What Skiers Can Teach Technical Divers

I guess the cold wind blowing the other night really brought back skiing memories.  I remember being in Steamboat Springs riding the chairlift all the way to the top and being greeted by a frigid cold wind blowing straight at me and kicking up the snow almost to a point I couldn’t see in front of me.  Of course once we skied down the ridge a little, it was a beautiful run with fresh snow.

One year when visiting Wolf Creek around Christmas time, we met a retired ski instructor.  His family would not let him drive anymore so his wife dropped him off every morning and picked him up in the afternoon.  I really wish I could remember his name because he taught me a lot about skiing and about life.
One morning, we all went skiing and he offered to help me with my turns.  We spent the next several hours skiing down the mountain making tight turns followed by some wide turns to loosen up the muscles.  The goal for me, was to stay directly behind him and follow his skies making the turns as tight as he did.  The object was not only to force me to make tight turns but to concentrate on staying the course and not getting frustrated and just skiing off on another route.

I have not skied for a while, but recently, I was working with a student at 288 Lake and he was having buoyancy issues.  New rebreather students generally do.  As we swam around the lake, I remembered my skiing lesson and I started using the same idea while swimming underwater.

Since local lake diving can sometimes get monotonous, you can use this same method to improve your diving skills and relieve your boredom during practice.  So, get together with you buddy and vow to follow one another through a series of turns in and around the rocks, tires, or other objects.  The targets do not really have to be at a point you can swim through, swimming over them works just as well.  Concentrate on making the turns without using your hands and without kicking up the bottom.  This forces you to refine your kicking style and your attitude in the water.  If you are “tail dragging” you will leave a silt cloud behind you.

Why do all of this?  By working on making tighter turns without using your hands, you will begin to develop a greater sense of control underwater and a better sense of where your feet, hands and head are during the dive.  This increased state of awareness and the highly refined swimming skills will make diving in caves or wrecks safer and more enjoyable.