Don't know what happened

[boulderjohn]

If I identify a potential flaw in my training, I search for the best course to fix it.

You have identified a problem. It is a potential flaw in your training. I suggest you search for the best course to fix it.

You are wasting your time in this thread, because you have already decided that everyone trying to help here you is an idiot whose experience and training is meaningless.

 

[scubadada]

Hi @Dody

I don't think posters have tried to make you feel defensive in pointing out experience vs. training. Take inventory. Of your 69 dives, how many were training dives and how many were experience dives? For how many of your experience dives were you diving independently? How many different geographic areas and different diving environments have you had a chance to sample so far?

I took AOW at 80 dives and Rescue at 118 dives. I did not do Solo until I had 758 dives. You currently have only a few dives more than the minimum number to complete Divemaster. Many of us are simply suggesting that you build the experience arm of your portfolio prior to taking on the responsibility of caring for others.

With respect to your propulsion and finning technique, an independent, professional evaluation may be just the prescription for answering your questions and improving your skills.

 

[Dody]

You have identified a problem. It is a potential flaw in your training. I suggest you search for the best course to fix it.

You are wasting your time in this thread, because you have already decided that everyone trying to help here you is an idiot whose experience and training is meaningless.

Let’s say that I believe your gospel. Can you explain to me why I have always been one of fastest underwater but not this time? I was neither drunk nor out of shape or tired. Bit I could not catch up with 15 years old kids. Explain that to me with better arguments than just saying it is a lack of training.

 

[Rollin Bonz]

Wrong. It has nothing to do with experience. It is just common sense. Don’t get me wrong. I do not pile up certs for the C-Cards. I could not care less. I do it for the knowledge and to be prepared. Money isn’t currently a problem. If I identify a potential flaw in my training, I search for the best course to fix it. I spend hours reading and watching materials. I spend hours with boat managers trying to better understand how to identify currents before even getting under water. I try to visualize all possible hazards, knowing that it is impossible but knowledge cannot hurt. All of this comes down to experience Vs studying. None can replace the other. You need both. But too often, experience is overrated as in the case of « never use your arms ».

Yikes... nothing to do with experience, just common sense... ok

Again, who would be serving as a DM or an Instructor's buddy in those examples I mentioned?

No need for some solo training you say... interesting

So with 69 dives, all your studying and experience, you feel confident and capable of being in charge of the safety of divers with even less experience than you... and you feel others with your level of experience and training are capable of the same.

After your own admission of failure in that regard...

Then asking on an internet forum "why was I unable to adequately serve as a DM on this dive"

The overwhelming response has been gain more experience.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but... DM training and experience requirements, are for most DM candidates, severely lacking and a great many "Dive Masters" are such in title only. Kind of like "ADVANCED open water divers"

I'm currently doing some tec training with a new to me instructor. Early on he made it clear "If you are expecting to be handed a C card after my class, you are in the wrong place. You may or may not EARN your c card". He then required we do an in pool session so he could evaluate IF HE WOULD EVEN ACCEPT us as students. Only then did we schedule the bookwork and actual training pool session. Those have been done. We were then sent on our way to practice the required skills, for the last 2 months we've done just that. When we go in for our dives for the class, we will either demonstrate adequate mastery of the skills and earn the certification, or we will be sent home to practice more, to return at a later date to attempt the dives again. This is the VERY REASON we sought out this particular instructor. We'd had enough of the show up and get a c card deals.

There is a saying "You don't know what you don't know until you know it". Sometimes finding out can be a killer.

 

[mc42]

OK, so if you're taking a scientific approach, what have you concluded so far? I think most questions have already been brought up.

Did you:
- Check with the other divers to see how they felt about the dive?
- What was their / your air consumption?
- How was your trim? With a new config, perhaps you weren't totally comfortable, causing extra effort
- Your physical condition that day? Maybe that wasn't your day to go diving

Taking a tech diver / dive leader approach, are you going to debrief with the instructor how the dive went and his feedback? As a professional (in terms of having completed the professional level training and acting as a DM on that dive), you should be comfortable doing this with other professionals.
- Your positioning regarding the group
- The instructor's group control, or lack thereof, since there appeared to be some issues keeping everybody in sight
- Your not asking the instructor to slow down, or feeling like you couldn't do so, even though that could have impacted the safety of the group
- Seeing if there might be suggestions for you on what happened, or things that only others could see regarding your diving

You seem to have eliminated many factors. Maybe you also need to have a head-to-head race with the teens just to get more data points?

 

[Dody]

Hi @Dody

I don't think posters have tried to make you feel defensive in pointing out experience vs. training. Take inventory. Of your 69 dives, how many were training dives and how many were experience dives? For how many of your experience dives were you diving independently? How many different geographic areas and different diving environments have you had a chance to sample so far?

I took AOW at 80 dives and Rescue at 118 dives. I did not do Solo until I had 758 dives. You currently have only a few dives more than the minimum number to complete Divemaster. Many of us are simply suggesting that you build the experience arm of your portfolio prior to taking on the responsibility of caring for others.

With respect to your propulsion and finning technique, an independent, professional evaluation may be just the prescription for answering your questions and improving your skills.

This is going into the right direction. Out of my 69 dives, less than 10 were training dives. Others, I did not believe that I should log them.
I have dived independently and planning everything (with a less experienced buddy) maybe 30 times.
I have only dived in Cape Verde and South of France. Boat, beach, shore dives but only 3 times with strong current.
I dive almost every week. Building up knowledge and experience. Trying to get better all the time. As I said, I don’t care about C-card. Just being more and more in control.
I know I still have a long learning curve. But standards are the minimum requirements for every human activity. And if you tick all the boxes and do even more, you don’t want to hear that you need to do a 1000 more dives when a problem happens. You want a structured reasoning, beyond, you don’t have enough experience. Some of the guys that have 100 dives will always think that others with 80 are inept. You can replace 100 by 1000 and 80 by 200. This is an endless debate.

 

[Angelo Farina]

Regarding using arms. In reality al lot of studies have been done for competitive finned swimmers. Most of these studies were done in Russia in the seventies and eighties.
Here I summarise some of the results, if required I could search for the relevant publications (I have them stored somewhere, but it is almost 30 years I am not reading them - which also means that I did not read more modern studies, if they have ben done).
The seventies was when the first fiberglass and carbon fiber fins appeared, which changed strongly the kicking style, as these fins store a lot of elastic energy and later release it with minimal mechanical loss, whilst rubber and plastic fins waste most the elastic energy stored.
Furthermore the first monofins appeared, making the dolphin kicking style a viable alternative to alternate flutter kicking.
Finally, a new specialty appear in finned swimming competitions, called underwater speed, where the athletes employ a small air tank held with hands in front of them.
Here the results:
1) using arms for swimming is advantageous for surface swimming and with separate fins (either traditional or carbon-fiber)
2) with a monofin in surface swimming, instead, it is advantageous to keep the arms straight forward and strictly together.
3) with separate fins or with a monofin, in underwater speed competitions (with an air tank), it is always advantageous to keep the arms straight forward and close together, pushing the tank in front of you, even if using traditional flutter kick. Placing it on the back, so you can use your arms for swimming, is generally detrimental.
4) with traditional rubber or plastic fins, in apnoea competitions, using the arms becomes advantageous.
5) with fiberglass or carbon-fiber fins the benefit of using arms in underwater swimming in apnoea is almost entirely lost.

Conclusions: for deep free divers, using arms is still a technique which is often used, particularly if not using a monofin or when the fins are traditional rubber or plastic.
For scuba divers, using arms is generally not recommended, better to remove the tank form the back and pushing it in front of you with straight arms, for better hydrodynamics.

 

[Dody]

OK, so if you're taking a scientific approach, what have you concluded so far? I think most questions have already been brought up.

Did you:
- Check with the other divers to see how they felt about the dive?
- What was their / your air consumption?
- How was your trim? With a new config, perhaps you weren't totally comfortable, causing extra effort
- Your physical condition that day? Maybe that wasn't your day to go diving

Taking a tech diver / dive leader approach, are you going to debrief with the instructor how the dive went and his feedback? As a professional (in terms of having completed the professional level training and acting as a DM on that dive), you should be comfortable doing this with other professionals.
- Your positioning regarding the group
- The instructor's group control, or lack thereof, since there appeared to be some issues keeping everybody in sight
- Your not asking the instructor to slow down, or feeling like you couldn't do so, even though that could have impacted the safety of the group
- Seeing if there might be suggestions for you on what happened, or things that only others could see regarding your diving

You seem to have eliminated many factors. Maybe you also need to have a head-to-head race with the teens just to get more data points?

Yeah! I checked their abilities, feelings and knowledge of the proper procedures before the dive.
I also checked their air consumption. The father and son were using about 20% than me. The girl was on par with me and I was amazed.
My physical condition was good but I had new gear, using it for the second time and it was a f… mistake.
Things happened very fast. I was very comfortable staying 2 meters max behind them but then the vis degraded and the next I know, they are 10 meters away and I can’t catch up. No way to tell them.
I know that it was not a successful dive. I don’t know what’s wrong with you guys. All I am trying to do is to understand beyond the usual uneducated comments. Not talking about yours which are useful.

 

[Celt]

I wouldn’t be surprised if I couldn’t keep up to a 15 year old teenager. I’d slow them down by letting them carry some of my gear. Or maybe hang onto their bc.

 

[johndiver999]

The fact that you are still thinking that using arms in emergencies is a no-go shows that you do not have a scientific mind. That’s all I have to say to you. The rest of your post is …

Rather than argue over hand swimming, why not get to a pool and prove to yourself the purported benefit of arm swimming - perhaps in combination with the frog kicking that you indicated you used to attempt a sprint during the incident?

I myself will use an arm stroke or two in certain situations, but I have never been convinced it is an efficient means to move over any considerable distance when wearing scuba gear (and decent fins). In addition, and you should have been taught this in your training: Arm swimming is a GREAT way to rip your buddy's regulator from their mouth when you accidentally catch their second stage hose loop. For that reason alone, it is not generally a good practice.

Perhaps you should check out these for your experiments:

https://www.amazon.com/Darkfin-Webb...ocphy=9012033&hvtargid=pla-568751388902&psc=1