Can i fail a OW course??

[millphils]

Aside from the instructor, I was the second or third DM to work with one diver. with me, she panicked and bolted to the surface, after partially flodding her mask. She was practically in tears. The instructor later told me she works at his dentists office and would come back with her boyfriend to try it again.

I can't speak for the other diver, as I did not work with him. He threw in the towel 35 min into the pool session.

I thought we might lose a third diver, but she was more determined to do the flood and clear and mask removal and replacement. I worked one-on-one with her for at least 30 min before she was able to do these skills. She later told me that the last time she was in water, she had a near drowning experience. That was quite a shock to me.

Any suggestions for helping students that have difficulty with these skills?

Phil

 

[Michael Schlink]

Although Walter and I don't always agree on some issues he has the hands down best method for teaching mask and breeathing skills at the beginning of the course. I believe his method starts with no mask and breathing from the snorkel in shallow water.
I do something similar but his method has been posted previously-Ask Walter

 

[Kim]

I agree with Michael...ask Walter. I'm not an Instructor but I have helped people to use a snorkel without a mask in a pool. The idea is very simple. They need to learn that they don't need to be able to see to breath. Once the association between the two is broken it's a different game.....

I also who have one friend who managed to muddle his way through OW and perform a mask clear under some duress to get certified. After discussion with him later i got him to agree to remove his mask completely during a dive and just breath calmly for a couple of minutes before he tried to replace it. Of course, I was right next to him the whole time. We did this several times repeated through several dives until eventually it became a complete non-issue. (we were also very shallow to start with....I wouldn't advise this at 25 meters!!!!!)

 

[pir8]

When I get in the pool, before anything else I have students get face wet and keep their face in the water for a few seconds. Then remind them that they just did have their face in the water and should be able to do the mask skills. Also mention about maintaining positive pressure on the nose while no mask will prevent inhaleing water. When its time to actually do mask skills time and patience is required.

 

[SparticleBrane]

I'm going to have to side with DeputyDan on this one--if you can't memorize and understand enough to pass the quiz, you probably shouldn't be in the water. Just IMHO though.

 

[Swan1172]

I had a woman in my OW class that had some serious anxiety issues with being underwater. I really question why she was in the class in the first place, as she was a very poor swimmer. She jumped in the pool for the swimming requirement and promptly freaked out. She really had no business being in the water. The instructor worked with her and swam beside her to give her more confidence and she made it through the swimming requirements.

When we put our tanks on for the first time and went in the shallow end of the pool for our first swim, she freaked out again when she put her face in the water. Again, the instructor worked with her to get her calmed down and she managed to swim with her face in the water and the regulator in her mouth.

Once we started the underwater skills, all hell broke loose. She totally flipped out during the mask drills and that is when the instructor told her she needed to leave the class and he would work with her on a one-on-one basis. She declined and was asked to leave the class.

 

[boulderjohn]

The Exam: A good instructor will be very alert to your problem areas before you take the exam and will take the steps needed to make sure you are ready for it. Still, I had a woman get a 76% this weekend. When I went over the things she got wrong, she had made amazingly stupid mistakes--her admission. In some cases, I would ask her to work out the answer to a question, and she would do it perfectly in front of me, getting the correct answer. She would then say, "So why was that wrong?" When I showed her that she had marked another answer on her sheet, she would be amazed. Some people just freeze on a test and do silly things that belie their training.

Confined Water: Similar to an earlier post, I recently had a student who was struggling with the no mask swimming and the CESA. Couldn't do either one. I had her come in after the rest of the class was done. We spent a lot of time thalking through the problems and a solution. We then went back in the water and worked individually until she could do both skills flawlessly. It just takes a little more patience and a little more time with some people.

Open Water: We recently had a student referral--a 13 year old boy--from another local dive shop. From the start of the Open Water exercises, he seemed dazed and confused. He seemed not to know what we were talking about when we named the skills he had to do. We sat him out and told his father he was not ready for this. He will have to go back and get some of the training he evidently missed somehow before.