Buddy breathing??

[mkenwood]

Boy did you bring back memories. I took my Certification Course in 1971. After practicing buddy breating, and when the Instructor felt we were capable, he had us don our equipment at the bottom of the pool and would then shut off our air and pull facemasks off, to see how we reacted, and to see how quickly our buddies responded. Harsh but I still think if was valuable. Thinking back, I think only about 60% of the people finished the course.

 

[Thalassamania]

One of the reasons that we decided to go with surrendering the primary was that it ended all confusion between the initialization of BB and Aux. use.

 

[Nemrod]

I took my first NAUI course in 1966, I was a child but they let me in. There were 40 people in the class or very nearly. It was two nights a week for like 12 weeks. Yes, about half the people quit or failed. Yep--they FAILED people right and left. Scuba was an advnture sport and very exotic. Now it is kinda a nerd hobby--hence "Scuba Steve".

Is buddy breathing relevent to todays diver, I am not sure of the answer to that but I do know that the diver that is produced from todays so called basic and advanced courses is far less trained and much more dependent upon equipment than were new divers of the scuba heyday. N

 

[caseybird]

We did a lot of buddy breathing in my DM course. (PADI shop) An interesting skill, I was much more confident about having the reg out of my mouth after that.
I don't think there is any real need for it in OW. Just complicates things for the student.

 

[JessH]

We did a lot of buddy breathing in my DM course. (PADI shop) An interesting skill, I was much more confident about having the reg out of my mouth after that.
I don't think there is any real need for it in OW. Just complicates things for the student.

If the class is only over one weekend then you are probably right. I am very glad to have learned it in my class, but I was lucky enough to take a class that met at the pool for an hour and a half once a week for 11 weeks. There was also a lecture section once a week, an entire weekend for the open water dives and a few additional weeks to learn cpr/first aid and take the exam. This program still runs this way and puts out about 80 divers every semester.

~Jess

 

[caseybird]

If the class is only over one weekend then you are probably right. I am very glad to have learned it in my class, but I was lucky enough to take a class that met at the pool for an hour and a half once a week for 11 weeks. There was also a lecture section once a week, an entire weekend for the open water dives and a few additional weeks to learn cpr/first aid and take the exam. This program still runs this way and puts out about 80 divers every semester.

~Jess

Sounds like a good class. Nothing wrong with learning more.

 

[Jackie]

I do drills all the time with my dive partner, because doing a skill a few times in an OW class is not keeping sharp.
BUT I think that there is more than enough to learn in an OW class without adding a task that will not be used in 2006. It is standard operating procedure to have an octopus/alternate air source. PADI spends a lot of time on the correct positioning of the alternate air source (within the triange of the shoulders and the chest), reviewing it as part of the predive check, etc. Going over it with the buddy,etc. This is all covered in BWRAF. Its why they are bright yellow . YOU CAN"T MISS THEM.
So why in the world do we have to pretend that we don't have alternate air sources ??
That said, practicing donating a primary is a good idea, as there is some likelihood that it could be a scenerio. This does get the diver used to taking the reg out, handing it over and taking the octo/alt reg, etc into their mouth.
Whoever has the air, donates a reg. Period.
This is a good skill to practice. It can be almost automatic.