What is your next skill to tackle??

[Sounder]

We (that's a royal we) can work on all that on the 22nd (Redondo/Maury Island Barges) :rr:

looking forward to it!

This is what Big Buddy dives are all about!! Come on - we need more little buddies to start thinking of what skills they want help on!!

[spatman]

AOW IN APRIL!! ......

heck yeah!

[Pez7378]

AOW IN APRIL!! ......

heck yeah!

You'll never be the same Matt!

[Sounder]

AOW IN APRIL!! ......

heck yeah!

You'll never be the same Matt!

No, he definitely won't be the same after AOW!!

[CaptnJack]

I'm currently working on maintaining depth within +/- 1' while being taskloaded. Right now I range from 0' to 3' deviation when task loaded and I want to get that down to +/- 1' consistently.

What's task loaded for you?

[Sounder]

I'm currently working on maintaining depth within +/- 1' while being taskloaded. Right now I range from 0' to 3' deviation when task loaded and I want to get that down to +/- 1' consistently.

What's task loaded for you?

It really depends on something I'm not totally aware of yet (that's the other part of what I'm trying to learn - figuring out what causes me to handle task loading better or worse).

Shooting a bag is fine, s-drills are fine, mask-off is fine, and halting all movement while hovering is fine most of the time but when I try to stop everything so that someone can, say, put a snorkle they found during a search for a lost fishing reel, I start drifting up.

On the otherhand, I can maintain my depth while completely stripping out of my gear and then re-donning it while hovering in shallow water and having an s-drill thrown at me as I'm about 30% back into my rig.

I've found the cause to be that I'm not fully exhaling when I find myself ascending... but I'm trying to figure out what causes me to not fully exhale sometimes and why other times I don't have a problem with it at all.

This certainly isn't my only issue or skills I'm working on, but it's the one I'd like the most advice on. 99% of the time I'm comfortable in the water, but every once in a while I simply can't get "in the zone."

Thoughts?

[CaptnJack]

Not seeing you in the water...

If I had to guess I'd say you are overdoing the breath bouyancy. e.g. too reliant on that. Not realizing when you are on continuously near the top of your lungs. Then you start to drop for some reason and you have already maxed out your lungs ability to counteract that. Or you've been breathing on the bottom of your lungs for the last 8ft of your ascent and then you go to stop and you can't exhale enough to counteract the loss of the kicking (which masks bouyancy). Free acsent practice can definately help with this. Or scootering. To get you to breath in the middle range of your lungs and have a little on the top and bottom to counteract. But realize when you are at the top or bottom you need to fix the BC/suit to get back into the mid-range and be prepared for whatever. Like a boxer's balanced stance. Stable to buffeting front to back, side to side, and up down.

BTW I had a whole dive in MX last month where I was just "off", it happens, its annoying, work to fix what you can accept what you can't, just part of life.

[Sounder]

Not seeing you in the water...

If I had to guess I'd say you are overdoing the breath bouyancy. e.g. too reliant on that. Not realizing when you are on continuously near the top of your lungs. Then you start to drop for some reason and you have already maxed out your lungs ability to counteract that. Or you've been breathing on the bottom of your lungs for the last 8ft of your ascent and then you go to stop and you can't exhale enough to counteract the loss of the kicking (which masks bouyancy). Free acsent practice can definately help with this. Or scootering. To get you to breath in the middle range of your lungs and have a little on the top and bottom to counteract. But realize when you are at the top or bottom you need to fix the BC/suit to get back into the mid-range and be prepared for whatever. Like a boxer's balanced stance. Stable to buffeting front to back, side to side, and up down.

BTW I had a whole dive in MX last month where I was just "off", it happens, its annoying, work to fix what you can accept what you can't, just part of life.

This may be exactly what I'm doing without realizing it. I'll try to be aware of this next time to see if something changes. Thanks! Bad habits are hard to break... and the longer you have them, the harder to break they become!

This is exactly what I'm hoping this thread will be for people who want advice with skills.

[Dmitchell]

For you guys looking to improve your "Awareness: http://break.com/index/awareness-test.html


Sounder - Dude, if you spend every dive worrying about things like that do you have any fun? It's important to hold stops don't get me wrong but divings supposed to be fun! I get the impression that some of you guys spend the entire dive worrying about being perfectly horizontal, etc, etc. Screw that, save it for the caves or being inside a wreck. In the openwater, lighten up, relax, have fun! You'll have enough stress real soon without letting your diving get to you too.

Dave

[Sounder]

For you guys looking to improve your "Awareness: http://break.com/index/awareness-test.html


Sounder - Dude, if you spend every dive worrying about things like that do you have any fun? It's important to hold stops don't get me wrong but divings supposed to be fun! I get the impression that some of you guys spend the entire dive worrying about being perfectly horizontal, etc, etc. Screw that, save it for the caves or being inside a wreck. In the openwater, lighten up, relax, have fun! You'll have enough stress real soon without letting your diving get to you too.

Dave

Well, the trouble for me is that I DO sweat a little silt. I used to be heavily involved in martial arts (until I had my second nose reconstruction and the doctor told me I was done if I valued having a nose) and one of the things I always maintained was that practice doesn't make perfect... perfect practice makes perfect. I.e. if you're always practicing something wrong, you'll never get it right. I don't, per say, "worry" about being in perfectly horizontal trim because it's not something I stress over throughout the dive. I do, however, strive for perfect trim because I believe it makes me a better diver and ultimately, I am more comfortable when I am in complete control so HAVING that perfect trim actually INCREASES the amount of enjoyment I take from the dive. If I save my worry just for wrecks and caves, how will I ever be sure that I'm ready to penetrate them? If I allow myself to silt up the open water because I'm not worried about it, I'll build habits that will translate into those situations where silt becomes a very real hazard.

I also find it disrespectful when a diver who has been diving "long enough to know better," silts the place up ruining it for other divers trying to enjoy the same space. Obviously we've all silted the place out when we were learning, but once you're 10-20 dives past OW, I think rototilling a popular site is rude to divers and to the wildlife breathing and living in that water. When you enter someone's home with muddy boots, you usually take them off at the door. Well, this is their home and we should be polite visitors to them and to the other visitors.

So, for me bad habits are SERIOUSLY hard to break... just try to stop cursing because you've got a baby on the way and want to be the best dad you can be... it's f-ing tough!! Let me f-ing tell you how f-ing tough it is!! ](*,) Same thing goes for me with diving and shooting (tactical pistol competition)... practicing bad habits, or even merely tolerating them during practice because "it's only practice," never forces me to get it right. This may not be true for everyone, but it's definitely true for me. In martial arts I certainly learned that quickly when breaking boards... you learn to break the board every time because it doesn't hurt if you break it... but it REALLY HURTS if you don't!!

I have TONS of fun on EVERY dive I do... just ask LCF - she'll be the FIRST to discuss us both flooding our masks laughing so hard... or ask others about my "HID Lasso" (that's usually good for 100psi wasted while laughing!). Plus, when I get a skill right and can repeat it over and over... I really enjoy the sense of accomplishment and having that new skill available to me. Then, when I go to Bonaire and see what "average divers" look like in the water (see attached picture), I'm really proud of how far I've come and I get even more excited for what I'll learn next.

Seven "average divers" in Bonaire...Say Cheese!!

Holding a real "stop" isn't really what my issue is - it's more along the lines of stopping to allow a buddy to put something in my pocket, or writing something on wet notes, and all of a sudden I find my ears telling me I've ascended a foot or two. I don't like that. What's frustrating is that when I'm hovering at a depth doing other things, like watching someone or helping someone do or fix something or writing on a slate during a fish/invert survey, I don't deviate from my depth whatsoever. THIS is what bugs the heck out of me right now!! ](*,)

[LCF]

My guess, Doug, is that when you are specifically doing a task or drill, you consciously monitor your depth and correct it. When somebody's trying to put a snorkel in your pocket, your brain doesn't go into "drill" mode, and you aren't as vigilant. I think it's that simple, combined with being distracted and not immediately noting the signs that you're drifting up. Remember, I was right with you!

For those of you interested in the back kick, my husband mastered it faster than anybody else I've seen. This is how he did it: He went to the pool, and he back kicked with no fins on, just in swimming clothes. He did this until he could swim laps back kicking, although they were slow. (The motion is like a frog kick in reverse -- extend your knees and feet, and then "scoop" the water out to the side with the tops of your feet.) Once it was going well with bare feet, he put fins on and did it some more -- still on the surface, still without gear. Once he could do laps this way, he got into his gear and back kicked, and voila -- It was there. I think it took me six months to have a working back kick I could rely upon; it took him a couple of weeks.

My challenge, which I suspect I'll work on until I'm too old to dive, is stability with reduced or absent visual reference. This is a problem in midwater during ascents here at home, and doing lights-out exits in caves. Take away my sight, and I just don't know where I am in the water. That means not only whether I'm sinking or rising (I'm getting much better at that) but whether I'm head up or down, or even upside down. (I did two cave exits during class upside down on the line -- it doesn't work well.) I have no good ideas on dealing with this except to keep trying, but as Doug observes, practice doesn't make perfect if you are practicing the same mistakes :(

[Tom Nic]

OK, just my .02 psi worth... hopefully I won't "silt up" the thread!

As someone who dives with Doug occasionally and has benefited from his (and others that I won't start to mention) diving skills, I think it is hugely important to practice skills and improve your diving, newer diver or experienced diver. I will also say that unless you dive with someone who has better skills than you and you can learn from by watching and listening, having a bazillion dives doesn't necessarily make you a better diver... i.e. practice makes permanent, not necessarily perfect. My diving took a huge jump forward when Doug became an unemployed-supported by his wife-what shall I do with my life mid-week diver for several months. We had a blast doing 2 -4 mid-week dives every week, and I learned a ton!

Now, here's the other side, and where I agree with our illustrious dmitchell...

I am a RECREATIONAL diver. I'm not a tech diver, nor do I plan to dive in caves or do serious wreck penetration. I respect those who do, and love reading about their experiences, but I simply don't plan on going there. I don't particularly care to Do It Right, although I want to Do It Well, and I can benefit tremendously from learning some of the skills that they use, and even by adopting some of their equipment configuration. To be a good, safe diver requires situational awareness and and a certain amount of skill and mental focus, but to penetrate an unexplored wreck or dive a cave or dive to 250 fsw takes an additional step up of skill and focus. Perhaps infantry and special forces could be an analogy that would have some merit. Both require skill, but in the latter you go "over the top".

I have observed in several of my friends and a few esteemed fellow NWdiveclubbers, a shall we say, focus... uhm... attention to detail... uhm... obsession? uhm... anal retentiveness? about certain aspects of diving.

Doug and I have a blast when we dive... He, and so many others on this board have been nothing but supportive and helpful to other divers, and are a credit to the sport. I do, however, remember a fun conversation we had after a dive in Bonaire. Viz was great, we had been on a wreck, seen a seahorse and a spotted snake eel. It was an awesome dive, and all was well with the watery world. Near the end of the dive there were schools of hundreds of different kinds of fish swirling around us in about 40fsw. We both rose in the water column and put our cameras on video and enjoyed the 3 dimensional show. Being a good 20' off the bottom I simply went vertical in the water and turned as I filmed. Doug did also came up off the bottom, but maintained a perfectly horizontal trim, holding his camera out in front of him. Having done that as well I can testify that the old neck gets quite the crick in it. So, for me, vertical it was!

I had fun kidding him after the dive about it, and we both laughed. ...and while I respect his focus, for my personality type I need to relax sometimes and not always be in perfect trim, kicking just so, etc. etc. or diving starts being work and stops being fun. Some of you can do that and still have the time of your lives on every dive. I can... to a point, and then it becomes shall we say, cumbersome, and I have to remind myself to actually have fun.

Anyway, all that rambling to say that it seems to me that certain personality types gravitate toward certain types of diving and actually ENJOY getting things JUST PERFECT. Others of us want to do well, want to dive safely, but ultimately don't particularly care to live up to a cave standard to enjoy diving.

I'll still be throwing out of air's at my buddy's from time to time, practicing midwater ascents, etc. etc. But I'm not going to worry too much about hovering + - 1ft. in the water column.

Just my .02psi...

[Sounder]

My diving took a huge jump forward when Doug became an unemployed-supported by his wife-what shall I do with my life mid-week diver for several months. We had a blast doing 2 -4 mid-week dives every week, and I learned a ton!

Tom really helped me cope with being unemployed for 10 months. Fortunately (and unfortunately), that has come to an end... but somehow I wrangled working four 10's!!! Friday - Sunday off!! (enter HID lasso) Wahoo!!

Doug and I have a blast when we dive... He, and so many others on this board have been nothing but supportive and helpful to other divers, and are a credit to the sport. I do, however, remember a fun conversation we had after a dive in Bonaire. Viz was great, we had been on a wreck, seen a seahorse and a spotted snake eel. It was an awesome dive, and all was well with the watery world. Near the end of the dive there were schools of hundreds of different kinds of fish swirling around us in about 40fsw. We both rose in the water column and put our cameras on video and enjoyed the 3 dimensional show. Being a good 20' off the bottom I simply went vertical in the water and turned as I filmed. Doug did also came up off the bottom, but maintained a perfectly horizontal trim, holding his camera out in front of him. Having done that as well I can testify that the old neck gets quite the crick in it. So, for me, vertical it was!

That was a magical moment wasn't it?! Thousands of fish just schooling all around us with the sun shining through and reflecting all the wonderful colors you could imagine. My positioning, kicking, and trim was the last thing on my mind... truly 5 minutes of my life that I will remember forever.


I think Tom really summed it up. Some people are cooks, some people are chefs (HOWARD!! ), and some people just make dinner... and they're all fine with it. Tom and I are about 80% opposite in our "approach" to diving and yet we still have a blast diving together. The 20% of philosophy we share involves staying prepared for emergencies by practicing solutions, diving the plan, staying appropriately conservative, and generally diving well. Beyond that, we have 2 very different styles but it doesn't prevent us from enjoying our dives together.



BUT ... this thread is about what people are working on and what advice others can offer them!! So far we've had the very basics all the way up to highly specialized cave stuff and everything in between!! Who's next?!

[BASSMAN]

Skill's I would like to work on is: #1) staying off the bottom 100% of the dive.
#2) Shooting a SMB from different depths and having it actually inflated at the surface.
My first and last practice failed, but I'm willing to get back on that horse!
#3)I've been concentraiting on my bouyancy and fin kicks so as to not kick up silt.
But I have not tried the reverse kick yet. Maybe that is something I will try to do in future dives.
"Good thread Sounder! "

[LCF]

The thing I've found over the last three years is that, the better I get at my skills, the more pure fun I can have diving. The less thought I have to give to stability or positioning, the more thought I can give to what I'm seeing. The more my awareness improves, the better I can critter-hunt and still keep track of my buddy. Yeah, it takes some work, but it pays off in hugely increased FUN.

[billandwende]

I'd be happy to learn how to make my air last longer. I'm averaging 35 min dives on a 80. I just quit smoking (2+ packs per day) about 6 months ago. I also started diving 6 months ago. So perhaps I'm inline with other new divers but I feel bad when I gotta be the one to call the dive every time. Any advise from the scuba guru's would be nice.

[Sounder]

I'd be happy to learn how to make my air last longer. I'm averaging 35 min dives on a 80. I just quit smoking (2+ packs per day) about 6 months ago. I also started diving 6 months ago. So perhaps I'm inline with other new divers but I feel bad when I gotta be the one to call the dive every time. Any advise from the scuba guru's would be nice.

I find that gas consumption depends much more on your comfort in the water than it does with your lung size. Yes, all things being equal, Mrs. Sounder will use less gas than I will, but being comfortable in the water has a MUCH greater effect.

Weighting is key - the more excess weight you carry (above what you need), the more gas you have to put in your BC to lift it (so you use more gas than you need to).

When you've got perfect buoyancy dialed-in, you'll find that you're not constantly adding and dumping gas which also will reduce how much you use.

Physical fitness (and not smoking) will also effect your consumption... the better shape you're in, the less oxygen your body needs... the fewer breaths you need.

Breathing style - if you try to not use as much gas, you'll end up using more than if you just breathed normally. Slow, normal breaths will extend your bottom time.

Positioning/trim - when you're comfortable enough in the water that you can simply "hang" without kicking, sculling (with your hands), and can move yourself around with simple relaxed kicks, you'll use a lot less gas. This is huge and many people say that all of a sudden something "clicks" in their head. Because they're no longer using any effort other than directed finning to intentionally move them, and otherwise they're just "hanging" in the water, their gas use goes WAY down. This is why there are large men who can get very long dives from the same tank that others may only get 30 minutes... it's all comfort and experience.

The best thing to do, is to dive dive dive... and while you're diving, focus on getting yourself perfectly still and comfortable just "hanging" there. No hands, no fins, just a little up and down causes by your inhale and exhale.

I'm sure others may have advice too, but this is what worked for me.

[LCF]

I think one of the biggest things that impacts gas consumption is trim. If your body is at a 45 degree angle to the bottom, then every time you kick, you go UP. To avoid ascending, you have to stay negative so you have an equal tendency to sink. So about half the effort you are putting into kicking is producing no net displacement at all! Once you get truly horizontal, you only have to move your fins as much as you need to to move forward. Less muscle activity = decreased minute ventilation, and your gas lasts longer.

Learning not to swim with your hands also decreases gas usage. So does learning to slow down.

If you want to go and do a dive some time to work on these things, give me a holler.

[CaptnJack]

WARNING: Its hard to go LCF speed. And once you finally do you'll freeze in short order

[Sounder]

WARNING: Its hard to go LCF speed. And once you finally do you'll freeze in short order

That's what that little bottle of argon is for!

Really, if you're looking for a great person to learn from, LCF is one of them!!

[scottsax]

I'll weigh in, finally. My big goal right now is to increase my comfort in the water (trim, buoyancy, being STILL, etc) so that I can learn what it is I don't know. Obviously, there's kicks, etc., I'd like to learn. I'd like to practice handling emergencies, and learn more about DIR not as the end-all, be-all of diving philosophies, but because I think there's a lot of genuine merit to the way they do stuff. Grateful Diver's gas-management seminar is high on my list, as is nitrox certification and rescue diver. Mainly, I want to DIVE as much as possible, and be as safe and comfortable as possible. Need more time in the water, more than anything.

[Sounder]

I'll weigh in, finally. My big goal right now is to increase my comfort in the water (trim, buoyancy, being STILL, etc) so that I can learn what it is I don't know. Obviously, there's kicks, etc., I'd like to learn. I'd like to practice handling emergencies, and learn more about DIR not as the end-all, be-all of diving philosophies, but because I think there's a lot of genuine merit to the way they do stuff. Grateful Diver's gas-management seminar is high on my list, as is nitrox certification and rescue diver. Mainly, I want to DIVE as much as possible, and be as safe and comfortable as possible. Need more time in the water, more than anything.

Perfect - this is a great goal. The gas management is a big one with me so I'm glad you're excited about that. DIR isn't for everyone, but it'll certainly provide some good "food for thought" just like the gas management stuff will.

[Diver_C]

gas management is a big one with me

Eat less beans

[CaptnJack]

WARNING: Its hard to go LCF speed. And once you finally do you'll freeze in short order

That's what that little bottle of argon is for!

Really, if you're looking for a great person to learn from, LCF is one of them!!

Argon helps but I'm still freezing when I dive that slow. If I were in better shape I suspect my SAC would be even lower than its current 0.5cf/min. I need to WORK/MOVE to stay warm in <50F temps.

[lamont]

i also need to fine tune my trim. here's a recent dive of me from a week or two ago:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BaRsdKNvp3k

(laura is filming, i'm in the dubs without the camera)

my default trim when i'm trying tends to be 10 degrees up rather than flat, and when i relax i come out of trim more. swimming i tend to be fine. the problem is that even with the whole arched back, arms outstretched and up thing going on, i still will flip over onto my head if i entirely stop sculling with my fins. and in the video those are my double-100s with only about 4# of v-weight on the tail bolt. not sure what to do about it other than just using a weightbelt...

other than that...

i need to practice cave skills. it's been 3 months now since cave 1, and lost diver / lost line drills are getting mentally paged to disk because i haven't practiced. similarly, lights out, gas sharing exits with switches across the line are getting paged to disk...

i also need practice managing stages and deco bottles (with scooters) and being able to deploy and stow and drop and shuffle bottles without getting light cords trapped under hoses and other little minor mistakes. clipping and unclipping could also be better -- particularly with two bottles under the arm rather than one under the arm and one nose clipped to a leash on the waist -- and being able to do the clipping and unclipping on the chest with my left hand rather than my right.