Classes to become a better recreational diver?

[Rich Keller]

Another thread I've been following brought up a tangential idea which I've been tossing around for a while so I figured it was a sign from the dive gods.

What classes can I take to become a better recreational diver?

Some background info:

• I'm PADI AOW. However, I'm open to other agency recommendations.
• I'm willing to consider classes that have specific gear requirements, but changing my beloved gear just for a class would only occur if the training were truly special.
• I have a small PFO. Though I'm medically cleared to dive & have no history of DCI, I err on the side of caution & dive conservatively. Therefore, I know for a fact that I will never dive deeper than 130 ft. nor will I do any tech diving.
• I do not want to become an instructor.
  
• I'm based in nyc, but am willing to travel for training.

You are already qualified for the type of diving you want to do and have a few hundred dives to date. You should look at doing different types of dives then you have done previously and diving with new people with different types of experience. You will learn far more by doing something new then sitting in a classroom. If I had to recommend something it would be a solo dive course to make you more self reliant but I have never taken a course like that so I don't how much real benefit that might be for you.

 

[uncfnp]

But some divers do routinely dive with extra weight. Diving Florida, with steel backplate, steel tanks plus pony and other incidentals, I am always overweighted without adding any additional weight. And when I travel and use aluminum tanks, there are rarely enough smaller weights so I usually have to use extra weight in order to place the weights where I need. Its not so much the total weight but the trim, where the weights are placed.

 

[boulderjohn]

But some divers do routinely dive with extra weight. Diving Florida, with steel backplate, steel tanks plus pony and other incidentals, I am always overweighted without adding any additional weight. And when I travel and use aluminum tanks, there are rarely enough smaller weights so I usually have to use extra weight in order to place the weights where I need. Its not so much the total weight but the trim, where the weights are placed.

Yep--I have the same problems, and I have learned that if you have to choose between being in trim or being close to ideally weighted, go with the trim.

 

[Colliam7]

This will no doubt shock some readers, but I do not think all divers leave their OW class with buoyancy, trim, and weighting dialed in.

Yes, John, I am shocked - shocked - to find out that you believe gambling er, that is, out of trim diving, is going on in here. ()

 

[Rainer]

Bob Sherwood is in NY. Excellent instructor (GUE). You can always rent the gear if you're unsure about committing to it for the long-run.

 

[jonhall]

As a consequence, overweighted divers with all that extra weight on the hips being compensated for by highly inflated BCDs are learning to dive while swimming at a 45° angle. They kick constantly as they dive, and that kicking keeps them at depth because they are negatively buoyant. They have to be negatively buoyant when they dive, because if they were neutral, kicking constantly while at a 45° angle would send them to the surface in short order. Because they are diving overweighted and must therefore carry a lot of air in the BCD to compensate, they have a limited ability to use their lungs to fine tune their buoyancy, so they must be constantly fiddling with the power inflator to adjust buoyancy as they change depths.

They won't know any better, because that was how they were taught to dive, and that is how most of the people they see around them on their vacations were taught to dive as well.

So, as they practice, practice, practice, they become better and better at holding their depth while negatively buoyant by kicking at a 45° angle, and they become better and better at adjusting their buoyancy by letting air in and out of their BCD. Yes, those skills are certainly improving, but I would argue that learning different skills would be better.

Don't disagree at all. I didn't really pay much attention to my friend until he bought his own BC 6-7 years ago. It seems he went through a process of experimentation (I call it his practice) with some 45* degree swimming but eventually finding that what worked best for him was to distribute the weight. His BC also has weight pockets nearer his upper chest. We have talked about weight in recent years, but he just says he would rather have too much than not enough.

I talked him into doing AOW last year (his first diving cert was in 1978) and I think he learned a lot with PPB, but It took him longer that it should have to do the hovering above the bottom skill. Don't think he will ever take another course for the sake of improving a skill.

If we take your example of the diver who prefers to dive overweighted, I still think he could benefit from changing this. Unless he actually successfully works through what it feels like to dive neutral, I don't think he would actually know all of the benefits he's currently missing. (I don't mean a few dives. I mean actually taking the time to learn & then be comfortable diving neutral.)

Probably a difference in age and/or the goals for our diving but my friend and I, for that matter, area on the opposite end of the scale from you. I also took the AOW last year (having been OW certified in 1998) just in case I ever went somewhere where it was asked for. So far in Grand Cayman and Playa del Carmen/Coz it hasn't been, nor anywhere prior to that. Think it's great for anyone to want to learn and improve but it's hard to teach an old dog new tricks!

 

[NYCNaiad]

...Probably a difference in age and/or the goals for our diving but my friend and I, for that matter, area on the opposite end of the scale from you. I also took the AOW last year (having been OW certified in 1998) just in case I ever went somewhere where it was asked for. So far in Grand Cayman and Playa del Carmen/Coz it hasn't been, nor anywhere prior to that. Think it's great for anyone to want to learn and improve but it's hard to teach an old dog new tricks!

Well, I'm 44 so I'm not that young per se. But what my family has always said is you are as young as you feel & learning/pushing yourself is one way to help accomplish this. Which is why my mother in her 40s went back to school for her 2nd Ph.D completely changing her career. Now in her mid-70s, she looks & acts like she's in her late 50s/early 60s even dragging me onto a roller coaster which seats riders on either side of the track so there is nothing but air above & below. And until my father died, he also did all sorts of things to learn, explore & have fun from the serious like business roundtables to the wacky like trick or treating in his 50s.

It's not always comfortable to try or learn something new, but I want to be like my parents--young at heart. And in regards to diving, I want there to be as huge of a difference between my diving now & when I hit my 400th dive as there was between today & when I had only 100 dives.

I think it's great you got your AOW last year whatever the reason & I wish us both happy diving.