37 Years Ago

[ricki]

I started a new course with FIT (Free Diving Instructors and Trainers) today. It hit me that I started my first diving course in 1971 on the same day. It's an easy one to remember as it was my second day in Florida after moving down from the Buckeye State.

The first course was a NAUI Basic SCUBA Diving Course at Divers Haven in Ft. Lauderdale. At the time, Divers Haven was owned and operated by Ed Malinowski. It was at the current location of Brownies Dive Shop on Cordova Road. The instructor was Chuck Ciphery, an interesting fellow and very effective instructor. Back in those days, almost EVERYONE in the business of diving was interesting! The businessmen first, divers second folks had yet to take over things and the more unique diving personalities still held sway. We were learning to use 72 cft. steel tanks sometimes with loose harnesses, flotation vests with minimal buoyancy, massive masks, rocket fins if you were lucky otherwise closed heal fins or duck feet? Pressure gages were out although J-valve reserves still had some favor. It was an intense course and it is surprising how much I still remember, it was that well done.

As it happened Chuck separated from Divers Haven in the middle of our course to where we finished it at his new shop, Underseas Sports located in just south of the New River Tunnel. Ended up working there filling tanks and doing sales a couple of summers. It turned out to be yet another good educational experience in many ways. Underseas Sports still exists, now located on Federal Hwy. north of Sunrise Blvd. in Ft. Lauderdale.

So, what's is going on today with the FIT course? Level III follows the second course, in which divers discover how to utilize readily available latent skills and aptitudes for free diving (no tanks) that may not be real obvious. The results can be impressive. A lot of valuable safety information and procedures are presented at the same time.

Here's what they have to say about Level III:

"Let World Champion Martin Stepanek teach you the tricks and tips for advanced breathing and equalization, such as FRC (Functional Residual Capacity) dives, while measuring your lung capacity before and after packing. Learn to improve your overall health and performance with freediving-specific supplements and foods. Understand how to increase your stamina with various methods of aerobic, anaerobic and weight training exercises.

FIT's team will describe the psychological aspects of increasing your time and depth below the surface, while teaching you how to integrate your mind and body."
http://www.divefit.com/course.php?id=nastaveni/course_level3

It's an intense four days. Today we were in the classroom, pool and in about 500 ft. of water by boat. We practiced static apnea in the pool or breathholding while motionless, which is a good core skill development activity. Our instructor held his breath for over 8 minutes a while back. Today we had a guy hold his breath for five minutes successfully. My partner made an amazing 5 minutes 30 seconds but passed out. Because of the procedures they teach in Level II and III it is possible to undergo a blackout like this and be fine in no time through diver monitoring, communication and in-water rescue techniques. The goal is to inform students what to look for in themselves and their buddy and how to avoid it and deal with it should it come to pass. To train in good diving protocols in buddy teams and to prepare and execute dives in a certain manner to reduce risk. It worked today very nicely, though you want to be very close to your buddy and ready to act fast as they teach in instruction. I only managed four minutes (3'57" actually) on my breathhold. Still, it is a personal best for me as I haven't practiced static apnea in a pool since out Level II course over a year ago.

We learned about packing (substantially increasing the quantity of air you carry down with you), underlying physiological considerations, precautions and conditioning exercises. Then we figured out how all that extra air impacts buoyancy, kick cycles or depth/kick calibration and more in deep water.

It is a good program worth checking out by anyone interested in free diving. It continues tomorrow and for the next three days. Should be interesting and it does help to cope with the low to no wind downtime.

[budgy]

The first time I tried to get scuba instruction I was on holiday in Hayling Island in the early 60's. It was one of the adventure activities organised by the hotel (http://www.postcardnostalgia.co.uk/south_of_england/hayling_island/sinah_warren.htm). They wouldn't take me, I was about 12 at the time it seemed you had to be 14 for just about everything. These days I just laugh at the memory. It was the last formal holiday I ever had. I always remained interested in swimmming and snorkeling but I never got an opportunity to scuba dive until the 70's when like Jacque Brel I was alive and well and living in Johannesburg. The equipment was very basic and there wasn't a qualified instructor available. My good friend Jacko, had a small cylinder on a back-pack and a reg, I think it was a healthways. We were both staying in Braamfontein at that time. He was working with computors I guess it started a trend it seems like 80% of the people on dive forums work with computors. He took me along to Wits University pool for my first try dive the instruction was very rudimentry. I don't think Jacko had ever had a formal lesson and living in Africa he'd never seen Hans and Lottie Hass or Sea Hunt like me. We all knew " When you come up dont hold your breath." If I remember rightly the reg set didn't have an SPG gauge or a J valve. I remember being told, "You dont need one "When it gets low it gets hard to breath" deco was covered sensibly, "The cylinder is so small, you run out of air before you get into deco, if you only do one dive a day, you dont need to know tables. Buoyancy control was by momentum and as Johannesburg is pretty warm, you didn't need a wet suit. My first try dive wasn't quite solo, there was only one set between the 2 of us, but he was snorkelling. My 2nd dive was in a local dam it was solo. :D

[ricki]

The first time I tried to get scuba instruction I was on holiday in Hayling Island in the early 60's. It was one of the adventure activities organised by the hotel (http://www.postcardnostalgia.co.uk/south_of_england/hayling_island/sinah_warren.htm). They wouldn't take me, I was about 12 at the time it seemed you had to be 14 for just about everything. These days I just laugh at the memory. It was the last formal holiday I ever had. I always remained interested in swimmming and snorkeling but I never got an opportunity to scuba dive until the 70's when like Jacque Brel I was alive and well and living in Johannesburg. The equipment was very basic and there wasn't a qualified instructor available. My good friend Jacko, had a small cylinder on a back-pack and a reg, I think it was a healthways. We were both staying in Braamfontein at that time. He was working with computors I guess it started a trend it seems like 80% of the people on dive forums work with computors. He took me along to Wits University pool for my first try dive the instruction was very rudimentry. I don't think Jacko had ever had a formal lesson and living in Africa he'd never seen Hans and Lottie Hass or Sea Hunt like me. We all knew " When you come up dont hold your breath." If I remember rightly the reg set didn't have an SPG gauge or a J valve. I remember being told, "You dont need one "When it gets low it gets hard to breath" deco was covered sensibly, "The cylinder is so small, you run out of air before you get into deco, if you only do one dive a day, you dont need to know tables. Buoyancy control was by momentum and as Johannesburg is pretty warm, you didn't need a wet suit. My first try dive wasn't quite solo, there was only one set between the 2 of us, but he was snorkelling. My 2nd dive was in a local dam it was solo. :D

Great stories, thanks for sharing! Was it a double hose regulator or single hose at Hayling Island? Early 60's I would almost guess double hose. The conditions had to be impressive for a first effort, cold, lower viz. some real core stuff. Then again, who knew at the time? My first time I was exposed to it was in a pool in Dania, FL in the mid 1960's. My brother spent most of the time with the SCUBA gear while I was enthralled by a flex snorkel. Still use them today.

I imagined the water to be cool off Johannesburg, it is fairly warm then at least in summer? I hear you on early SCUBA "instruction." I use that analogy all the time for current kiteboarding instruction. That is focusing a bit too much on the nuts and bolts or mechanics of operation and too little on theory, risk management and emergency scenarios in some cases. It came to diving, eventually, it will likely come to kiting someday too. Sounds like your reg in S.A. was an unbalance piston, easy to tell when you're low on air or too deep! My first regulator was a USD Aquarius and felt like trying to breath through a two foot long snorkel under those conditions. Sea Hunt is a classic, anyone remember Primus? It was a bit more recent (1971) but still intriguing in an antique sort of way.

Great stuff, any other early experiences out there? Have you dove Scapa Flow? I would love to hit it someday with an excellent dry suit and UW acoustic imaging gear.

Just found a Primus clip. It was produced by Ivan Tours of Flipper, Miami Vice fame. This clip weaves a yarn around Vizcaya with some so so acting. No pressure gage or flotation vest but he did have a nifty UW light and peachy oval mask? The old days.

9LGHkhD_GwA

Sort of like Sea Hunt a decade or so moved forward.

[ricki]

Moving things along with regard to the FIT III course. Yesterday was a busy one, leaving many of us nackered. We started at the pool with an intriguing stretching warmup specific to free diving and particularly packing. The intent with regard to the later practice is to improve flexibility. Good stuff, I understand FIT is going to release an instructional video dealing with this and other related aspects. Looking forward to buying one once they're out. We worked on some dynamic dives in the pool extending up to 75 m horizontal swims. Some guys passed this distance by quite a lot in the pool conditioning sessions last spring. Got into weighing properly for it, use of neck weights, pacing your speed and quite a bit more.

Then we went to the classroom for theory and then on the boat and back out to 500 ft. of water for more training exercises. We worked on a standard warmup routine involving progressively deeper pull downs and some negative pressure dives. Then we determined how much deeper your neutral buoyancy point was after packing through a series of kick cycle exercises. We also worked on reverse packing to aid in equalization at depth. We finished with some variable weight descents pulling up and then dropping the weighted lines to explore equalization at greater depths. Interesting stuff but all combined with the previous days activities tiring. Today was a new day with new experiences. More to come on that soon.

[conchxpress]

Rick, sounds like a great course, but pretty technical sounding. I think we need a glossary of terms.

1. Packing
2. Reverse Packing
3. Negative Pressure Dive
4. Kick Cycle Exercises

Frank

[ricki]

Rick, sounds like a great course, but pretty technical sounding. I think we need a glossary of terms.

1. Packing
2. Reverse Packing
3. Negative Pressure Dive
4. Kick Cycle Exercises

Frank

Good questions and my mistake for not elaborating. They leave packing for the third in the series of courses on purpose. It expands your ability at a price however. There is a need for greater care, awareness of physiological impacts, buoyancy variation and more. As I recall Martin Stepanek expands his already remarkable lung capacity of 8 liters to 12 liters though packing. Most normal adult males have a lung capacity of around 5 liters if memory serves from the Level II class. All the rest is covered in the FIT II course and used in greater depth in the FIT III course.

Packing is the process by which you expand your retained lung volume of air by compressing air in effect on top of a full inhalation. This allows more air for greater depths, bottom time and equalization.

Reverse packing is applying a vacuum to your lung contents for purposes filling your mouth to provide air for equalization of your ears at depth. Otherwise you will reach a depth below which you can no longer equalize or safely descend.

Negative pressure dive is descending after a full exhalation of air to the best of your ability. It is a good conditioning exercise.

Kick cycles is a useful technique by which you can calculate your depth and for determining when you reach neutral buoyancy and the "sink phase". You calibrate your kicking, in my case dolphin kicks for many others scissor kicks, counting the number to arrive at 33 ' or 10 m. We weight ourselves with full wetsuits and hoods to be neutral at this point and to become negative at 66 ' or 20 m. In my case, without packing with a 3 mm full suit this means NO weight and about 6 kicks to 33'. With packing my neutral depth drops to about 45 ft. and sink phase point to about 85 ft. with 8 and 16 kick cycles respectively. I add one whole pound of lead to help compensate for packing. For messing around above 33 ft. I might have to wear 7 or 8 pounds of lead with the same suit! Another 6 kicks of lesser magnitude and you reach 66' when you start free fall or the "sink phase." It is all about relaxation and economy of motion and air/energy expended. If you don't have to kick to go down (or up) during certain portions of your dive, you shouldn't. This allows more ease and great bottom time and depth capacity. They also focus quite a bit on proper body position to optimize this whole process during descent and ascent. On ascent a bit above 33 ft. you can stop kicking and ride up with minimal exertion.

It sounds complicated, in some ways it is. Still, they give it to you in manageable pieces through time with implementation in the pool and ocean followed by review sessions. As with all things though with repetition both during the course and practice sessions which FIT has frequently, it sinks in. It is a very good way to optimize your abilities underwater for touring shallow to deep, photography, spearfishing and more.

p.s.- worried about having enough air to make these depths and even greater ones? Good you asked. In the Level II course FIT exposes students to natural existing skills through use of proper techniques and safety procedures that can remarkably expand your abilities rapidly. Sound too good to be true? Often enough, it is just how things workout. With all this expanded ability comes the essential need to follow certain safety procedures. One without the other is a very bad idea. I believe some of these safety procedures and rescue techniques should be standard in all SCUBA courses (everyone holds their breath at points, not on compressed air hopefully, and are possibly subject to blackout due to hypoxia). To my knowledge they aren't taught currently in SCUBA instruction.