Freaking out over giant stride...

[scubanimal]

For medical reasons my wife cannot do a giant stride with gear on. For boat dives now she dons and doffs her gear in the water. Most times she'll just sit on the step and slide in holding the step.

A side note, there can be times while diving in clear water that vertigo can set in due to the appearance of you’ re not having a stable platform (i.e. wall diving). I usually suggest that someone spend extra time mastering buoyancy, so that it’s easier to mentally override the feeling that can overcome a diver when the terrain falls away suddenly.

Many divers are a bit of a control freak, and as such the of loss of control can raise an individuals anxiety; falling out of control is one of the worst scenarios; many people initially have issues with the giant stride. I read somewhere that 90% of pilots in are uncomfortable with heights, flying however allows a method of conquering. Diving is frequently compared to flying, so possibly reward of diving may eventually ease your perception of the giant stride.

In any event as others have said, don’t let that get in the way. There are many ways to get in the water, and I have always felt that diving is worth my initial discomfort. Good luck.

 

[SmileMon]

99% of fear comes from ignorance, paranoya or too much knowledge.

I suffer from all in some fields (in life), the best advice I can give you is this, imagine everything that can go wrong in a giant stride and look for the actions that requires to fix each and every one of them, I'll start:
1. Your fin will get stuck at the end of the ledge and you fall on your face - the reg might give you a little push of air and cease when you're in the water - fix? put your hand on your reg and mask and make sure you stick your tounge up so the whiff of air woun't choke you.
Other options could be landing on your side, donning your equipment in the water, etc', work your imagination and you'll find a solution to every problem.

2. someone below and you'll hit them and kill them - look below you, look around you, be aware of the locations of the other divers that just jumped in and you'll be able to avoid 99% of those accidents - or you can trust the DM to tell you "clear"..

3. your mask falls off and water comes in your nose - again, hold your mask in place.

4. you slip from the ledge and land face flat in the water- usually a 3 mil will soften the hit, just breathe so you won't panic.

since I'm a newbie also I didn't see/experience a lot of accidents so I'm not an authority in this subject - I'm sure the members of this site can contribute many funny situations - hopefully ONLY funny.

I'll take any additional advice/joke/hypothetical situations - but if you offer hypothetical situations - be fair - offer a solution too.

 

[Scuba Brad]

Just close your eyes and think of your wife running at you from behind telling you............no you can't dive you have to mow the lawn.............splash.....ooooo I"m in.

Happy Diving

 

[NJScubaDoc]

Try the Fall and flop instead, just kind of propel yourself off the boat and flop in whatever way you do. Your gonna float regardless of what technique you use to enter the water, and not looking out might help with the height issue.

 

[lamont]

really, these are the important bits:

1. make sure BC is secure.
2. make sure BC is inflated so you'll float.
3. make sure air is on (take quite a few breaths off of it)
4. make sure reg is in mouth and hold it there.

which really comes down to two things:

1. float
2. breathe

that'll keep you safe. the rest of it is just risking embarassment (like when you hop in after forgetting to put your fins on first...) and at worst scrubbing a dive.

and if you trip getting off the boat and tumble into the water the worst thing you do is create a big ungraceful splash -- provided that you can float and breathe.

 

[HighPressure]

Thanks. Everyone's ideas were very helpful. I do like the visualization method. I'll start practicing that one today.

Horizon....here I come [gulp]

 

[pcarlson1911]

As a skier who used to stand at the top of a tough run and look and loo and look I learned that "Hesitation leads to devistation."

As nike would say, just do it!

Good luck!
pc

 

[Jim C]

We have a friend that we dive with (always off a boat) She's more nervouse of the falling in backwards. She'd rather do the giant stride which is not conducive on our boat nor the rough water we seem to always dive in (3' chop).
As mentioned earlier just do it. If your nervous you just haven't done it enough.
I used to feel disoriented rolling in backwards but now I don't even think about it.

 

[aznlmpulse]

I'm not totally comfortable with this myself. I was deathly afraid of heights and couldn't swim when they made me jump off the 5 meter platform into the pool at bootcamp....still deathly afraid of heights (slightly better swimmer) when I went skydiving to try to overcome my fear....to later realize that I had only "faced" my fear that day....not conquered it... I can't even jump into the deep-end of the pool now.. the point? .......I guess I'm thinking if I do it often enough, It'll get easier.

 

[Jcsgt]

I used to be terrified of the giant stride. Then, I was on a dive boat in Ft. Lauderdale with about a five foot drop. I just decided this was stupid, stepped up to the back of the boat and did it. It was a piece of cake after I figured out there was little chance of getting hurt. If I can do it off that type of drop, then anybody can do it since most platforms are a lot closer to the water.