Lessons for Recreational Divers from Technical Diving - Part 1
Posted By Grant Graves on 16 April 2004
Many divers do not realize that many of the items they dive with today and view as standard pieces of equipment had their origins in technical diving. Also, many of the techniques that divers view as standard had the origins there. BCDs, SPGs, underwater lights, and many more pieces of diving equipment were originally developed for the demands of technical diving.
Cave diving is regarded as the first form of technical diving. This demanding environment pushed the early explorers to develop improvements in the very limited scuba technology of the time. Buoyancy control is critical in diving and even more critical when cave diving. The cave divers saw the need for having more control over their buoyancy than just swimming harder. The cave environment would not allow that. So, they experimented with cutting out plastic bleach bottles and tying them to there cylinders. They would add air to them on descent and dump air out on ascent. This need led to the development of the BCD.
Knowing how much air you have would be critical in a cave. The early scuba gear did not have SPGs. Many cave divers would machine their own pressure gauges into their existing regulators. They could then know exactly how much air they had throughout the dive. This also led to more sophisticated gas management practices.
What is surprising is how long it took to adopt these new tools in the recreational diving community and level of resistance to the improvements by many in the community. Technical diving is not for everyone, but many of the ideas and techniques used there are very beneficial for the recreational diver.
Lesson #1
You are not as good as you think you are, neither am I.
A great deal of the lessons learned in technical diving are learned the “hard way”. Meaning someone died to allow us to learn from their mistake. It is not uncommon for divers as they progress in their training to feel and believe they have arrived. This belief tends to be over stated in their mind.
Technical divers know they are not as good as their mind tells them they are. That is why they train for big dives in shallow water first. They may even do dry runs on land. They work up changes to their gear and in their techniques as if they were learning them for the first time. They will visualize the change being used. They will then work up the change in the pool or confined water. Then, they will introduce the change in shallow water and progressively take it deeper. Only when they are total in tune with the new technique or gear will they use it in an actual mission oriented dive. Nothing is just done.
Recreational divers can take from this that you are never done learning, that you are not qualified for all environments or all conditions, and when you think you are, it is probably time for more training.
Lesson #2
Mileage Matters
We are not talking about used cars.
Technical divers know there is no substitute for time in the water. They would not dream of conducting a 300 foot dive after being out of the water for six months. Nor would they think it acceptable to dive a different environment, beyond their experience level, and/or with techniques or equipment that they were not trained to use without first training for that use.
Diving is a game of mileage. The more you dive the easier it and the better you become. There simply is no replacement for time in the water.
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