Your current self-improvement objectives & how you measure your progress towards them

[kr2y5]

Do you, at the moment, have any sort of a self-improvement objective related to your diving skills? If so, what is your objective right now? How do you measure your progress? Are you able to estimate roughly how much more time or how many more dives you will need to get where you want to be? Thanks!

 

[dmaziuk]

Do you, at the moment, have any sort of a self-improvement objective related to your diving skills? If so, what is your objective right now? How do you measure your progress? Are you able to estimate roughly how much more time or how many more dives you will need to get where you want to be? Thanks!

1: yes, 2 : find out how I react to nitrogen narcosis, 3: easy: no progress, 4: yesno: yes to I suppose all it really takes is one dive, no to I don't know when.

 

[TMHeimer]

I just want to continue assisting with classes and improving doing that. For my own diving I want the status quo--be as safe as possible and have fun.

 

[TSandM]

I want to sort out my sidemount setup, which has been to some extent equipment limited. But we're on the verge of getting that fixed, and it's summer, and the pool will be warm. I don't know that I will ever try to play with it in cold water again, which is what has really limited progress.

I don't think it will take a huge number of dives before I'm ready to take the next step, which is to take a cave class or upgrade. The goal is Abaco.

 

[RJP]

Do you, at the moment, have any sort of a self-improvement objective related to your diving skills? If so, what is your objective right now? How do you measure your progress? Are you able to estimate roughly how much more time or how many more dives you will need to get where you want to be? Thanks!

Nope.

Ooh, wait... I forgot that this is ScubaBoard! What I mean is I work on mission-critical skills and drills on every dive. I have deprioritized the enjoyment of diving in favor of a rigorous approach of continuous self-flagellation and reflection upon my unforgivably poor buoyancy control. I expect that I will never be sufficiently skilled to ever dive solo... or to be a worthy buddy. So, as you can imagine, I am somewhat conflicted about my future dive prospects.

 

[Lorenzoid]

I almost lost it as "self-flagellation," Ray.

Well, now I'm all embarrassed (not really) to admit my current goal is to practice skills and drills in my new drysuit until I can do all the things that took me so long to get the hang of when I dived wet. I have no idea how long that will take or how I will measure my progress, but I think I will know when I get there.

 

[TMHeimer]

Nope.

Ooh, wait... I forgot that this is ScubaBoard! What I mean is I work on mission-critical skills and drills on every dive. I have deprioritized the enjoyment of diving in favor of a rigorously continuous approach of self-flagellation and reflection upon my unforgivably poor buoyancy control. I expect that I will never be

Isn't that what my post says?

 

[dumpsterDiver]

My goal is to get worse sloooowly.. I expect to document the progression through a continual series of underwater videos.

Not so different from my weight lifting goals - although I did reach a milestone in that activity recently...I'm pretty certain I can now bench press more than a certain Olympic decathlon champion.

 

[DennisC]

My goal is to learn to backfin. (Swim backwards) I had an instructor in Indonesia who taught me how to do it and it was awesome. I try to practice while I dive as much as I can. Its probably going to take a while, I don't dive as much as I hoped I would when I was originally coming to Florida. There is no real quantitative way that I can measure progress but as long as i get better or stay the same each dive I'm usually happy. I'd like to be good at it before I start my Tech classes I'm planning for next summer.

Also you should answer your own question!

 

[kr2y5]

Also you should answer your own question!

Good point. My Fundies left me with a Rec pass instead of the intended Tech pass, so the goal is to bring my skills up to the point where I can comfortably walk into Cave 1, and do well. After the class, I compiled a long checklist of little things to watch for, in part based on what I heard from the instructor, and in part based on what I observed, and when I go out on a practice dive, I indulge in full-on self-flagellation, and "ding" myself for all the mistakes. Did I keep knees close together while kicking? Did I consistently glide before reload? Did I catch myself relaxing my back muscles and feeling those knees drop? Was I "staring uncomfortably into my buddy's eyes, and not moving by more than a couple inches" during a valve drill? Or, did I exhale too much and sink during regulator switch? Did it take me one breath, or 5 breaths to fill that SMB? Did I get task loaded during the SMB deployment? Would I have noticed if my buddy swam away? Did my trim break down during that time? Fortunately, almost everything on my list either provides real-time feedback, or it can be felt, so I get a reasonably good idea of how much went wrong, which makes practice feasible. There are a few things, for which I'm going to need help with a video recording, such as the angle of fin tips. I run into a number of issues on each dive, and it will probably take me at least a couple of dozen of practice dives (and possibly more) to improve, especially that the challenge is not so much to be able to do something well once, but to do it well consistently, and even though I have my moments, I'm not very consistent. If I find a lot of time to do deliberate practice, maybe I will be done by the end of the summer. If not, then maybe by the end of the year, or even longer. I personally find the process rather enjoyable, though. It's great to have an objective, and it feels pretty satisfying when you can begin to sense some measurable improvement.