Over the past week I have finally had the chance to assist with a couple Open Water training sessions. Up until this point, I have been experiencing diving for myself and trying to improve my personal skills and knowledge base. Now it is time to share it with others. At this point I am merely an assistant to the instructors where I basically watch and mimic what they do, but I am slowly starting to get a feel for my own style of teaching.
The first client that I assisted was a teenager from Scotland who, like so many first time divers, had mask problems. Breathing through your mouth underwater is already a huge feat when you are used to breathing through your nose at the surface and holding your breath underwater. Then your instructor is going to put you through the psychological tests of flooding your mask, clearing your mask and swimming a distance without your mask. It is very common for the new diver to panic in this situation. You are outside of your comfort zone and ready to freak out if anything goes wrong.
When learning how to clear your mask, the instructor is going to have you flood the mask with water by opening the seal at the top. Next you will have to clear the mask by slightly opening the bottom seal and blowing out with your nose. My new diver was panicking after the first step and therefore could not complete the second. It was also more difficult for him because he does not open his eyes underwater, which I believe increased his level of panic when flooding the mask.
Go through a skill step by step
I knew he was comfortable swimming underwater (as long as his eyes were closed), so the problem lies in the “flooding” sensation. Knowing this I had him start without his mask on. We descended, I had him put on the mask, then he cleared it. No problem! With that success under his belt he was ready to try the full skill under water, so we descended again and this time with the mask on. Now he was able to successfully take off, replace and clear his mask underwater. Win!
The only other problem he had was swimming without the mask. While the mask was on, it was easier for him to remember to only breath out of his mouth, but when he took it off he had to hold his nose closed. After he told me this I gave him a simple tip, “Think about a time when your nose was stuffed and you weren’t able to breath through it at all. Now just act like your nose is stuffed.” The first time I dove, this was how I was finally able to descend. He tried it too and voila!
Simple tips for common new diver problems:
1) Act like your nose is stuffed to train your mind to get used to the breathing
2) Whenever you feel panic start to creep in, always remember to
STOP BREATHE THINK ACT
This this second concept was drilled into me in the Rescue Diver course, but I believe it applies to every problem in diving from equalization problems to gear malfunctions. Besides being adequately trained and prepared for a five, the key to enjoying a dive by overcoming the minor problems or to surviving a dive when there is a more life threatening problem, is to stay calm.
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