So who is the better diver?

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Interesting question. In my limited sphere of visibility, the common factors that differentiate successful divers in stressful conditions are all mental. Resistance to panic is very high on the list but an analytical approach to problem solving is also important.

You really see the distinction when divers are out of their element or experience. The popular phrase about never dive beyond your training and experience is nonsense in the world I live in. By choice or by circumstance, you will eventually be confronted with conditions that could not be anticipated and require you to analyze the situation and act on your decision.

Perhaps it could be boiled down to the ability to analyze without panic and sufficient knowledge of physics and physiology to reach an intelligent conclusion. That is the only common characteristic I can think of that distinguishes the great divers I have known in commercial, military, and recreational diving over the last 50 years.

The natural question is how can a person train to become a great diver. IMHO, certainly NOT by starting with an open water course from any agency. I wrote this a couple of years ago and think it might be useful fodder for thought.

http://www.scubaboard.com/forums/ad...68-panic-experienced-diver-2.html#post5854206

Fear, fight or flight response, or other mental activity that distracts from problem solving and corrective actions wastes valuable time in a real crisis. IMHO, one of the greatest values of experience is to minimize overreaction so an inconvenience doesn't escalate into a perceived crisis.

The only personal crisis (excluding major physical trauma) that demands rapid, not necessarily immediate, action is oxygenation. I believe it is a primal reaction to take frenetic action at sudden lack of breathing gas, at least past the early newborn range. It probably served evolution well in that it can repel attack or get your face above water, at least for a short time.

Unfortunately, if my hypothesis is even remotely correct, this bit of evolution does not serve divers well. Most forms of crisis training are highly dependent on habituation as a key component. Habituation is not necessarily achieved in training or from experience as recreational divers know it.

My recommendation to a disciplined individual who hopes to become a great diver is:

1. Master buoyancy, not as a diver but as a swimmer: Understand that the only thing that needs to be above water during the times you are actually breathing is your mouth and maybe your nose. Any other part of the body, especially the high density skull, that is above water is a waste of energy.

2. Master swimming: You don't have to set speed records or learn all the strokes; you are after endurance. The value here is knowing that you have plenty of time. An embarrassing number of diver drownings occur on the surface. It is incomprehensible to me how anyone can drown in a wet or drysuit at or near the surface. DUMP WEIGHT!

3. Learn basic diving physics and physiology: Pick up a book or video to learn about pressure, gas compressibility, displacement & buoyancy, and principals of oxygenation. By this time, much of it will reinforce what you have discovered in earlier steps. Don't worry about decompression, embolism, and oxygen toxicity at this point.

4. Learn to snorkel and freedive: You can learn to snorkel from friends and gain a lot of experience. When you feel ready, pay the big bucks for a good freediving course. You will learn how to safely extend, test, and learn, your limits. Tell the instructor you want to experience hypoxic blackout under their guidance. Pool static training will give you ample opportunity. Again, the end objective is to learn you have time.

5. Buy an old used regulator and Scuba Tank: Put a paint-ball sticker on it if you have to in order to get it filled. Take the second stage apart and see how it works. Really play with it. Just don’t take it in the water yet. Try to take apart and reassemble the first stage if you are mechanically inclined.

6. Take Scuba courses through Nitrox, add rescue if you are inclined. Diving Nitrox is not the objective, gaining the in-depth understanding of diving physics, and to a lesser extent physiology is the goal. In the process, find an instructor who will guide you through free ascents starting in a swimming pool and graduating to as deep as you like. Avoid instructors who view BCs as elevators, free ascents and dangerous, and self-learning as lost income.

IMHO, this process will give most people the habituation, education, and most of the experience to make you self-reliant, confident, and capable. Individuals with the discipline and dedication to follow this path are also likely to become highly competent divers in a relatively sort number of logged dives.

This foundation will serve you well regardless of how much farther you want to go. At that point technical diving, rebreathers, or commercial diving through saturation becomes far more about mastering systems than diving.​
 
So Steve. Are you saying the best diver is the diver with the right mind set and mental skills? Interesting perspective and I like that idea. I know something about the right mindset for solo diving but not as familiar with the term as it applies to the general diver...

Yes, exactly that.

I am sure you have also seen divers whose grasp and mastery of buoyancy and trim are demo quality, but who are actually piss-poor people with whom to dive. Diving is dangerous and lack of mental skills and a poor mindset will get them and their buddy into deep **** faster and more solidly than marginal trim and buoyancy. Lot's of examples if that has not been your experience and you wish to research it.

Dealing with technical divers, I see a focus on two or three skills and a total avoidance of others. I am struck by the number of experienced divers who have never considered what actually happens when the rottweilers hit the fan. Good trim and buoyancy are important, but without the correct mindset and mental skills, they simply mean the recovery team will not have to search through much of a silt cloud to find your body.
 
If you can do one you should be able to do both. If it has to be an either or choice I would say the dive who can dive anything available. I would take that one step further and say the diver who can fix their own gear would be better.
 
One of the things I tried to do from the first moment I decided to become more than an OW diver was to take advantage of every opportunity to dive as many different configurations as possible. With the goal of being able to at least get in decent trim and be comfortable as quickly as possible. As a result I can pretty much do that regardless of BC type or size. But it did not happen overnight. For the recreational diver this is nice to be able to do but not critical. Unless they plan to rent different gear all the time in different areas. For a dive pro of any level it should be a given they can do this. The ideal recreational diver is also going to be safe, skilled, and instinctually able to use THEIR gear no matter the conditions. That is more important than them being able to switch from a BPW to poodle jacket or vice versa between dives on the boat.

Sent from my DROID X2 using Tapatalk 2

Yeah, that's it. Better for a rec. diver to be an expert with his own stuff. A pro should be able to make other stuff work (unless it's tech. stuff, of which I admit I know relatively little). An amateur clarinetist should invest in a top line instrument and play it well. A pro should be able to make any clarinet that "blows" sound decent.
 
What the diver looks like is only part of the story. The real deal is what's going on upstairs, and that's a lot harder to detect.

I've seen plenty of divers that 'look' good, but I don't want to be in the water with them.
 
Just interested to hear some thoughts and philosophies regarding your "ideal" diver. What skills are most admired by you?

For example...

Is it the diver (no matter what path they took to get there) that has practiced and configured a rig until they can hold a perfect static trim?

Or is it the diver that can dive any gear thrown at them and still look comfortable doing it.

And I imagine there are probably a few that want the diver to be able to do both!

I originally started this in Advanced but moved to Basic because I would like to get both the advanced divers perspective but also thoughts from new divers.

So what are your thoughts?

I do have an opinion about this.

Skills are good but *attitude* is golden.

There are four types of people in this world. You can see them in the context of a burning building:

1) those who exit the burning building as fast as possible... in many cases not stopping to think about the people they abandoned in the process (the me, me, me, types)
2) those who panic and create chaos in the process of fleeing, possibly trampling on others in their primal need to survive.
3) those who stand around waiting for someone else to do something.
4) those who charge IN to the burning building to take control and save others.

*all* of my buddies are type 4's. So am I. I have serious difficulty in thinking that types 1-3 are people you want around you when Darwin's wrath starts to cramp your swag.

R..
 
An unexpected turn to my original thread question. I admit I did not anticipate attitude or mindset as the primary answer. And I appreciate Akimbo's additions as well. I want to thank everyone for their contributions so far.


As to the original question regarding skills, certainly an ideal diver (in skill sets) would be the entire package with both perfect trim and adaptability. And several posters have suggested that if you have one then you have both but I question if this is true. Not being proficient in either myself, I can't comment from personal experience but if I had to choose between the two, I would go with adaptability. I am fascinated with the concept of perfect trim but not enough that I have any desire to pursue it.
 
One who is very zen. Its a mental thing. JMHO.


Agree 100%. Someone who leaves their judgements/attitude/drama on the dock and is safe and competent regardless of their skill level or gear configuration.

Ever dive with a group and realize there is one diver that you never seem to notice? ...Because he/she blends in and moves in harmony with the environment? That diver has a certain calmness and quiet/stillness about their diving while everyone else is "diving"?

Neither have I, but I wouldn't mind being like that...
:D
 
I am fascinated with the concept of perfect trim but not enough that I have any desire to pursue at present.

There's no such thing as perfect. There's bad, decent, good, very good, and excellent. We all lie somewhere along that continuum on all of our skills, and we all started at "bad". How far up the scale you go depends on your desire to learn and the amount of effort you decide to put into it, but it's not exactly what I'd call rocket surgery.

... Bob (Grateful Diver)
 
There's no such thing as perfect. There's bad, decent, good, very good, and excellent. We all lie somewhere along that continuum on all of our skills, and we all started at "bad". How far up the scale you go depends on your desire to learn and the amount of effort you decide to put into it, but it's not exactly what I'd call rocket surgery.

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

No there is no such thing as perfect or ideal. As for not "rocket surgery" I'm not sure about that from the amount of thread time trim gets on SB and the apparent speciality classes devoted to achieving just that.
 

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