What skills can we practice?

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Deefstes, FWIW, I think you are totally on the right track.

I'd also add that you don't really have to set aside dives to practice (unless you are lucky enough to have access to a pool). We often shore dive, and will do skills at the beginning of the dive, in 20 feet or so of water, and then go do our tour, ending the dive with an ascent on a bag, maybe with an air-share or something to make it lively. Incorporating some skills into each dive means you don't burn out on practice, but you do it more often.

Things like rescue scenarios are probably best practiced on a dedicated dive, simply because you want to stay shallow, and doing them over again involves a number of ascents.
 
Just wanted to say thank you to the OP for posting this, and thanks to everyone who has responded. As a newish diver, I have found this thread (as well as the other thread about air sharing) to be very informative and interesting.
 
I'm not suggesting that we go practice task overloading but rather practice all the individual drills until it become second nature. That way, if more than one of them should go wrong on a real dive, we'd be fixing them almost without thinking, not allowing them to turn into a task overload.


Exactly.

What I was suggesting was to add practicing good dive planning, gear inspection and maintenance to your regular list of things to practice. This will go a long way in preventing any actual task overloading and the grief that comes with it.
 
Maybe because a 7 mil suit needs over 10 pounds in it self, maybe they prefer 2 fives to 5 twos. I know personally i dont like having a large number weights on a belt. I prefer to have the least number of weights I can. That means 5lb+ are a perfectly good option for me.

If exactly 10 pounds is the perfect weight for you and you are using a belt and hard weights, I understand and appreciate your choice. Hard weights on a belt -fewer are better. Most folks around here dive with integrated weights or soft weights. For soft weights in a pocket belt or BC integrated weights, I believe smaller weights are better. Smaller weights also give you the option to see if you can go a little lower on the weighting. In your case, (if the number of dives listed is correct), you may find that you are able to drop more weight as you gain more experience. With your set-up, you can only remove 5 pounds unless you obtain other weights.
 
No, with my set up, I cant remove that weight at all, because its sinking the suit. The suit is bouyant, whether its on someone with one dive, or a million dives, it's still gonna take the same weight to sink the suit. I agree it would be silly to have ONLY 5 pound plates, but when you KNOW!!!!! you need a somewhat large amount of weight to sink a suit, i dont see where smaller weights making up that total present any advantage what so ever. I do agree that you need some smaller weights for the remainder of the weight so you can properly adjust, but saying there is no place for 5 pounds weights outside of diving a dry suit is very close minded

(I've never understood why folks buy weights in 5lb + sizes unless they are diving in drysuits).
 
I'd also add that you don't really have to set aside dives to practice (unless you are lucky enough to have access to a pool). We often shore dive, and will do skills at the beginning of the dive, in 20 feet or so of water, and then go do our tour...
Yeah I would actually have liked that. Unfortunately our diving around here seems to be pretty limited in terms of the various options available. I basically have two options open to me. One is to dive in a local quarry (about an hour's drive away). It's far enough and inconvenient enough that we don't do it as often as I would have liked to but then again, I'm not particularly fond of quarry diving. I do it only to practice skills.

The other option is diving down at the coast, the nearest of which is 7 hours' drive. I think we have some pretty awesome reefs and the diving is very rewarding but the method is not really conducive to practicing skills. We're taken to the reef, 6 to 12 divers at a time, on a rigid hull inflatable through what is often a bit of a challenging surf. Once we're on the spot we usually try to get into our gear and into the water as quickly as possible to minimise drifting off the reef. Once we fall over backwards it's all systems go and there isn't exactly time to do skills practice etc.

Also, we typically dive with a DM, it seems to be standard practice here even if not abroad. The DM swims with a buoyline so when the dive is over we all surface along with the DM and the boat picks us up at the buoyline. Some divers (but very few) carry SMB's with them but in my 40 dives I have not yet seen one being deployed. I think if a skipper waiting around the DM's buoy sees another SMB popping up he'd probably expect something serious to have gone wrong.

That said, I do try to do practice some skills on most dives at least, even if only mask or regulator recovery. Sometime I remove my mask and swim for a bit without it, just to get used to it and then replace it again.

At any rate, I'm rambling, I just thought some might find this interesting. I should add that I've never dived around the Cape (where AndyT hails from) and I believe diving over there is a fair bit different.

Again, I appreciate all your inputs and will make a plan to incorporate it into my diving.
 
No, with my set up, I cant remove that weight at all, because its sinking the suit. The suit is bouyant, whether its on someone with one dive, or a million dives, it's still gonna take the same weight to sink the suit. I agree it would be silly to have ONLY 5 pound plates, but when you KNOW!!!!! you need a somewhat large amount of weight to sink a suit, i dont see where smaller weights making up that total present any advantage what so ever. I do agree that you need some smaller weights for the remainder of the weight so you can properly adjust, but saying there is no place for 5 pounds weights outside of diving a dry suit is very close minded

If you read my second post you will see that I did clarify my position if you are using hard weights -fewer may be better. However, as you gain experience and become a more relaxed comfortable diver you might, if you are open to it, find that you may be able to use less weighting. However, it is my opinion (yes it is my opinion and everyone has one) that if you are using soft weights or a weight integrated BC, the smaller weights are a better choice as they do allow you to make a variety of small adjustments as you progress in your experience and comfort. If you are of the opinion that you will never be able to dive with less than 10 pounds, then that is certainly your opinion and if you wish to call me closed minded that is OK. Depending on your body build and equipment, 10 pounds may be correct for you. However, I find that when I teach AOW and use the Peak Performance Buoyancy dive option, I am able to help many (if not most) divers reduce their weighting signficantly (>20% weighting reduction).

.... To all, if this discussion is detracting from what I believe is a truely wonderful thread by Deeftes (Deeftes you are definitely on the right track!), please accept my apologies and invite TNdiver6387 to PM me for further discussion or start a new thread.
 
I agree I may have been out of line in starting a side discussion in this thread. I appologize for that. I'll leave this side shot with this last comment. I do fully agree, that most beginners can reduce their weight considerably. I also should have made it clear that I use quite a bit more than 10 pounds of weight (when a 7 mil suit), and I am fully open to being able to use less weight than i currently use. I also appolize to you diveprof, for the closed minded statement. What I meant by that was that the single statement that i quoted in it self was close minded, not you as a person. You have since added qualifiers to that statement that make it a perfectly fair thing to say. I am also not familiar with dealing with soft weights, which likely leads to me being rather one sided. I appologize to everyone, especially Diveprof for anything I've said that has been offensive and to Deefstes for potentially taking the attention away from your search for answers. I also welcome you Diveprof to take this discussion to another thread if you want to further the discussion, and I will do my best to keep my posts more civil towards all.

Also, thank you Deefstes for this thread. My girlfriend is about to get certified and the reason I looked at this thread is because I also would like to know what things can and should be practiced by newer pairs of divers.
 
I agree I may have been out of line in starting a side discussion in this thread. I appologize for that. I'll leave this side shot with this last comment. I do fully agree, that most beginners can reduce their weight considerably. I also should have made it clear that I use quite a bit more than 10 pounds of weight (when a 7 mil suit), and I am fully open to being able to use less weight than i currently use. I also appolize to you diveprof, for the closed minded statement. What I meant by that was that the single statement that i quoted in it self was close minded, not you as a person. You have since added qualifiers to that statement that make it a perfectly fair thing to say. I am also not familiar with dealing with soft weights, which likely leads to me being rather one sided. I appologize to everyone, especially Diveprof for anything I've said that has been offensive and to Deefstes for potentially taking the attention away from your search for answers. I also welcome you Diveprof to take this discussion to another thread if you want to further the discussion, and I will do my best to keep my posts more civil towards all.

Also, thank you Deefstes for this thread. My girlfriend is about to get certified and the reason I looked at this thread is because I also would like to know what things can and should be practiced by newer pairs of divers.

No harm, no foul. My main point was that new divers should consider reassessing their weighting as they gain experience and become more comfortable divers. Many new divers may be a bit more anxious (and rightly so as breathing uw is not a natural act) and are not as familiar/comfortable with their equipment. This results in a faster breathing rate and more buoyancy. Being overweighted has several negative outcomes including increased air consumption (and shorter dives), more physically taxing dives (and if shore diving taxing post dive walks up hill after the dive :D). Ideal weighting means "zen" buoyancy control and relaxed extended dives. I believe that becoming properly weighted is a process rather than a one time event. Some of the folks that I've taught do grumble a bit when they find they need to buy additional smaller weights as the large ones they obtained in OW class do not allow for these small adjustments (I undestand them getting upset as I believe that weights must have gold content given their cost). One diver I've been working with the past couple of weeks has managed to reduce his weighting almost in half (22lb to 12lbs). He is thrilled about what this has meant for his diving experience. He has gone from 30-40 min dives to 60+min dives. This is not really a testament to anything I've done. My part in this was really very small - getting him to consider that he might dive with less weight and a few tips re buoyancy control and an understanding of wetsuit compression/expansion. I almost hate to tell him though given the cost of lead, he may be able to drop more weight as he gains additional experience:D
 
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