Valve drills and light signals

[AndrewJD]

My buddy and I did a valve drill at the end of our dive today and during the drill, my buddy continually signaled me with his light while shutting down his valves.

Over the past year, I have observed this practice with nearly all divers who have taken a GUE course. Last week for example, I participated in a Trimix course. The first day we spent drilling in 20ft of water. The first drill of course was the valve drill. Both of the other students, who were GUE trained, did the same thing. While shutting down the valves they signaled with their light. The only problem is, their lights were stowed!

Now, this is not a put down of the skills of any of these divers, but rather a concern with regards to a broken training practice.

The purpose of this practice as explained by the students is to build muscle memory of signaling your team during a valve failure. I understand what GUE is trying to accomplish with this training practice, however, I think that in the end it achieves the wrong thing. Namely, it associates waving your hand with turing your valves.

The purpose of signaling to you team during a failure is to get their attention. Once you have their attention, there is no longer a need to signal. During a valve drill, when the team is already paying attention to each other, there is no need to signal them.

What are your thoughts on this practice?

Edit: The practice in question is that whenever you turn a valve, you signal with your light.

Jonathan

 

[rainman_02]

I like to signal all the time!


Just kidding. Signal until I get the team's attention, and then stop. Shutting down the valve as I signal...light does not move just because valve is moving (for example, I don't signal when I'm turning a valve back on...my team should already be looking).

 

[rhlee]

but a drill is a totally contrived situation. at what point during the "drill" have you gotten your team's attention? most likely, you started with their attention... so what part of the simulation tells the valve-shutter that attention has been gotten? perhaps you should start valve drills with your teammates turned away from you

I've never seen anybody signalling while turning a valve *back on*. That I see no reason for...

 

[nadwidny]

Over the past year, I have observed this practice with nearly all divers who have taken a GUE course. Last week for example, I participated in a Trimix course. The first day we spent drilling in 20ft of water. The first drill of course was the valve drill. Both of the other students, who were GUE trained, did the same thing. While shutting down the valves they signaled with their light. The only problem is, their lights were stowed!

Odd. When I did my cave courses our lights were never stowed during the shut-down drill, we simply switched the light to the right hand while shutting down the left post. I know that at one time AG said that even that wasn't necessary as the action of shutting down the left post with the light in the left hand obviously moved the light around enough to work as a signal.

These divers who took the "GUE" course. Did they do any GUE course past fundies?

The purpose of this practice as explained by the students is to build muscle memory of signaling your team during a valve failure. I understand what GUE is trying to accomplish with this training practice, however, I think that in the end it achieves the wrong thing. Namely, it associates waving your hand with turing your valves.

No. It associates signaling that you have a problem when you have one.

The purpose of signaling to you team during a failure is to get their attention. Once you have their attention, there is no longer a need to signal. During a valve drill, when the team is already paying attention to each other, there is no need to signal them.

What are your thoughts on this practice?

Edit: The practice in question is that whenever you turn a valve, you signal with your light.

The practice is that whenever you have a problem you signal. When you have your buddy's attention you stop. During training whenever we had a valve failure we signaled to get attention and then stopped. We were never told to signal continously as we manipulated our valves except for the valve drill. During "scenarios" if we had done that we would've got our asses kicked since it makes no sense. GUE is about producing thinking divers.

Just a wild shot here but I would guess that your partners are fundies grads who never progressed further in the GUE stream.

 

[AndrewJD]

Brian,

Your guess with regards to training of the students is wrong. I have observed this practice in multiple students from multiple GUE course including Fundamentals, Tech I, and Cave I.

Also, I believe this to be a recent trend. If your experience on this issue is based on a class you took with AG when he was with GUE, you probably weren't taught to do your valve drill this way.

To everybody,

I think the purpose of the valve drill is to practice shutting down valves and reinforce which regulators are connected to which posts. It is not a designed to practice failures. The critical skills part technical training is where you teach that to include how to get your team's attention during a failure.

Jonathan

 

[dbulmer]

Andrew
I did my Fundies with a single but my team mates were in twins and the practice of using the light in the valve drill was taught to all of us even me on on a single. I saw the purpose of the valve drill as heightening team awareness, familiarisation with kit and testing trim and buoyancy under a little duress.

Brian's observations on signalling were pretty much what we were taught.
I suspect the divers you saw were perhaps just mucking around?

 

[onfloat]

Johnathan,
I've noticed this too, and I think I see where your going. Kind of like when you have a weapon jam and you raise your hand for help instead of just fixing the jam, a bad thing to do in actual combat. Muscle memory can cause us to do things without even thinking about it.

 

[MonkSeal]

I think the purpose of the valve drill is to practice shutting down valves and reinforce which regulators are connected to which posts. It is not a designed to practice failures. The critical skills part technical training is where you teach that to include how to get your team's attention during a failure.

One of the purposes of V-drill is to be the "building block" for failure resolving. I guess that's why it's combined with getting attention.

Kind of like when you have a weapon jam and you raise your hand for help instead of just fixing the jam, a bad thing to do in actual combat. Muscle memory can cause us to do things without even thinking about it.

I think that you gave wrong example. IMO muscle memory built with V-drill does not bring additional wrong movements. If failure happens we go for a valve(s) we presume causes the problem, signaling we have some problem. If problem is not solved the team must asses it, so team attention is required. If problem is temporarely solved the attention we raised will bring team to check if permanent solution exist.

 

[BarryNL]

Over the past year, I have observed this practice with nearly all divers who have taken a GUE course. Last week for example, I participated in a Trimix course. The first day we spent drilling in 20ft of water. The first drill of course was the valve drill. Both of the other students, who were GUE trained, did the same thing. While shutting down the valves they signaled with their light. The only problem is, their lights were stowed!

Why were their lights stowed? Your light (in DIR diving) is not just for illumination, but is an important communication device. It should not be stowed except perhaps during the ascent when you may need your hands for other things and are, in any case, all facing each other and can communicate more easily.

Now, this is not a put down of the skills of any of these divers, but rather a concern with regards to a broken training practice.

The purpose of this practice as explained by the students is to build muscle memory of signaling your team during a valve failure. I understand what GUE is trying to accomplish with this training practice, however, I think that in the end it achieves the wrong thing. Namely, it associates waving your hand with turing your valves.

And that hand has a light in it. If it doesn't have a light in it then you have your problem right there.

The purpose of signaling to you team during a failure is to get their attention. Once you have their attention, there is no longer a need to signal. During a valve drill, when the team is already paying attention to each other, there is no need to signal them.

And there is no need to shut down your valves while they are all working properly. That's why we call it a practice drill rather than an actual emergency. We practice what we would do in a real situation.

 

[BarryNL]

I think the purpose of the valve drill is to practice shutting down valves and reinforce which regulators are connected to which posts. It is not a designed to practice failures. The critical skills part technical training is where you teach that to include how to get your team's attention during a failure.

The main purpose of the valve drill in Fundies (as explained by my instructor) is simply to task load the hell out of you so you can learn to control your buoyancy and trim while doing other complex stuff. You will most likely pass Fundies with some minor faults in the shutdown procedure, but not if you do the procedure perfectly whilst sinking into the mud.