Improving situational awareness

[LCF]

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.

[chimie007]

I'm not an instructor but I'm pretty sure more diving is all you need. Once you are more comfortable cave diving, you will be more aware of the other stuff you are not seeing.

I bet your lack of awareness is not that you are not paying attention, it is that you pay too much attention to specific things like (line, your technique, etc) and probably less to other things (buddy, etc). As you get more experience, things will even out as you will be more comfortable with your technique, the line, etc.

Curious to see what the instructors will suggest.

[Sludge]

Which brings to mind the one thing new cave divers have a hard time grasping - light signals. I've made a lot of dives with new cave divers and nothing is quite as frustrating as trying to get their attention with a back-and-forth light and they have NO IDEA you're even doing it.

[alias]

Which brings to mind the one thing new cave divers have a hard time grasping - light signals. I've made a lot of dives with new cave divers and nothing is quite as frustrating as trying to get their attention with a back-and-forth light and they have NO IDEA you're even doing it.

Try moving your little penlight away from my sabre's wide beam when you are behind me dangit!

[Jim Wyatt]

... I'm pretty sure more diving is all you need. Once you are more comfortable cave diving, you will be more aware of the other stuff you are not seeing.

I bet your lack of awareness is not that you are not paying attention, it is that you pay too much attention to specific things like (line, your technique, etc) and probably less to other things (buddy, etc). As you get more experience, things will even out as you will be more comfortable with your technique, the line, etc.

Well said & I agree.

Task loading and awareness are inversely proportional....as task loading goes up, awareness goes down.

While I have yet to have the pleasure to dive with you Lynn - I suspect you are task loaded and paying closer attention to things that need to be in "muscle memory".

The solution, generally is to make more dives & master the skills, putting them in muscle memory....My bet is after that your awareness will increase, but...YMMV.

Go diving & enjoy the journey.....

[LCF]

Yes, Jim, that was part of the problem, because my instructor wanted me to change some basic things in my technique, so I had to bring stuff up to conscious though that hasn't been there in a while.

But overall, one of my weakest points is SA, so I'd really like to figure out how to recognize when it's failing, and how to keep it high.

[Sludge]

I'd really like to figure out how to recognize when it's failing, and how to keep it high.

Unfortunately, it's one of those "when you have it you'll know it, but when you don't have it you don't know it." Kind of like the divers who say they aren't narced on air at 150'. They're narced, they just don't know they're narced.

Fortunately, the solution is MORE DIVING!

[caverkevin]

You could also improve with frequent use of visualization techniques. Where by you create mental imagery that is realistic as possible in your mind. View everything in both the first and third person. Meaning how it would look in your own eyes and from another point watching yourself. Practicing in this manner when not diving can help you improve diving technique. Which in turn would reduce the number of brain cells needed to do something. There by reducing task loading so you more brain cells to worry about other things. I used to spend hours just thinking about diving to help improve myself and it worked.

Cheers!

Kevin

[LiteHedded]

i tend to agree with everyone else. dive dive dive.
once those skills you're not comfortable with become second nature you'll be able to focus more on the dive and the team and less on buoyancy/finning/pulling etc.

[MORGAN]

It's all about task loading vs. familiarity.

I bet that like most ER folks you have great situational awareness at work, and are aware of everything that's going on in your department without having to think about it. If you are like me, during your first shifts in the ER it seemed like total chaos. Years later, it seems quite organized and easy to keep track of even when it's busy. The same thing will happen with your diving.

I have noticed that when I add to my task loading my situational awareness (and everything else) seems to suffer. 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.

Mike