Improving situational awareness

[LCF]

The first few times I carried a stage bottle it seemed really awkward. Things that are usually effortless seemed difficult, and all I could think about was that great big awkward damned stage bottle. After a few dives with it, it was almost as if it wasn't there.

That's good news! That was definitely one of the confounding factors during my class.

[RN]

Become a divemaster. You have to pay attention to everything that's going on around you. Then take that on all your dives with you. I know you dive with new divers every now and then. What is your mind set during those dives? Are you paying more attention to them or to yourself? I'd guess them. And during those dives the skills you have down are probably the best they ever are. when you dive, forget about yourself for a while and just pay attention to your buddies. Keep practicing that. Sure, do some skills dives for yourself, but don't forget SA is also a skill that needs to be worked on. And you do that by forgetting about your other skills...to a certain extent. You will also probably find that those skills improve a lot. My buoyancy is at its best when I don't think about. If I focus on it, it isn't so good. If i'm task loaded and focusing on one particular skill, the others usually just fall into place.

[DFranka]

I am a new cave diver- completed cavern/basic cave with Jim Wyatt last December. During one dive early on in the course, Jim, the instructor intern, and my dive buddy were all flashing their lights at me simultaneously, but I was so focused on pulling against the flow, referencing the line, etc. that I did not notice! After that dive, Jim let me know very clearly that my situational awareness was abyssmal. Jim made me lead almost every dive for the rest of the week and tested my awareness frequently. I did okay but, like you, knew I needed to work on it. Immediately after my cave class, I took a class locally where the instructor would have us run line as if we were in a cave and he would throw a wide variety of failures at us at random times. These included things like valve failures, line entanglement, etc for both myself and/or my two buddies. The person with the failure had to signal with his light appropriately, and each of the other two buddies had to respond to assist immediately. Sometimes the "failure" would be something really simple (not requiring a light signal) like not clipping off a regulator- we were each expected to notice such things and correct them for our buddies. We did these exercises over and over again during about 20 dives. The instructor videoed each dive, and we would debrief each evening and get to relive the time our awareness was not up to speed. I got to the point of completely not worrying about myself but watching my buddies like a hawk.

I am sure that most of the benefit just came from more time in the water, but the exercises and repetition were very helpful. Maybe you could do something similar.

Doug

[Rubis]

At the end of the class I just finished, we had identified a number of deficiencies in my diving, and I've been sent off to do a bunch of cave diving to work on them. Some are easy to address, but the one that has me kind of baffled is improving my situational awareness. Since the essence of poor SA is that the diver affected is unaware of the problem, how do you fix it?

I've thought about asking buddies to let stuff hang out of their pockets, or to turn on backup lights or to fail to put markers down where they should, but has anybody got any other strategies for recognizing and avoiding perceptual narrowing? I know there are more than a few instructors on this site -- got any tips that work with your students?

I don't want to go do 25 more cave dives and come back with the same problem, if I can avoid it.

I think everybody had good points in the thread :

- being more at ease : you will use less brain cells, be less task-loaded and more brain cells will be available for SA
- Repetition - muscle memory (see above)
- visualization : it's a repetition but you don't need to be in the water
- diving with less experienced people and/or different dive-buddies : it keeps you on your toes
- changing environment : for example, diving different systems : it keeps you on your toes too.

I would suggest when you think you are getting there, to dive with a good diver you can trust and see what the feedback is. Probably go in a system with flow, to have one element of task-loading.

[rchrds]

Here are some things that seems to help, that you can do by yourself on your next few dives. As many have told you already, this will improve some as you continue your diving. However, here are some thoughts that will help you improve faster.

Develop patterns- It should start at the dive vehicle. Learn to stack or bag your equipment the same way every time. Develop a set routine and stick to it. This will reduce your anxiety about forgetting things at the surface and having to go back and get them, thus reducing your workload at the point where you should be most relaxed. Once on your dive, develop little routines, if you must. Call it a cross-check. Think about your gas (how much do I have/should I have, and no, you shouldn't have to check every time) Where is my light pointed. Where is my buddies light pointed. Where is the ceiling. Where is the floor. What is my deco. Etc. Most people do this naturally, but you are obviously missing some of them. If you make a conscious effort at first to think of all of them, soon, they will become natural (like about 3 hours of diving) and you wont be missing them anymore, unless you are stressed.)

Slow down- There is a good chance that you are planning your dives to get somewhere. If it was Ginnie or Peacock, you might be wanting to get to some specific place. Instead, do a few dives with a patient buddy where, for example, you spend an hour between The Eye and the Lips at Ginnie. Explore every nook and cranny. Get in different positions near the floor and near the ceiling and watch people go past with your light covered. Find an uncomfortable specific place in the flow and learn how to relax in it. Find the eddies in a high flow cave and learn to hover in them. Learn how to let the water move you around, and where you have to be to avoid it. Listen to the cave. Have you been relaxed enough while diving where you actually hear the water flow over your hood yet? By relaxing and reducing your induced stress, you will become 100 percent more aware of what is going on around you.

Repetition- Dive the same cave a few times in a row. Then switch. If you dive different caves on every dive, you will have a hard time relaxing enough, as you are not yet proficient enough to anticipate the changes between systems. Dive Ginnie three times a day, short dives, with no purpose other than to be as relaxed as possible and see things in the front of the cave and then on the next day, do the same thing at Peacock, or better yet, stay at Ginnie.

Skill focus- Since lights seem to be the problem, do some dives where you are not in the lead, and spend an inordinate amount of time watching your light and your partners light only. Don't worry about seeing the cave as much, act as a team. keep your light were your buddy can see it at all times, and make slow consciously smooth movements. All the time. Checking gas pressure, looking around, whatever. Make a concerted effort to do it. Spend a couple of dives watching your buddy, so that you can keep your light in the correct location, and eventually it will look correct to you, and you will feel awkward when you have to move your light to check something on the side, and you will feel awkward and frustrated when you cant see your buddy's light behind you because he is too lazy to have practiced the same skill.

Hope some of those help. I have been cave diving a long time now, and when I am forced to take a while off (as I am now, in Afghanistan) when I come back, I do these kinds of dives for the first few days- The little things are perishable skills, and it is easy to try to jump up to your highest ability and get caught up and forget the small things.

Jason

[LCF]

Jason, that's beautiful. Part of my "homework" for the reevaluation of the class is to do 25 cave dives in Florida; hopefully I can talk somebody else into the kind of dives you're describing.

Lights weren't an issue, except for me not noticing my buddy's backup light was on. My light discipline is good, and I signaled the team appropriately, when I was aware it was necessary. (I just missed stuff like a buddy's markers hanging out of his pocket.)

Rob, I'm working on my DM, but luckily, nobody criticizes my trim while I'm doing it . . .

[BabyDuck]

lynne, i'm sure you know this, but the answer is to dive. just go dive & the sa will take care of itself. your bandwidth will free up & suddenly you'll be on top of everything.

[sskasser]

Jason, that's beautiful. Part of my "homework" for the reevaluation of the class is to do 25 cave dives in Florida; hopefully I can talk somebody else into the kind of dives you're describing.

Lights weren't an issue, except for me not noticing my buddy's backup light was on. My light discipline is good, and I signaled the team appropriately, when I was aware it was necessary. (I just missed stuff like a buddy's markers hanging out of his pocket.)

Rob, I'm working on my DM, but luckily, nobody criticizes my trim while I'm doing it . . .

Lynn,

I'll be glad to dive with you anytime. Just yell when you'll be in the area.

Shirley

[skip]

I'll jump in. I'm not a cave instructor, not even cavern, but I think there is a way to develop SA (in addition to all the good advice here).

Just stop every so often and look around. Like checking your SPG, you can check your surroundings, buddy, self, look back, up, down and think about where you are and where you going (and where you've been). By making this "attention" aspect as much a part of your dive as checking spg, your SA can't help but improve.

One thing i have noticed about SA is that it's dang hard when you are following a too-fast buddy (and almost everyone is faster than me). The need to keep up results in perceptual narrowing as you focus on your buddy ahead of you, how far ahead they are, how hard you are breathing to keep up. Signal them and tell them to slow down, enjoy the dive rather than trying to set penetration goals (a big mistake in my opinion). I disagree with dive plans that start off "We want to get to here..." as you look over the map. Better is "We want to go along this route..."

-skip

[Sludge]

I disagree with dive plans that start off "We want to get to here..." as you look over the map. Better is "We want to go along this route..."

My instructor (he was also Jason's) had a Rule #1: No goal-oriented dives.