Academy of Scuba

Great divers are always learning. However, a key component to learning is making the investment to practice and master the skills you have learned. It is near impossible to build the muscle memory and motorskills for Advanced Scuba Diving Techniques in a quickie two day class. If you spend the time and money to take a class and acquire the necessary techniques to advance your diving, you also need to make the commitment to hone those skills. This means practice – to some this is a nasty four letter word. However, to a Scuba diver it could mean the difference of knowing a skill and thinking that you know a skill. In an emergency situation, you can’t have any doubt. The knowledge needs to be there!

Practicing skills does not need to be a massive endeavor. In fact, you can incorporate many key skills into your every day pleasure dive. There is no reason you can’t work with your dive buddy on every dive to drill on five skills over a 45 minute dive. One of the skills I would love to see everyone practice is orally inflating your BCD at the surface.

In an out of air or low on air situation, orally inflating your BCD is a critical skill. Especially, if you are in a current or choppy seas. A little bit of water down the windpipe and a negatively buoyant BCD could mean sinking below the surface, with no air in your tank. This could lead to a very dangerous situation. This is a skill you can practice, easily, on every dive. In fact, after a few dive days of doing this, it will become routine. On your next dive outing, at the end of every dive, come to the surface and orally inflate your BCD. You’ll be a better diver because of it. More importantly, in the unlikely event that you came to the surface short on air, you will have the motorskills, muscle memory and confidence that you can attain positive buoyancy in short order.

A great diver is not only always learning … they are always practicing!

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