,Delete.
First of blog series for teaching neutrally buoyant and trimmed
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The Chairman
Chairman of the Board
I'm really not getting the point here. Like... so what? In any class, you'll always have those who get it better than the others and experience is normally a big factor. It's been my experience that every skill level benefits from no-knee teaching. In fact, those with little to no watermanship skills from a no-kneel class often outperform those with great watermanship skills who learned on their knees. Moreover, they look better in the water and are more comfortable than many seasoned divers.
Why? Many divers are never taught the simple secrets to be in control underwater. Until it's pointed out to them, they never get the connection between being trim and great buoyancy control. Students who are in control are far calmer and don't feel that Scuba is out to kill them. Ergo, they learn faster and their control increases dramatically because Scuba is far more fun for them. Many students that learned on their knees are told the lie that it will take at least a hundred dives to master their buoyancy.
My wife and I did a discover scuba dive in Cozumel with an instructor that was very relaxed and peaceful. All he cared about was showing us how beautiful it was to dive and get us home safe. There was instruction on the use of the bc and not holding your breath but when we entered the water we were swimming naturally and there were no drills. It was important to not touch the bottom because it was a marine park. I enjoyed it and though I had no interest in becoming a diver, we did another. On the second dive I realized that buoyancy was managed by the air in your lungs to a great extent and that was fun to discover and practice. By the end of that second dive I was hooked.
In ignorance I then did two boat dives with someone else, with no certification and almost no training. It gave us more opportunity to practice our buoyancy and fall in love with diving and since we had always swum in a horizontal position, it never occurred to us that we would do anything other than what I later learned was called neutral and trim. I also later learned that doing those dives was very risky and I would never encourage anything like that. The risk of over expansion injuries among other things is just too great.
We went home and decided to get certified and as we read the course material we realized how stupid it had been to go on those boat dives. We had been supervised 1 to 1 on the dives but the lack of training was negligent.
When we started doing our certification dives we were introduced to being overweighted and pinned to the bottom which we thought was ridiculous. While the instructor worked with one of us the other would float neutral and in trim a couple of feet off the bottom directly behind the instructor laughing at our spouse pinned to the bottom in a very unnatural position to learn our skills. The divecon looked on in amusement. The instructor was terrible in many ways. He told us that scuba divers use a position in the water where their body is at about a 45 degree angle to the bottom. It has become apparent to me that the terrible habits I see employed by some divers are taught to them.
In ignorance I then did two boat dives with someone else, with no certification and almost no training. It gave us more opportunity to practice our buoyancy and fall in love with diving and since we had always swum in a horizontal position, it never occurred to us that we would do anything other than what I later learned was called neutral and trim. I also later learned that doing those dives was very risky and I would never encourage anything like that. The risk of over expansion injuries among other things is just too great.
We went home and decided to get certified and as we read the course material we realized how stupid it had been to go on those boat dives. We had been supervised 1 to 1 on the dives but the lack of training was negligent.
When we started doing our certification dives we were introduced to being overweighted and pinned to the bottom which we thought was ridiculous. While the instructor worked with one of us the other would float neutral and in trim a couple of feet off the bottom directly behind the instructor laughing at our spouse pinned to the bottom in a very unnatural position to learn our skills. The divecon looked on in amusement. The instructor was terrible in many ways. He told us that scuba divers use a position in the water where their body is at about a 45 degree angle to the bottom. It has become apparent to me that the terrible habits I see employed by some divers are taught to them.
The Chairman
Chairman of the Board
Ray saw and Ray did. With no training, he figured it out because he was never on his knees.
If you learn to do something on your knees, the tendency is to return to that position when you want to do it again. Once a bad habit is acquired, it becomes harder and harder to eradicate it. This is why many students need to do a Buoyancy class of some sort. Even then, many of them begin with overweighting the student and doing fin pivots. Train them the way you want them to dive.
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Agree with all here. My point on all the NB discussions has been that it's not gunna matter so much for a person with a lot of experience in water whether they are taught NB or kneeling, though of course I can see how NB is better. Perhaps we disagree on that point. I was taught kneeling and quickly got my buoyancy pretty close to what it was when I was divemastering. That took maybe 5+ dives, not 100 as you say those instructors told students. Of course you can't be grossly overweight because your instructor did that to anchor you in the pool, then not do a weight check because you didn't realize you were overweight--- yes, it may well take you 100 dives to sort it out. That is where having water experience gives you the upper hand.
There are often threads about lousy buoyancy, reef crashing, etc. in the tropics. This may well be due to being taught kneeling, but I would guess even more so due to lack regular diving year round.
To surmise, Yes I agree with everyone that teaching NB is better. I also feel that having a lot of water experience beforehand is more important. Just from my own experience.
The Chairman
Chairman of the Board
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Perhaps I don't. But once again, we seem to agree. It shouldn't take anyone 100 dives to sort out good buoyancy-- whether they learned on knees or NB. But, if your total water experience before OW course was lying on a raft in a motel pool, AND you were overweighted and taught on your knees, perhaps it would take quite a number of dives to sort it all out.
Of course, if someone's water experience was so little, how could they possibly pass the swim test? But, many do. My first dive buddy (newby) said he had no idea how he passed the 200 meters since he didn't know how to swim.
Kosta,
Thanks very much for your blog and for your recent sharing of Pete's weight check method. This is important and useful stuff.
Because I do most of my work, not as an instructor, but as a DM on charter boats, I see the results of OW teaching methods, both good and bad, every time I go to work.
There are some excellent teachers out there. The other day, a young couple came aboard with BPW long-hose setups that looked brand new. I asked if they were tech divers, and they said no, they are new divers, but they had taken their OW course from a tech-oriented instructor in whatever state they just moved here from and bought the gear he recommended. Despite a) their lack of experience, b) a long gap since their last dive, and c) distinctly non-athletic physiques, they had beautiful trim and control. Clearly their instructor knew a thing or two.
Far more commonly, however, I see divers who present no evidence beyond their cert cards of having been taught anything about weighting or trim. They're usually vertical and overweighted.
And they don't become better divers by doing more diving because the easiest way for DM's to get a batch of these divers under water is to acquiesce to their requests for far more weight than they need, thereby reinforcing bad habits. (DM's try to coach as circumstances lend opportunity, but teaching isn't the mission: unless we're hired as a private guide, our job is to get groups of divers into, under, and out of the water without getting anyone lost or hurt.)
One issue mentioned tangentially in your first blog that I hope gets more attention is the effect of anxiety/breathing on buoyancy. A weight check conducted on an anxious diver with rapid, shallow breathing will always lead to over-weighting. I've lost count of the number of times divers who weigh 50-75 pounds less than me who are laden with twice the weight I'm packing despite being swathed in about a half acre less neoprene than my carcass requires will come away from a weight convinced that they need more weight--because they can't relax enough to do the weight check correctly.
Another principle I'd like to see reinforced is the notion that any diver who can exhale enough to submerge his or her head has enough weight to descend to the bottom of the deepest ocean. The first foot is the hardest. Inexperienced divers don't believe this. They can conduct either a PADI-style or Chairman-style weight check properly but still believe in their hearts that they need more weight to "really" descend.
Thanks for the good work you're doing. If I get out to Washington to visit my sister, I'd love to observe your classes.
Thanks very much for your blog and for your recent sharing of Pete's weight check method. This is important and useful stuff.
Because I do most of my work, not as an instructor, but as a DM on charter boats, I see the results of OW teaching methods, both good and bad, every time I go to work.
There are some excellent teachers out there. The other day, a young couple came aboard with BPW long-hose setups that looked brand new. I asked if they were tech divers, and they said no, they are new divers, but they had taken their OW course from a tech-oriented instructor in whatever state they just moved here from and bought the gear he recommended. Despite a) their lack of experience, b) a long gap since their last dive, and c) distinctly non-athletic physiques, they had beautiful trim and control. Clearly their instructor knew a thing or two.
Far more commonly, however, I see divers who present no evidence beyond their cert cards of having been taught anything about weighting or trim. They're usually vertical and overweighted.
And they don't become better divers by doing more diving because the easiest way for DM's to get a batch of these divers under water is to acquiesce to their requests for far more weight than they need, thereby reinforcing bad habits. (DM's try to coach as circumstances lend opportunity, but teaching isn't the mission: unless we're hired as a private guide, our job is to get groups of divers into, under, and out of the water without getting anyone lost or hurt.)
One issue mentioned tangentially in your first blog that I hope gets more attention is the effect of anxiety/breathing on buoyancy. A weight check conducted on an anxious diver with rapid, shallow breathing will always lead to over-weighting. I've lost count of the number of times divers who weigh 50-75 pounds less than me who are laden with twice the weight I'm packing despite being swathed in about a half acre less neoprene than my carcass requires will come away from a weight convinced that they need more weight--because they can't relax enough to do the weight check correctly.
Another principle I'd like to see reinforced is the notion that any diver who can exhale enough to submerge his or her head has enough weight to descend to the bottom of the deepest ocean. The first foot is the hardest. Inexperienced divers don't believe this. They can conduct either a PADI-style or Chairman-style weight check properly but still believe in their hearts that they need more weight to "really" descend.
Thanks for the good work you're doing. If I get out to Washington to visit my sister, I'd love to observe your classes.
justadyver
Contributor
question does the type of BC matter ? is it just as easy to teach / accomplish trim with a back inflate as a SP stabilizer vest?
OP
Does it matter? No.
The only issue is the ability to distribute weight. Fins are also a factor. For warm water divers, Hollis F1 fins are just too negative (these are the fins I use with diving in a twinset with round bottomed steel cylinders) and would make it difficult to compensate in even a BP/W for a warm water diver in a 3 mil.
Given the appropriate equipment/exposure protection (shorties are a no-no regardless of BCD type), there is no issue with teaching/accomplishing trim in a jacket style BCD.
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