Brains – Liquid Incompetence

What happens to our brains underwater?  I have always thought that the smartest person you can find is at least half as smart as soon as their head is two inches underwater.  I’m not sure what it is that makes a person lose their senses underwater, but I have seen it proven time and time again.

After so long in the diving industry it has now come to the point where I am actually surprised if someone seems to not loose half of their mental faculty on a dive.  There have been many times where I have felt completely outclassed on the brains front in the classroom.  Try teaching a doctor about how to handle a dive emergency, and see if you don’t feel a bit like a fraud.  But take that same person into the pool and the level of their incompetence is truly astounding.  Now to be clear I am not talking about physical skill level, rather the ability to keep a clear head and analyze and problem solve in some kind of rational way.

Problem solving is generally broken down into four categories.

First comes “Define the problem”, then “Generate alternatives”, “evaluate alternatives”, and finally “implement solution”

It’s pretty straightforward and most people are proficient to a greater or lesser degree daily.  People with positions in medicine or business or even a kids football coach all use these steps.  But when a brain is submerged underwater these steps are all thrown out the window.  It seems that the perceived threat of imminent death by drowning, makes the crucial first step of identifying “what the hell is going on here?” nearly impossible for most people.  Of course if you can’t sit back and figure out where the problem is you probably won’t come to a very useful solution.

For example the most common problem a scuba instructor faces has to do with clearing the mask of water.  If your mask is full of water and you don’t like it, then what do you do?  Luckily for the student diver they really don’t have to generate solutions or choose the best option.  We have taken care of that for them, through our briefing of the skills and what to do when the mask is full of water.  You would think that since the instructor informs the student not only what the problem is going to be in advance but also how to fix it and the best means to accomplish it, that there would be no problems.  It couldn’t be further from what actually happens.  Students will sometimes bypass all logic and go with what they “think” is the best solution.  Sometimes that means instead of clearing the mask as taught they spit out the regulator.  Where is the sense in that?

However many times a person surprises me by doing something totally unexpected I can always rest assured that someone else will top it later.  It is a curious phenomenon that must have an explanation.  Could it be some form of shallow water narcosis?  Or perhaps it is something to do with the mammalian diving reflex?  If you are not familiar with this phenomenon, let me sum it up for you -

When you put a mammals face into cold water a few interesting things happen.  First the heart rate slows, then you have some vasoconstriction of the extremities (reduced blood flowing to your ten little piggies).  Lastly (and here is where it gets technical) there is a bit of a blood shift which prevents your precious organs from being squeezed.  Of course the last two things only happen on deeper dives, not the two inches that seem to induce the aberrant performances discussed here.

I’m not a scientist but I think it is time to look into this.  There are countless dive professionals that are putting in the field work.  Who knows maybe we can find a cure.  Of course the first step in solving the problem is to “define the problem”.

So let’s coin a term for this one.  How about “degenerative cognition submersion variable”, or perhaps “immersion induced brain necrosis”.  I think one of those should do the trick.  After all if you have a term for something it makes it a lot easier to talk about and deal with.  Next time you encounter someone acting like a bit of a muppet underwater you can tell them that perhaps they were just under the effects of DCSV or IIBN.  It sure beats trying to tell them they were just not thinking straight.

Now that we have a definition and have identified the problem, what options do we have to address it?  Of course we could just not take people under water, but we all know that is not an option.  There must be a way around it, surely not everyone suffers from these debilitating symptoms?

Dive professionals have to solve problems underwater all the time.  Sometimes I think that I do some of my best thinking under the surface.  Why is it that some people are more suited to maintaining their mental faculty while submerged?  Are the people with this ability drawn to diving or have we developed it?  I firmly believe that we need to develop the skills needed to keep our heads clear in such an alien environment.

In order to overcome the difficulties we face underwater we need to understand them better.  Maybe Einstein said it best when he said:

“We can not solve our problems with the same level of thinking that created them”.

As a long time scuba instructor I firmly believe that a little knowledge goes a long way.  The more you know about something the better prepared you are to handle any difficulties you encounter with that thing.  The more you practice at something the better your proficiency and comfort improve for that particular activity.  Dive professionals aren’t wired differently than anyone else, we just have more knowledge and practice.  For that reason I think the best way to solve the problem of” underwater ineptitude” is education.

All that is left is to “implement the solution”, it’s an easy solution as well.  Take a scuba course, maybe even two.

It really doesn’t matter what course you take.  If you love photography, then take the Digital Underwater Photography Specialty.  Or if you think you are a bit of an acrobatic ninja take the Peak Performance Buoyancy course.

Anything that you learn will benefit your skills and knowledge.

The whole point of the PADI system of courses is to teach you how to solve problems.  Think about your Open Water course.  The entire skill set is about what to do if something happens to you.  From how to clear a mask to how to handle and out of air situation to controlling your buoyancy, there is not a single skill that is just for fun.  The Rescue course is basically a multi-day exercise in advanced problem solving.  For intensive problem solving practice you can’t get any better than the Divemaster or Instructor Development Courses. 

Each time you take one of these courses you become a better diver.  Your skills improve and your knowledge grows.  Soon you will find you no longer suffer from “liquid incompetence”, which at the end of the day, is not a label you want to be stuck with.

Teaching Family

It’s one of those conversations we have all had.

Friend: “OH” (said with some trepidation) “ so you’re going to teach your girlfriend/wife <INSERT AS APPROPRIATE>  to drive? You’re brave. Rather you than me”

You: “Yeah! It’ll be fun. Something we can share. Anyway, I reckon I am good at teaching plus I am amazingly patient so it’ll be FINE”

A  few days later…

You: “So, errr, me and <INSERT GIRLFRIEND/EX-WIFE’S NAME> have decide to take a break… The whole teaching her to drive was a bit trickier than planned”

You could transpose this conversation to a few different situations but for the sake of the next 700 words, I will talk about teaching family to dive. I’ll start by reminding you that I taught my brother a few months back for both his Open Water and Advanced Open Water courses AND he was also my first ever student.

My brother and I get on well. We are reasonably similar, unconditionally supportive to each other (which is a rarity these days) and fairly laid back. Hearing stories from Zoe and Tim here about teaching family to dive, it sounded like I had lined myself up for a trial run of the apocalypse. We had agreed a fair way in advance that I would teach him to dive and he seemed excited about it all so I felt good.

I am not sure what to say next. I expect that you hope that it all went cataclysmic-ally wrong and that somehow one or both of us ended up hideously deformed so I am hugely sorry to disappoint because it went very well on the whole to the extent that he was actually KEEN to do his Advanced Open Water. Were that not the case, we would not have been able to get this brilliant picture (now one of my all time favorites:)

What I will say about the experience was it helped remind me and re-enforce the importance of patience. He is my brother. I love him dearly. BUT, there was one moment where we did not see directly eye-to-eye and naturally it was my fault as the instructor. This got me thinking.

As with anything in life there is an inherent risk when SCUBA diving. I like to compare it to crossing the street. As long as you are careful and do not do anything stupid then you will be fine. On the flip side, I am happy to let myself take this risk but placing my brother in this position is a whole different bag of badgers especially when I am the one in the position of responsibility. How is this different from teaching a non-family student? How is this that far removed from when he takes much greater risks on his own accord? I think my Dad puts it best. When we are away from each other he cannot worry too much about what we are doing but when I am back home staying with him then he likes me to check in during the evening if I am not going to be home at a decent hour. This is reasonable. I was nervous because he was HERE. When he was off diving in Oz afterwards, how could I worry? I had taught him after all!! He was fine.

So. Brother is certified. Dad is on his way out. We have decided against the Open Water because he will probably never use it again so… This opens up a new question to the floor.  Discover Scuba Diving anyone? I am keen. He is apprehensive. Thoughts?

The Hallowed picture AFTER finishing his Advanced course. Properly cherish these snaps!

Every dive is a good dive….right?

Have you ever heard a diver complain about a crappy dive, where they claim they saw nothing, or say the visibility was shocking, or the current was too strong? To me as a diver who loves being under the water blowing bubbles but rarely gets the chance any more, I am personally upset by comments like these. For me every dive is a good dive! After all how many people actually get the chance to do it?

Ok PADI is the highest certifying diving agency on the planet and Scuba Diving is becoming one of the more popular holiday activities, but honestly if you take 30 random people from all walks of life and ask them if they have been scuba diving, chances are the majority will say no. This year PADI certified their 20 millionth diver, there are over 6000 PADI dive centers worldwide and over 135000 PADI professionals! It is estimated that PADI certified divers make up 70% of the total dive market, of these, roughly one-third, or 6 million, can be classified as “active” divers.   World population at the moment is 6.7billion! Around 3% of the population dive! So really, as a diver, do you have the right to moan about a dive! Basically NO!

Let’s break it down. First off what do you classify as a good dive? Of course we all want to have a dive like we see on National Geographic, but for those of us who have been diving for a while know, these dives are really far and few between, if at all! So a good dive would be a dive where first off nothing goes wrong, no one goes missing, no one loses anything or floods anything, no one runs out of air, no one gets hurt, no one messes with the marine life and if you are lucky the vis is ok and you may even see a fish or two!

So what would a great dive be? Well take all of the above requirements for a good dive then add in a shark or ray or whale or turtle or schooling jacks or barracudas or stunning corals or loads of reef fish or a newly discovered dive site or that one thing that has been on your diving wish list for so long and that is a great dive!

I have been diving for over 10 years and have 1000’s of logged (and unlogged) dives and still I love every dive I do. It is amazing to be underwater breathing compressed air, being totally weightless, being in an alien environment that so few people get the chance to see. So why on earth would someone come out of the water saying ‘well that was a crap dive’! The majority of divers who ever utter these words tend to be novices! At least I have never heard a diver who has 1000’s of logged dives and has been diving for over 10 years utter anything similar, as these divers understand just how privileged and lucky they are to be able to dive!

For those of you out there who have never had the opportunity to go diving, I cannot recommend it enough! The sheer sense of awe when you are floating in the blue staring into an endless abyss and wondering what is actually out there is one of the most intense moments a person can experience. When you encounter a shark or whale that is double your size and more graceful than any ballerina, when you swim through a school of fish over a coral reef that has enough colors to make an artist envious or when you find a creature that is the size of your little finger nail and equally as impressive as that giant whale, then you realize just how amazing diving is and how lucky you are to be able to do it!

Why isn’t scuba diving cool?

I’m not saying that it’s not an awesome thing to do.  I’m just wondering why it seems so lame to the non-diver.  Close your eyes and picture this:  Actually keep them open to read, and then close them.

‘A group of people gathered together laughing and joking.  One is a slim blonde with fluorescent pink shorts and a lime green loose fitting shirt held together by a blue and white belt tightly cinched just above her navel.  She is brushing her truly massive bangs out of her face with her inch long painted nails.  The man is giving her a high five while checking his pager that he just grabbed from the belt holster on his khaki shorts.’

Does that sound like the start of a great movie or what?  If you have ever seen a PADI movie you can picture the scene immediately.  The PADI videos are horrible! Not in an educational sense(they actually are very good on that front), but just in the sense that it is uncomfortably bad acting and scripting to have to sit through.  Sure there is information to be learned but at what cost?

When students sign up for the PADI Open Water Diver Course they have no idea what is in store for them.  Sure they know they will soon be practicing confined water skills and getting out on some open water dives.  But nobody ever told them that the course included some truly horrible videos.

Most likely people have seen diving on television and the movies already.  Films like Into the Blue with a scantily clad Jessica Alba or The Deep with Jacqueline Bisset for the older generation.  Everyone has flipped to National Geographic and seen scenes from the sardine run in east Africa or whale sharks in Ningaloo Reef or documentaries on the amazing biodiversity to be found underwater in the Galapagos Islands.  Our Ocean is amazing and there are countless books and magazines that people are exposed to where they can get a glimpse of what is truly out there.

But what could be cooler than actually seeing it in real life?  It’s like an alien world just a stones throw from our own.  How cool is that?  The answer seems to be that it’s not cool at all.  Or at least that only strange and old fashioned people care to take part in it.  At least that’s what the video would have us believe.  The outfits they wear are all staples of the eighties.  Fashion does go in circles but PADI shouldn’t wait for the things on the open water videos to come back.  Outside of the clothes there is the scuba gear.  It is almost comical.  I have been searching for years to find a pink tank to go with my pink mask and snorkel, pink fins, pink wetsuit and pink gloves.  It seems they were all phased out in the late eighties or perhaps early nineties.

What about other sports?  Do they suffer the same stagnation as scuba diving?  Try to picture in your mind a group of surfers.  I am guessing it is a totally different image than the one you have of divers.  What about skiing?  If you think of eighties ski attire it is comical.  But it has evolved, just look at snowboarders.  On the other hand divers are not only decked out with the same style as 1989 but sometimes rocking the actual BCD or wetsuit they used over twenty years ago.

Then there are the jokes, I have to use the term lightly though.  Jokes are usually funny.  Sure I laugh while watching the PADI Open Water video, but at it, not with it.  More often than not I am cringing and shaking my head.  Do you all remember the fat flower shirted American tourist that is supposed to be the comedic relief?  It’s painful to watch at times.

Now I’m not expecting to have Hollywood summer blockbuster type affairs for training videos.  But could we meet in the middle somewhere.  Instead of something that looks like a school videography project where all the students get to take a turn acting and directing and calling the shots, could we bring in some professionals?  It is the Professional Association of Diving Instructors after all.  PADI knows diving, Hollywood knows movies.  Maybe we can let the professionals do their respective jobs.

Since PADI has a head office in California you would think there would be a possibility for some connections.  Exactly how many aspiring actors/directors/writers etc do you think there are in California alone?  Surely enough!  Most likely PADI wouldn’t even need to pay them.   If you are struggling to break into film making who would pass up an opportunity that would allow you to put out a movie that will be seen in nearly every country of the world?  And not just in an expensive theatre for a few weeks.  It would be played throughout the year , season after season.  I would recognize any of the “actors” from the PADI open water video, after all I have been watching it weekly for over ten years.  PADI just recently certified it’s 20 millionth diver.  That’s like having a youtube video with an insane amount of hits.

I think PADI is missing an opportunity here.  Why not try to get some big name celebrities involved.  Added exposure for them and PADI might actually get a training video that people want to watch and talk about after it is finished.  To be fair they do talk about the video now, but in the way people talk about films like Catwoman or Gigli.  Diving is cool, but the videos are definitely not.  Can we sort this out?  Please?

Perfecting Buoyancy

Perfecting buoyancy and streamlining…a never ending objective for all divers. Whether from the outset of your diving life on your PADI Open Water course, or entering the professional realm of PADI Divemaster or Open Water Scuba Instructor this is something we strive to get better at.

When we start out diving the arms won’t stop moving as we progress from dry land to the swimming pool, or open ocean (and yes, your instructor was once like this). All of a sudden you go from having a size 10 foot to a size 27. Getting used to all this new equipment and the mass of lead attached so we can actually descend is no easy task. As you progress with your diving you may start to purchase your own dive gear. Again, a period of adjustment is needed so you get used to how the important characteristics of a new BCD, fins or wetsuit throw everything you have learnt back to the starting point for a brief time.

With my students I try to start this understanding from a very early stage. Clasping the hands together, changing the way fins move in the water and adjusting weight and distribution for ideal trim are all a few tricks instructors may have in their toolbox.

My favorite part of teaching any PADI Advanced Open Water class is the Peak Performance Buoyancy session (one I recommend all students to undertake). I get a lot of value as an instructor by seeing the development of a diver relatively quickly once a few core skills and techniques are demonstrated and put into action. I couldn’t recommend highly enough taking the Peak Performance Buoyancy Specialty course to really hone those skills down.  It is during this time I like to take that skills progression and also get divers thinking about equipment configurations, hose routings and places to stow those ‘goodies’ that we seem to collect.

Streamlining the equipment down not only makes diving easier, potentially safer but also more enjoyable. There is nothing that drives me more nuts when I am diving then feeling a hose flapping around in the mildest of currents, or seeing a gauge endlessly dragging in sand on less than optimum configurations. Moving a few clips, adding a few snaps and removing a few bits of clutter can quickly change the way you move in the water. You will find yourself getting closer to those anemones and towards that nudibranch than you ever thought was possible. Preventing that regulator hose getting snagged or not silting up for the next diver in behind you is always a positive right?!

If you are a photographer, videographer or getting into overhead environments these skills are even more important so you can really get in close for those macro shots, or hang motionlessly on a wall for the wide angles. You will start to realize what a difference a breath really makes, as you inhale deeply to pull yourself up and away, then scull backwards and helicopter turn off to the next corridor of that wreck site you have wanted to see for so long.

Maybe your equipment set up already seems pretty good, but moving that SMB to another location or stowing the light somewhere else is all it will take to make the difference. Perhaps your equipment is perfected but you are still struggling when swimming into currents or squeezing through between 2 rocks, the frog kick or modified flutter maybe all you need to hone those skills in. Even now I realize that there is much more for myself that can be perfected and even just talking to other divers can throw things I thought were great previously, completely out the window.

Just these few bits can make it a much easier progression to the next level, be it PADI Rescue Diver or PADI Divemaster, it is certainly one less thing to dedicate those narcosis induced brain cells to!  And as I’m sure you have guessed by now, I’m quite happy to sit down and discuss that new pair of fins, long hose routing or back sculling over a beer or two – but I would prefer to be diving with you!