, I'm going to be honest with them. I would expect the same in rteturn. If I ever post a photo or a video of myself looking like crap in the water or doing something dangerous or stupid, I want a direct and straightforward comment. Sadly people can't handle that nowadays.

This wasn't my experience. I took a class that didn't do much for me as far as fine tuning my setup. I later took another where I was already supposed to be dialed in and wasn't and his attempts to make the needed tweaks got me closer but still not really right. Then I had a guy that does a lot of sidemount and is a stickler for detail and highly critical jump in the pool with me for 2 hours swimming around and around me making adjustments while I just hovered. He undid a lot of what I thought was right, simplified the setup a bit to more of a Mexico cave style and when he was done it was perfect and I didn't know what he had done or what I was diving until he stopped and I checked it out. It is pretty much what most of the cavers in Mexico are doing from what I can gather on an Xdeep tec 2.0 platform. It is different from what I do at home because it was AL80s instead of LP85s. He excelled at discarding what was wrong and setting it up right. I told him what I thought was right and wrong with my setup and he ignored me and did what was right. My instructors didn't spend the time that he did to get it right. I was able to then recreate it for my wife and get her dialed in very nicely.

 

[JBFG]

I must say that I enjoyed diving the K2 more than them stealth. The stealth was great in tropical water with AL80s but was not that great for me with steel and Dry Suit.
The K2 has exceeded my expectations so far. It dove easily and was fairly simple to do an initial dial in. I even did a few restriction passage in a wreck today and it did nicely. I find the profile on the K2 to be quite low, lower than the stealth. It could just be a set up thing though.

the shoulder dump and the rear left dump were a great. So much easier than trying to reach the butt dump on the stealth.
No regrets switching at all and I can’t wait to use it again soon!

 

[Mouse51180]

rddvet...im not going to say I agree or disagree with your comments, what I am going to say is that it does not sound like your comments are coming from someone who has been in an instructor type role. I agree if something is seen as being incorrect...it should be pointed out, but there is a term called "tact" in how you express these opinions. Its not a matter of saying it in a way because

Sadly people can't handle that nowadays.

, but more as expressing these opinions in a way that don't discourage the recipient from continuing to better him\herself and enjoy the sport.

We all just want to have fun, but if the only corrective criticism

I’m sure all of those comments make me sound like an a-hole,

...then I have to agree...your coming off as an a-hole and are doing more damage then good.

I still feel your comments are still very vague as we are talking about several photos and 4 different people that are not going to dial the gear in all the same way.

As I mentioned in my initial comment to you...please feel free to private message me so that this thread does not run off the rails any more than it already has...as this was not my intention. Private message me so we can discuss items in further detail if you wish to be more of a mentor on this subject to myself or others. We can dissect a particular photo and I can give you my impression of what I see or what you see and we can fix issues from there. I will also be starting a new thread called "FTM - Fix My Trim" to do the same and try to pull this thread back to speaking about the K2 in general and not on bad trim\skills\instruction.

Something else to everyone...If you wish to discuss how the XDeep setup is far superior to the K2 in every way except if you are running a Sidewinder...then I think that should probably go into a separate thread as well, but these are just my opinions.