BSAC Talk - Continued Training
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SAFETY TALK - OCTOBER 2006
Training Opportunities
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Gaining more experience is an essential part of the process but it is always better to build this experience on a sound foundation of skills learnt in a controlled environment.
There are lots of different ways in which those skills can be gained, not just through formal diver training to the next higher grade but can be through a mix of through dedicated Skill Development Courses to learning to becoming an Instructor to pass on your experience.
Usually such training involves a mixture of Theory and Practical lessons and there is nothing more distracting than trying to do theory lessons when the sun is beating down and the water looks so inviting but now the nights are closing in it’s the perfect time to consider the next step.
Dennis Wigg (NDC Services Group Leader) |
Diving is a sport where I feel we are all constantly learning and developing our skills and experiences. How many times have you gone to a site where you have dived before and been convinced it was a completely different site?CONTINUED TRAINING
Now is the time to start thinking about what diving you want to do next year. Time to reflect on what dives you have enjoyed most this year and would like to repeat or extend and what didn’t work as well that you might like to change next time round. It may be that you want to explore more and deeper wrecks or take up photography to capture the images you see on a dive in a more permanent way than relying on just you memory. However you decide to expand your experience it is best done with improved skills and training.
Training can take many forms ranging from the formal to the informal. As all instructors know you are always learning and they are fond of saying “the day you think you know all there is to know is the day to give up.‿ As a consequence of this instructors are almost always teaching and sharing their experiences even in the pub after a training session or a dive.
Diver Grade
The obvious starting consideration for most divers is what does further training allow me to do that I can’t do now. In the context of Diver Training to the next higher grade the common consideration is increasing your depth limitations. However, the key aspect of advancing your diver grade is usually the additional skills that allow for that safe progression to increased depth. For example it is the achievement of skills in use of an SMB, deployment of a delayed SMB, navigation using pilotage, compass and distance lines to ensure safe return to a fixed datum, simulated decompression stops that are essential skills to be gained before progressing your depth experience beyond the 20m limit for an Ocean Diver.
Skill Development Courses (SDC)
Skill Development Courses form discrete training, typically either one or two days leading to a formal qualification in a specific area. This could be to enhance diving safety through nitrox, rebreather or rescue skills training, develop diving skills through courses such as search and Recovery or Dive Marshalling or to expand areas of specialist interest such as seamanship, marine life identification or archaeology.
Instructor
Already highly skilled? Time to consider passing on your skills to others. BSAC Instructor Training not only teaches you how to pass on your skills and knowledge to others but also provides a means to constantly analyse and update your own skills. Developing a formal approach to critically analyzing, assessing and reviewing skills is a very good way of self improvement and the need to constantly demonstrate those skills provides constant practice whilst contributing to the development of new divers and providing you with a constant stream of new buddies to dive with.
The best news about thinking about this now is that there is still plenty of time to get some more diving and training in before the end of the year or before the waters cool down too much.
Think SAFE - Dive SAFE
Any suggestions for further items for inclusion would be welcome and can be made to divesafe@bsac.com
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Register for Updates To make sure you recieve a direct notification of each months topic for SAFETY TALK as well as other information about important BSAC changes, new BSAC services and BSAC benefits please register for the BSAC MAILING LIST |
Page last modified: 31st Jan 2008 - 15:25:32