What Did You Self-Teach Yourself?

[LeadTurn_SD]

...Solo class? How in the hell can solo be taught? I do not believe it can, besides, I'd logged about 500 solo dives before there was such a class. Not much point in taking it now...

Agree Walter!

Very few of the "classes" that exist today were available in the 1970's, at least here in little Hilo with it's single dive shop.

So I guess the "classes & Certs." that I "missed" would be something like:

"Extended Range": (Deep Air? Don't know what it would have been called... we just did deep air dives involving planned deco, using the USN deco tables ).

"Solo": Began solo diving at about dive #10 or so

"Night Diving": This is an option in AOW now I think?

"Boat Diving": See above.


My most recent self-taught activity is regulator repair.

Interesting topic.

Best wishes.

 

[FireDiver443]

I purchased a dry suit and read the section in the PADI AOW book, but didn't take a class. So far, so good. I love how it extends my dive season here in balmy western NY. Everything I've learned about underwater photography I've learned by applying what I've learned about land photography, checking the internet or just asking questions of other photographers. Again, no class.

No one mentioned it, but the last thing is shooting a marker bag (surprised no one else mentioned it, actually). Again, read up on it and just started drilling with it. The first few were probably amusing to watch, but from what I've read here on SB, it sounds like the first few conducted by divers who've received formal training can be equally entertaining.

 

[spt29970]

Underwater photography. It is addicting. Although there are lots of people that offer courses, I have always thought that the biggest key to success is practice. For the price of a course I can go out and dive a bunch of day charters. Also, I want to develop my own style, and I fear that by taking a course I will be trained in someone else's style. That being said, I read voraciously and derive inspiration from the amazing range of images in books and one the web.

 

[Garrobo]

Spanish and Russian.

 

[MaxBottomtime]

What did you self-teach yourself?

Solo, deep air, nitrox, mixed gas deco, gear repair, drysuit diving and repair, underwater photography and sillier classes of scootering, night and boat diving.

In retrospect, was that the right./best thing to do?

I enjoy diving even more now after nearly twenty years than I did as an excited newbie. I had a few mentors along the way and borrowed a few tech textbooks. I'm happy to have made dives for little to no cost that I see divers now spending tens of thousands of dollars to learn.

Why did you skip the class?

I used what little money I made for things like rent, gas and food. Diving is my only luxery, so I keep the cost as low as possible.

 

[Jim Lapenta]

Back kicks(good enough that my tech instructor sends me people to tutor!), frog and modified frog, helicopter turns. Solo diving, real UW Navigation( my PADI class was a joke), Buoyancy control and horizontal ascents and descents, diving with BPW and longhose til I hooked up with some DIR guys, and the best way to see cool stuff- Decide for myself what is cool and screw the DM's! I have alot more fun and see more neat stuff when I don't follow the crowd.

 

[Matt S.]

I'm probably living on borrowed time.

I started taking pictures underwater without taking a class.

I also dive in a drysuit that I don't have a C-card for--just one pool "orientation" before my OW dives.

I have dived at night and below 60 feet without a class, just the mentoring of experienced divers in my club.

I jumped out of a boat, did a drift dive, and climbed back on the boat, all without a class... and I'll do it again.

Once, I identified a fish without having taken a class. The realization that I was looking at a painted greenling with no C-card made me dangerously buoyant in the head, but fortunately I was able to vent my BC and stay down.

I learned the frog and helicopter kicks from watching videos. My form probably sucks but it isn't going to kill me. Or is it??

 

[Sas]

I've taught myself:

-how to use a drysuit - me and my buddy bought them and then jumped straight in with them. I am generally slow to pick up dive skills but I took to drysuit diving like a natural so I figure it must be easy to learn
-navigation - I did do the SSI Nav class but learned nothing much so have learned more since then
-different types of gear (i.e. doubles, pony, BP/W) - had a bit of help from friends who've loaned me gear to try out
-photography - though I have gotten tips here and there from different people
-marine life ID - just bought a bunch of books and now I can ID most local critters
-correct weighting - read about it on the net
-gas management - internet again, and then in my nitrox class my instructor confirmed what I learned online
-nitrox - learned off the internet to help my buddy with his class though I did a class myself afterwards to have the card to get fills
-different kicking styles like frog kick, helicopter turns and back kick (still suck a bit at back kicks) - saw youtube videos and copied them. My buddy also filmed me so I could see what I looked like and so I knew what to fix.
-correct trim and buoyancy - this was related to fixing my weighting and both happened around the same time
-solo diving - I just started diving by myself one day to see what it was like and loved it!
-how to perform a bunch of skills midwater - such as mask clearing + removal/replacement, buddy breathing maskless, shooting an SMB, etc etc - in all my other classes we did them kneeling on the bottom
-drift diving - quite early on I got stuck in a boat that missed slack so I did my first drift dive with a few brief instructions from my buddy. I did do a drift class after this though (useless) as part of my AOW.

I am not against classes at all, just over time I've started to pick up stuff on my own or with a bit of help from more experienced divers.

 

[AzAtty]

Diving physiology, decompression theory, gas planning, frog kicks in jets AND splits, drysuit, doublesn nitrox (then took the class), and probably a bunch more stuff I can't think of at the moment.
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[Rick Inman]

There's actually a class for scootering? You're just messing with us, aren't you?

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