Training ideas needed

[Zef]

I dive with a local club that trains in a pool each Thursday evening for an hour and a half. This autumn each divemaster and assistant instructor is assigned to a group of divers and is responsible to provide organized training.

i am assigned to a group of teenagers (14-17 years old) who range in certification from open water to rescue and range in experience from one season to a few years.

We will be using SCUBA once or twice a month, the rest of the weekly sessions will be apnea based.

The goals are to have fun, increase safety awareness, increase competence and ability, increase fitness, and to have fun.

I am looking for ideas to integrate into the program.

This is an exciting opportunity as this is a great group of fantastic, capable, and motivated teens that enjoy being in the water.

Any and all ideas welcome.

-Z

 

[loosenit2]

Saw a post a while back of a shop that challenged students to do final exams underwater, some of the kids apparently got a real kick out of it. Perhaps doing underwater RDP calculations as a game or competition would be fun and encourage them to understand that it is possible and necessary to think underwater.

Another thought might be design an underwater “escape room” kind of scenario to force them to think through self rescue.

 

[rjack321]

Experiments with over/under weighting. Ie have them wear different exposure protections and different tanks first guess how much weight they need and then dump the tank / figure it out. The idea being to get an intuitive feel /understanding of "this isn't right" so they know the need to fix it.

Buoyancy obstacle course? rings and limbo bars you have to pass through/around without touching (after the weighting week)

Simulated unconscious free diver buddy rescue (practical) possibly combine with CPR refresher

Maskless (or blindfold) work with a buddy. Maskless diver has to do something (pick up something off the bottom, swim X distance turn left and back etc) only they don't know the assignment. The masked buddy who can see has to communicate the assignment to the maskless diver with finger/hand signals, motions of the arm etc. To build teamwork and appreciation for buddies.​

 

[aviator8]

A task loading objective to see how they can work as a team with multiple things happening. Have one diver set compass heading course to an object on the surface then descend and follow that bearing. The buddy holds the navigating diver while swimming and monitors depth, then signals up or down to maintain depth by 1 ft. The navigating diver has to compensate by inflating manually, not with LPI or dumping with kidney dump. See if they can maintain depth accurately and if they surface at the intended spot.

 

[johndiver999]

a golf ball race... Without touching the ball, they have to use just their hand to fan water to propel the ball from one end to the other. Could stipulate that diver can only touch the bottom (for an instant) 3 times. This mandates buoyancy control and gets everyone involved in trying to spot failure of control and DQ. Maybe the winners of initial heats are required to do zero touches of the bottom?

Could do it apnea as well, but might have to roll down any inclines for that one.

 

[Princess Chris]

Good old upside down egg and spoon (ping pong ball and sppon) always worked well for me. Different variations like having it as a relay, obstacle course or one without a mask and the other a guide. Great for team work and communication.

Sounds like a great idea though, i wish my dive shop did something like that.

 

[TMHeimer]

I missed something. What is apnea based? The sleep disorder? Anything to do with what you'll do with Scuba?

 

[chillyinCanada]

I missed something. What is apnea based? The sleep disorder? Anything to do with what you'll do with Scuba?

Free diving

 

[Zef]

I missed something. What is apnea based? The sleep disorder? Anything to do with what you'll do with Scuba?

Apnea literally translates as "without breathing". With regard to in-water work, apnea refers to breath-held swimming and diving (freediving/skindiving).

Sleep apnea is defined as a temporary cessation of breathing while asleep. The only relationship is the cessation of breathing aspect, but as is apparent, while swimming/diving the cessation is a willful/conscious act.

Among the aspects related to SCUBA is that apnea can increase one's confidence underwater which should relate to being able to handle stressful or abnormal events underwater without panicking....for instance, one apnea exercise is to take a breath and descend to the bottom of the pool and then flood and clear the mask and then ascend to the surface with control. The continuation is to repeat the exercise but flood and clear the mask multiple times before ascending with control. When one realizes that they can clear their mask multiple times (4-5+ times) on a single breath, they are less prone to panic and bolting to the surface when their mask dislodges and/or floods while on SCUBA when they have a relatively abundant source of air.

-Z

 

[AfterDark]

I missed something. What is apnea based? The sleep disorder? Anything to do with what you'll do with Scuba?

It's the new age term for breath holding while diving. It used to be called skin diving.
It sounds like something that needs to cured not an activity. The post from the guy in Germany I think about spitting your snorkel out of your mouth before you dive or you'll die, used the term many times. Apnea based, sounds very sophisticated doesn't it?

How about teaching the kids all the traditional nomenclatures of diving?