Trying to get certified...Can't seem to get there....

[Vicksburg Diver]

Way to go !!!!!! Now, just go have fun !

 

[yingxuy]

Forget about the courses or diving, enjoy. Enjoy a fun sport, not with courses and occupation. "The attack is triggered by many things like" reverse psychology.

 

[masizemore]

Wow, doesn't seem like it has been 5 months. Thanks again to everyone for the advice and encouragement. As an encouragement to the others starting out and struggling, a small success story. Sonja just completed her 25th dive this last weekend. Below you will find a quick picture of her from her first boat dive at approx 65 feet on the USS Strength in Panama City.



If you are struggling to get certified, patience and a good instructor can go a long way to reaching your goal!

 

[lsorenson]

Tickled to death that Sonja stuck with it... That is really good news! Now the bad news... Its going to cost you twice as much to enjoy the sport...!

Again, so very glad she stuck with it!!!

lee

 

[DukeAMO]

I enjoyed reading this thread, because I was a panicky diver at first too. I expected it to be easy, because I love swimming underwater, but I ran into a few skills that freaked me out, because I breathed in water and started choking. I also had issues with the BC riding up, and with a leaky snorkel. I'm also a mom, which automatically makes you more risk-averse. My instructor actually held me down by my BC once (regulator in, coughing because I breathed in water when mask clearing), so I could get used to working out problems without bolting to the surface. That actually helped a great deal, because I realized I could do it. Still, I almost made myself sick with anxiety at the beginning of my OW certification dives, until the skill tests in each dive were done, and then I was fine.

It took me a good 10 or so OW dives (and practicing the troublesome skills over & over) to calm down. But my last few dives were just fun, fun, fun, so I'm hooked now.

Maybe I'll meet you on a wreck dive some day. ;-)

 

[masizemore]

Well not really twice as much lol. Worse as my 15 year old, my wife and I all certified together so a triple hit but that is all good. Video games and cell phones don't do well underwater still so it is a good family time without the normal distractions.

I probably would have smacked an instructor holding me down in that situation, but I get the reasoning. Ours had us do drills where they would pop our mask off or turn off our air or yank out our reg or any combo of the three. A little nerve wracking but we have the confidence now that we could handle all of those situations. They did another where they took our mask apart and his the mask and snorkel in the pool and we had to find, assemble and clear everything with our eyes closed.

 

[SnorkelLA]

Seeing as this thread is almost a year old, I suppose this issue is solved. But I'll offer my general advice to divers who might get nervous underwater, which I was. Just breathe in slow and easy, relax, don't move fast. Just slow down and RELAX- diving isn't supposed to be stressful. If you need to, just stop for a second mid water, maybe settle on the bottom if you can for a minute and just let the silence relax you.

EDIT: Congrats! Sometimes it just takes some doing and practice to get comfortable- it's like dating. If you were perfectly at ease and comfortable on your first date, you're either lying or Frank Sinatra

 

[DukeAMO]

Holding people down is bad in a lot of situations, but I had a tendency to kick upwards without even intending to do it, or just breathe off the top and lose buoyancy control and float up when I was trying to mask clear. You have to really know what you're doing if you're the instructor in that situation. I'm sure he would have let me go up (and gone with me) if I had actually fought him, or done something dumb like spit out the regulator instead of holding it in while coughing.

It really is a matter of practice, and also desensitization. Taking my mask off is OK, now that I have the trick of not nose breathing figured out. Same thing with breathing off of a free-flowing reg, which was also a problem at first - not a problem now. I've actually done that "for real" already, because I pulled out my reg to try to make a cheesy grin and then I couldn't get it to stop free flowing. So I breathed off of it, thumbed the dive and went up nice and slowly with DH. It was upsetting because it surprised me, but I immediately found someone to explain to me why it happened (venturi assist) and how to make it stop free-flowing underwater next time! Good experience.

It makes me nervous thinking about having someone take out my reg, turn off my air, and take off my mask all at once, but I can see the logic of that too. (Actually, what is the recovery sequence for that?) Maybe you could just play a game at the end of a safety stop where you tell your buddy, "now" and they have to throw away the reg or take off the mask immediately.

 

[tstormdiver]

Holding people down is bad in a lot of situations, but I had a tendency to kick upwards without even intending to do it, or just breathe off the top and lose buoyancy control and float up when I was trying to mask clear. You have to really know what you're doing if you're the instructor in that situation. I'm sure he would have let me go up (and gone with me) if I had actually fought him, or done something dumb like spit out the regulator instead of holding it in while coughing.

You may think it is bad,... but in the case of a panicking diver that wants to bolt to the surface (usually while holding their breath), the instructor is trying to prevent the panicked diver form potentially hurting themselves. All's the panicked diver wants, is to get to the surface ASAP, at any cost (even their lives in the end), at that point all reasonable thought is gone & immediate survival kicks in. Yes, I will take the panicked diver to the surface, but in a slow & controlled manner. To date (thank goodness) I have only had 1 diver ever panic & bolt on me (I was not the instructor who did the classroom & pool with her). She kicked, punched & tried to shove me off the whole way up, but in the end, when we reached the surface, she was uninjured,... a little upset, but at least she was able to to go home that evening. After she calmed down, had a few minutes to recompose herself, she & I went back down to finish up her dive. She did fine after that. My student's safety is paramount, I tell them this from the very beginning.

 

[masizemore]

It makes me nervous thinking about having someone take out my reg, turn off my air, and take off my mask all at once, but I can see the logic of that too. (Actually, what is the recovery sequence for that?) Maybe you could just play a game at the end of a safety stop where you tell your buddy, "now" and they have to throw away the reg or take off the mask immediately.

Well, they did it in like 5 feet of water so if you panicked and shot up it shouldn't hurt you. My recovery process is air first so in the case of all three reg, then realize no air so turn on the mask last. My brain says if I have air, I have time to figure the rest out. This was all done from behind us so you didn't know your air was off until it didn't breath

Reasoning: they have seen all of it happen on actual dives so wanted us to know how to deal with it (someone get tangled in a line then close their own valve because the line got around it)



All excellent points Tammy, I had not thought of it that way