Good chat about GUE. Tend to forget about the early days when you had your first training session and then you hear this and realise how far you have come with your dive skills. Just so, so, 2nd nature now. 👍👊

@AndytheNorthernDiver

2 жыл бұрын

I’m feeling more and more a need to get on this band waggon

@curvydiver

2 жыл бұрын

Thank you for listening 🤟 I can not wait until every thing happens 2nd nature! But for now really enjoying working on the drills I learnt during my fundies, and the whole team diving ethos.

@AndytheNorthernDiver

2 жыл бұрын

@@curvydiver me too

Great work my darling xxxxx

@AndytheNorthernDiver

2 жыл бұрын

Guess you mean her not me yeah 😂

I love that Laney brings up “bad habits” in the conversation. The number one source of bad habits in diving is bad instruction. The worst example is when instructors from most agencies put their students on their knees on the bottom during courses. According to Thorndikes Laws of Learning, Primacy is instilled into the brain any and every single time a person learns something new for the first time. This becomes the groundwork for all new things built upon that original concept. When you teach students on their knees, you’re literally teaching them to “be on their knees” for anything and everything they do. This becomes their core foundation, and as such, their instinctual habit. Forevermore, from that point on, any time they’re diving and they need to perform a skill, or they get stressed (even a little), or confused or panicky, etc., they will-entirely without thought and purely on instinct-go to their knees. This is horrible, because doing so changes your trim and alters your buoyancy. Let’s say you’re neutral on a dive, and encounter some kind of sensory illusion that causes disorientation. The best course of action is to remain exactly as you are, trim and all. But a person taught on their knees, now feeling stressed and confused, will physically begin to lower their legs and bringing their knees in, and they won’t even know they’re doing it! This will change their trim. What if they’re in a drysuit? Now they’re losing air. Even in a wetsuit, changing to a vertical position will alter your buoyancy, causing you to sink. They will feel this, causing them to panic and react again on instinct by needlessly adding air to their BC, causing them to rise, further compounding the entire situation and potentially putting them in grave danger. When all they needed to do was simply solve the original problem from their original horizontal trim, and everything would have been fine. This is exactly why no instructor should ever teach any student on their knees. Neutral from day one, from the most basic course on. All my students come out of their basic course able to hold neutral buoyancy and solve problems in that position, simply because I teach them to do all their skills from the very beginning in a horizontal trim position. No knees. This is merely one example out of many how bad instruction leads to creating bad divers with bad habits. It’s a fascinating discussion topic, and one I feel needs to be addressed much more across the industry. Great conversation here. ☺️

@pinnacledivingco

2 жыл бұрын

11:50 in: I tell people to sit in a chair and focus on how they breath while sitting and relaxing. Notice that you take shallow, gentle breaths. Now focus on replicating that while underwater. It won’t be exactly the same, as the mammalian dive reflex causes us to naturally take deeper, longer breaths. But focus on trying to relax as much as possible and replicate the breathing from when you were sitting in a chair. Typically this helps people understand very early on how to breath well, to control their buoyancy better, and get a good grasp on lowering their SAC rate early on.

@pinnacledivingco

2 жыл бұрын

16:20 in: SMB deployment should be taught from the basic course, guided step by step, and performed on every dive in order to develop the motor skills. This is another great conversation. The “9-hour rule”. This rule from the MOI/POI (Methods and Principals of Instruction) states that, on average, most people require about 9 hours of physically doing, and being engaged in doing, a specific motor skill, in order to fully develop instilling that skill into the mind. Essentially making it muscle memory. This rule is used across most industries that require motor skills. Aviation is a solid example. Teaching a new student pilot just the single skill of holding a hover in a helicopter requires them to practice trying to hold a hover on the controls for roughly about 9 hours. Somewhere around “the 9 hour mark”, their brain will just “click” and all of a sudden BOOM! They got it! It all just suddenly makes sense and they can do it. This same rule applies equally to diving. Regardless of whether it’s figuring out neutral buoyancy, back finning or helicopter turns, or launching an SMB from depth. It’s the physical act of performing the skill repeatedly, for a period of time, until eventually-like magic-all of a sudden, as if in a moment of clairvoyance, everything just clicks, and you’re suddenly able to do the skill with ease.

@curvydiver

2 жыл бұрын

Thank you for taking the time to listen. You are so right! All my early training involved being quickly shown a skill on your knees, replicate it and the box is ticked. For such a dangerous activity this shouldn’t be allowed. Pushing for deep, wreck, and all these other specialities before even mastering the basics is plain ridiculous. The breathing was the biggest eye opener for me…. When diving I was simply breathing too deeply so I had zero control over my buoyancy and wondering why I couldn’t hold a safety stop. After completing the GUE fundies, by the final dive I got that breathing to a gentle pace so I stayed horizontal in the water column. Makes completing all the required tasks a lot easier. I can only assume poor instructors just forget about the bare basics of diving and just assume every one must know it. I completed 6 course prior to fundies and not one instructor mentioned the breathing 🤦‍♀️

@pinnacledivingco

2 жыл бұрын

@@curvydiver Absolutely! I loved listening to your episode. ☺️ Unfortunately, your experience is not unique. And largely, that’s PADI, SSI, SDI, and the like for you. It’s how they are. Teach only the bare minimum and get as many courses sold as possible to make as much money as possible. And don’t even get me started on their “specialty“ courses, or how worthless most of them are. 😂 I’m glad to hear your experience with GUE has been a positive one, and made you a better diver. Like you brought up during the discussion, I believe most of our dives should focus on improvement, so when we go do the dives that we want to do, we’re actually good at it. Continuous practice and improvement should be a fundamental aspect of all diving, for all divers. There is always an opportunity on every dive to practice something. As an instructor myself, I’m always teaching. However, only about 10% to 15% of that time is during actual courses. The great majority of my time, and to which I don’t ever get paid for, is spent mentoring already certified divers, to make them better, find ways to improve, and help them grow. Divers are not made during courses. They are made in the hours spent improving their skills long after their courses have ended. But sadly, most don’t think this way.

@AndytheNorthernDiver

2 жыл бұрын

Your episode this I think mate

Great interview! Really enjoying listening. For me, just a couple of years into my diving journey and a seasoned caver I could really relate to the discussion. Whilst I feel ( and have been told) my buoyancy and trim are good and I can easily hold a safety stop I now need to practice task loading whilst doing so. I regularly practice my SMB launching at the inland sites so when I’m in the sea it becomes second nature. I more often than not have my GoPro on a tray filming whilst diving so need to have good buoyancy control. But mask clearance, removal and replacement have only really been done in my early dive training. Definitely need to organise a trip where on at least one of the dives we just practice skills and whilst holding neutral buoyancy. Thanks both for a great episode!

@AndytheNorthernDiver

2 жыл бұрын

It’s a skill I need to work on now especially on the ccr as it’s my overall biggest weakness

@TheCavecrawler

2 жыл бұрын

Rookie question-Do you think it would be any easier with the JJ over standard scuba kit? Just listening to your point on how breath control doesn’t affect your buoyancy on the CCR because of the closed loop? You can concentrate on the task at hand knowing that your buoyancy should remain constant compared to having to do the task and be conscious of your breathing at the same time…or have I misunderstood?

@AndytheNorthernDiver

2 жыл бұрын

@@TheCavecrawler think my issue is incorrect weighting, the JJCCR is a big old lump, so I’ve swapped the back plate for Ali to reduce it a little, but when I empty the bailout I’m too light. CCR buoyancy is a pain for me atm

@TheCavecrawler

2 жыл бұрын

@@AndytheNorthernDiver Ahh OK..like I say rookie question. I’m only just getting to grips with my SCUBA kit and the little I know about ccr diving I have learned from your podcasts! Something I’d like to try at a later date. I need to build up my hours underwater, confidence and experience a bit more first 👍

@AndytheNorthernDiver

2 жыл бұрын

@@TheCavecrawler if you stay around 6m and practice there mate, that’s where it’s hardest and you’ll get most benefit