Instruction question: to spin or not to spin

[Trace Malinowski]

I was spun in my NACD course and not spun in my NSS-CDS course. It didn't matter. A cave diver should be able to locate a line whether he or she has a mental picture of the environment or not. Knowing where the line is saves time in the type of search conducted. Not knowing will test a diver's resourcefulness. I've found that the stress of lost line is usually increased when the diver feels time pressure as deco time increases and gas reserves become depleted. When the drill is performed without such time pressures, whichever technique is used, the student can successful by moving slowly and performing the task. I try to mix it up. Today, there won't be time pressure. Next time, who knows?

 

[BabyDuck]

ah, but there isn't time pressure. you have the rest of your life to find that line - settle down & do a good search. the deco & gas might be problems for another time, but not until i have the line.

my instructor doesn't spin & lets you get a decent look before the drill starts, and it still takes some time.

 

[TSandM]

ah, but there isn't time pressure. you have the rest of your life to find that line

That's so familiar . . . It's like Danny, reiterating that if you stay calm and keep searching, you WILL find the line . . . whether you do it with enough gas to get out or not is another question.

 

[Fox-Cousteau]

ah, but there isn't time pressure. you have the rest of your life to find that line - settle down & do a good search. the deco & gas might be problems for another time, but not until i have the line.

Excellent point! Thinking about remaining gas or potential deco isn't important until I have the line. Work one problem at a time.

 

[Dive-aholic]

No spin. I teach SA and awareness and the necessity to learn the cave from day 1. If they are learning it then a silt out isn't going to be a major issue. If they don't then spinning isn't going to make a difference. The record for finding the line among my students is 4 minutes. That's still a long time without visibility and a line and the triumphant squeeze and shake of the gold line still happened. I also place my students within 20' of the line. Realistically, at that point of training and experience that's about as far as they should be from the line before realizing it's not there.

 

[boulderjohn]

If I was able to simply look around, know exact placement of main line and then place the black out mask on, I believe the critical skills would not be utilized. Knowing is half the battle.

I did not suggest that. In my case, I put the mask on and then was led in a consistent direction and then released. This allowed me to think about the most likely direction for the line by thinking about my physical orientation and where I had last seen the line. That thinking I did is an important part of the process you would use in a real emergency.

 

[boulderjohn]

If they don't then spinning isn't going to make a difference. .

I think that is my real question. From an educational point of view, what does spinning add to the lesson? What skill does the diver learn and practice that is not practiced without the spin?

Andy said earlier (and he is right--it was his thread that inspired this one) that he spins in wreck diving to make it harder. It makes it harder to find the line, but are the skills any harder? Don't you still exactly do the same thing, only without the chance to think about your orientation?

 

[TSandM]

I guess you could make the argument that the most likely scenario where you would be looking for the line in zero viz, is that you have encountered some type of serious problem that has caused you to lose awareness of the line AND blow the viz. In such an event, it seems quite plausible that you might also have lost any sense of which way you went while you were coping with the immediate problem. As my experience with Danny's way of doing the drill told me, the minute the lights are out, one is capable of changing orientation without being aware of it at all. So spinning the diver would reproduce that situation.

On the other hand, the way Danny does it, it allows YOU to reproduce the situation all on your own, and gain a profound respect for how quickly your sense of where you are goes to pot when you can't see anything.

 

[boulderjohn]

So spinning the diver would reproduce that situation.

Yes, it does.

How does that change what you do next?

 

[BabyDuck]

i guess you just lose the 'leg up' that having an idea where to head gives you.

i don't think you'd do anything differently.