What Did You Self-Teach Yourself?

[Rick Inman]

I've taken classes and have C cards for most all my diving, from BOW to Trimix (I've taken about 12 classes that I have cards for). But there are a few things I taught myself, or learned from a mentor and skipped the class. Heck, even a couple of things I learned on the internet.

I never took a class for Dry Suit, Solo Diving, or Scootering. I was blending gasses before I got my blender's cert. I repair and maintain gear, and I've never taken a class.

PADI has a bunch of specialties like boat diving and night diving, but that doesn't even count, in my book.

My question in this thread is, have you ever skipped the formal class and just taught yourself? I've met divers who never even took Open Water. Do you penetrate wrecks or caves without a C card? Blend trimix or nitrox without having taken the class? Repair your regs with Harlow's book in one hand and a guess in the other? Dive below 130 or do deco dives without formal training? Or maybe you try to dive DIR without a fundies class?

What did you self-teach yourself? In retrospect, was that the right./best thing to do? Why did you skip the class?

*Disclaimer: In no way is this thread intended to recommend diving of any sort without formal training.

 

[W8less]

Blowing really good air rings on hang offs. Took me years without instruction. I'll be offering a class and certification shortly.

Oh and drinking water underwater. Ever get to the point on a long salt water dive that you feel like your chewing your air? a small hydration pack with a bite tip solved that problem.

 

[TSandM]

Well, I've gone from putting pockets on my dry suit to replacing seals, with the help of the Airspeed Press book and some advice from friends. I started servicing my inflators without even that, just with Tobin's tool and some curiosity. During my current enforced dry spell, I intend to pick some friends' brains on servicing my own valves and regulators. And I've never taken a scooter class, although I would still like to do that.

I guess most of the things I've learned on my own are things where I don't know of a class or workshop where I could learn them. I'm a great believer in not reinventing the wheel, when I can avoid it

 

[Reg Braithwaite]

Dry Suit. Like TSandM, I tried. I signed up for Dry Suit as part of my PADI AOW, and the LDS had one for me to rent. I wanted to take the course before buying a suit, I figured the course would help me understand my needs. However, I'm a string bean, and the suits long enough for my arms and legs were all too large in girth, especially the seals. They were unwilling to replace the seals on a rental unit, so I did my AOW in neoprene. I had read the chapter on dry suits and handed in my test, so I did some learning, but no diving.

Of course I ended up buying a suit, but there was no way I was paying an LDS for a dry suit specialty, so I winged it. On my first trip last Spring, the DM was doing another fellow's dry suit dives. When he discovered I didn't have any instruction, he cursed politely and made me stick close to him, so I got a little training "for free."

I dove dry all last Summer and a little in the pool over the Winter (I switched to a 3mm wet suit to prepare for a trip to Cozumel, I will be back in the dry suit on my next pool night.)

 

[redacted]

Basically, everything beyond OW. I took Nitrox because I needed the C-card. The short class was mostly a repeat of what I learned in the book but it was a good opportunity to ask questions for some. I read the AOW and Rescue books. Saw no sense in taking the AOW course, I had already done the dives. Probably would have taken the Rescue course if it were not for the CPR requirement (mine was not current for their standards) and the shop giving me a hard time about no AOW. I did the Solo course because I needed the card. Read the book, discussed some material with the instructor and did a couple more solo dives. Taught myself regulator and other gear repair with the help of various documentation and some folks on this board.

 

[NorthWoodsDiver]

I dive a drysuit without training, will repair my suit without training, rebuild regs without training, blend gas without a card, penetrate wrecks without a wreck cert but I have cave certs, dive solo all the time without cert, dive trimix without cert, deco procedures doesn't certify beyond 150 and I dive deeper, etc.

 

[captain]

Pertty much everything from diving in 1957 to regulator repair, compressor operation and repair, drysuit, deco, etc. I bought one card, YMCA scuba diver in 1970

 

[bamamedic]

I sort-of-kind-of taught myself to use a drysuit. I wound up spending all my money on the suit, and had none left for the class I made sure to dive with an experienced drysuit diver for a few dives, but it wasn't all that hard to teach myself how to dive it. I can understand where the class might've come in handy (that way, I could rent drysuits if mine fails on a trip or something) but I don't feel that I'm missing knowledge or anything. I can disconnect/reconnect my inflator underwater, I can recover from "floaty feet" and all that good stuff.

I switched to a BP/W configuration based off of what I read on Scubaboard and TDS There were some great articles on Dive Rite (Dive Gear) Express on how to thread the backplate, and I called the guy who sold it to me for some advice. Ran into a few embarassing moments when it came to some misconfigured stuff (it's amazing how fast an experienced diver can pick up on subtle stuff, like how my backup light clips were positioned). On this one, I do kind of wish I started with an "Intro to Tech" class as soon as I started diving a BP/W and doubles, because I picked up a few bad habits (my crappy frog kick, donating the long hose and not unhooking it from my can light quickly enough, etc) that were hard to break.

That's pretty much it for me....I'm definitely not opposed to teaching oneself. Taking a class for every little thing just isn't necessary, but again, I've always been a "self-taught" kind of person.

 

[knotical]

Open Water, Navigation, basic Deco, Solo, Altitude, Dry Suit.
Classes weren't widely available when I started diving.
By the time I got my first C-card, I was already pretty skilled and/or knowledgeable in all those areas except dry suit.
No regrets, but I've since taken a bunch of courses and learned things in every one.

Some folks learn well on their own, some do better in a more formal setting. I'm fortunate to do pretty well in both environments, so I usually pre-study things and then maximize learning of subtleties in class.

 

[covediver]

Got by with a little help from my friends. Kind of like a dive learning cooperative.

Night diving
Small Boat Diving (14 foot aluminum skiffs)
Fish Identification
Wreck diving (non overhead environment penetration)
Beach diving (trial and error)
Salvage (not so good but did discover that you can't use bc as a lift bag)
Kayak diving
Drift diving (somewhat by accident)
UW Hunting (so-so at it, don't do it anymore)
Underwater photography (even worse at it than hunting)

The only real courses I took beyond basic cert was navigation (what was called Open Water I back in those days), drysuit diving, cavern/cave, research diver (100 hours course) and divemaster/AI. I did this because doing so was mandated, I wanted expert instruction, or both. Exept for drysuit diving, I had exceptional instructors for the others, far above and beyond anything I see in general instructor population.

I was lucky to dive from the very beginning with exceptional people who did not mind showing newbies the ropes, in fact they welcomed the opportunity to "advise" but not "teach". I also was fortunate to dive with a number of people for whom diving was an obsession. We would thoroughly plan our dives, execute them, and then do after dive discussions. We would also discuss new dive techniques we had learned about, different dive spots we had been to, etc. But, we would dive every chance we got, mostly off the beach or by working for passage on boats. Many went through the Marine Tech program at SBCC and we dived together. That was Santa Barbara diving at Aquatics and UCSB in the mid 1980s through the 1990s.

I have nothing against formal classes, but find most of them are formed more for social reasons. I was lucky, my friends all dived and were professional about it.