Failure is a Part of Learning

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In this engaging conversation, Chastity and Karyn explore various aspects of scuba diving, including the importance of refresher courses, initial diving experiences, handling equipment failures, and reflections on learning from failures. They emphasize the significance of muscle memory and practice in ensuring safety and competence in diving, while also sharing personal anecdotes that highlight the challenges and joys of being a diver.

Takeaways

• The opinions expressed are not a substitute for professional scuba instruction.
• Refresher courses are essential after a long break from diving.
• Muscle memory plays a crucial role in diving skills.
• Practicing skills in the water is necessary for competence.
• Equipment failures can happen, and it's important to stay calm.
• Diving experiences can vary greatly among individuals.
• It's vital to check your gear before diving.
• Panic can lead to poor decision-making underwater.
• Learning from failures is part of the diving journey.
• Diving should be a safe and enjoyable experience.

Chapters

00:00
Introduction to Diving Adventures

00:31
Reflections on Diving Skills and Training

03:29
The Role of Ego in Diving

18:40
Introduction to the Podcast and Legal Disclaimer

keywords scuba diving, refresher courses, diving experiences, equipment failure, diving skills, muscle memory, diving safety, diving training, underwater challenges, diving community, public safety diving

Transcript

Chastity Stern (00:21)
Hi Karyn. How are you today?

Karyn (00:22)
Hi Chastity. I'm good, how are you?

Chastity Stern (00:27)
I'm good. Welcome to Just Go Diving.

Karyn (00:31)
Thanks.

Chastity Stern (00:33)
Do you think there is a certain amount of time between going diving and then the next time you go.

 Should there be a specific amount of time where someone says you need to do a Refresher or a ReActivate before you should get back in the water? What do you think?

Karyn (00:51)
I mean, yeah.

I don't know, it's hard to say. I I'm trying to think like what's the longest that I've gone between dives. I mean, even like just being in the pool. I think the that I've gone was probably between when we went to Hawaii and then when I joined the dive team. And I can't remember how long that was.

Chastity Stern (01:13)
Right...

Karyn (01:15)
it

a year between Hawaii and when I got back in like in the pool with you guys.

Chastity Stern (01:17)
So do you think that the year's too long? Do you think that you felt like a solid, competent diver? No. Did you feel like you were starting all over again?

Karyn (01:30)
No. Not all over again, because I still like, can remember how to put the gear together and how to use it and stuff. And I, I mean, I think that like,

Chastity Stern (01:42)
Mm-hmm.

Karyn (01:46)
I mean, I haven't practiced them in a while, but I feel like all the skills we learned, I feel competent, but it's about the muscle memory. Even if you remember in your head, does your body remember what to do? That's, why it's important to get in the water often.

Chastity Stern (01:54)
Right.

Karyn (02:03)
Because you have to experience that like with your body. You can't just know in your head the right things to do. You have to actually do it.

Chastity Stern (02:14)
Yes. Perfect practice makes permanent. there is a prescriptive amount of time, right? It's six month, they say six months you're out of the water. You should do a refresher or reactivate. It is interesting because on this trip that I just went on...

Karyn (02:15)
Mm-hmm.

Chastity Stern (02:30)
You know, everybody was a solid diver. but some of them lived Minnesota and Maryland and they were probably not going to go on a trip, warm water diving in for like seven or eight months. I was like, Whoa. That seems like a long time, but I think it's really specific to the person.

Karyn (02:47)
Mm-hmm.

Chastity Stern (02:52)
Like if you're a Yahoo, you're just a Yahoo. if you don't know how to put your gear together, you probably don't know how to put your gear together. I think that if someone doesn't dive often, then they do forget how to dive? They don't forget how to dive, but they forget how to dive.

Karyn (02:55)
Right.

Mm-hmm.

Chastity Stern (03:09)
I've never been out of the water for an extended period of time, four months I think that that was during the very beginning of COVID, but I was fortunate enough to be able to get in a pool. I wasn't in ocean because they closed all the shorelines down, which was kind of crazy because there's a lot of COVID underwater, it was...

Karyn (03:14)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Chastity Stern (03:29)
One of the saving graces during COVID was that we got to go diving. We literally could just go diving and that's all we could do. My skills, just got better and better because we were going diving every single weekend because we couldn't do anything else.

Karyn (03:36)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Chastity Stern (03:54)
So let's go back to when you first decided to be a diver and then you did your pool and did you have trouble? Did you have any trouble with any skill in the pool? during your pool nights and any...

Karyn (04:10)
Do you mean when I was getting certified initially?

Chastity Stern (04:14)
Yeah, when you did all your pool skills for your did you feel like there was any one skill that hung you up? Like this is too much.

Karyn (04:21)
I don't think so. I do remember having a little bit of trouble with sharing air just because I kept doing things out of order. I kept taking my regulator out of my mouth before I would signal out of air. And then also, I have, I have learned that. Yeah. I did do that.

Chastity Stern (04:23)
No.

And have you learned not to do that now? Yes.

Karyn (04:44)
On one of my open water dives. Also, and you know what happened when I did that.

Chastity Stern (04:49)
I do know what happened when you did that.

Karyn (04:51)
I got my regulator shoved back in my mouth by a different instructor, not you. You would never do that.

Chastity Stern (04:57)
But I would do that, but in not so not quite like that, but I would do that. people don't know this, but I was your open water instructor. do you feel I could have taught you the skills

Karyn (04:59)
Not like that, No.

Yes.

Chastity Stern (05:14)
differently? When I did my open water certification. I am a NAUI instructor, but I started out as PADI and PADI calls their controlled emergency swimming ascent a CESA. And I took my regulator out of my mouth.

Karyn (05:24)
Mm-hmm.

Chastity Stern (05:34)
to do my CESA and I got mine shoved back in my mouth too. I don't know why I did it because I never did it in the pool. I just did it in open water. What's interesting is there was a younger guy in my class who was probably 19 years old and he did his before me and I didn't even see him and he did the exact same thing that I did.

So there must be something. I don't know what it is and I still don't know what it is. But are we as instructors not communicating? Don't take your regulator out of your mouth for any reason. I'm curious because a lot of people do during their open water certification. They take out the regulator for whatever reason. I'm not sure why.

Karyn (06:22)
Yeah, I don't,

I don't know. I don't think that that was anything wrong with the way you taught it or anything. think that for some reason, my brain just wanted to swap those two things, cause I was going to have to take it out to take the octo, but

Chastity Stern (06:33)
to take it out.

Mm-hmm.

Karyn (06:43)
I don't know, something in my brain just was like, okay, we're gonna do this thing, so let's just do it early so we can get it out of the way or something, I don't know. I'm gonna have to do it, let's just do it now.

Chastity Stern (06:48)
Let's do it.

Let's talk about just recently when you had to do that particular skill, but for real. but for real. So what did you do?

Karyn (07:01)
but for real.

I had my regulator in my mouth the whole time. I didn't take it out. I did not take it out until it was time to put your Octo in my mouth.

Chastity Stern (07:11)
The whole time.

Right. And do you think that that is because you've practiced that skill? Because you've built up that muscle memory or do you just think that now you're like, I'm not supposed to take this regulator out of my mouth?

Karyn (07:28)
You know, it may have been getting a regulator shoved into my mouth to teach me that because I haven't had that issue since. I mean, not that I've really had.

Chastity Stern (07:34)
Mm-hmm.

Karyn (07:37)
Anytime I've practiced the skills since then, I don't think that I've ever done it the wrong way like that again.

Chastity Stern (07:43)
Yeah. So I'm curious, was there a way I could have taught it differently or that was a bought lesson. Getting that regulator shoved back in your mouth in that kind of way. It was like, shit, that wasn't cool. But.

Karyn (07:50)
Yeah.

But fuck if I'm gonna do that again.

Chastity Stern (08:01)
Right, like maybe it works, I don't know. I was curious about that and how did your...

Karyn (08:04)
Yeah.

Chastity Stern (08:09)
Equipment failure, which caused you to have to go to the surface on my octo. 

How do you think that that played out? Were you prepared because you had done those skills and because you've practiced those skills? We talked about muscle memory.

Karyn (08:23)
yeah,

especially the signalling out of air, which you always taught to do it big.

Chastity Stern (08:29)
Yeah.

We're not going for pizza Guido.

Karyn (08:35)
Right. So do it big. You are chopping your head off. Like that's what I always think when I think about doing that sign. But yeah, I was like, I know exactly what to do. I'm going to give her this huge cutting my head off sign. But then after that, it was like, I don't know, I think my brain kind of, that's like about the point I went away.

Chastity Stern (08:40)
Hey

Yeah

They work.

Well, good thing I was present.

Karyn (09:01)
I know, it's a good thing. And how long did you sit there holding your Octo in front of me before I took it from you?

Chastity Stern (09:09)
Not long. I mean long enough for me to reach down and look at your console. I had it out, you did for like, maybe a second but it was there and you took it and up we went but not because we wanted to go up because

Karyn (09:14)
I feel like I just stared at it, like.

Yeah.

No, I did not want to and I didn't honestly even know that it was happening. I was just trying to, I mean, I was trying to stay calm, which I don't, I didn't do a super great job of that, I don't think. But I mean, I've replayed that over and over in my head and thought of how differently it could have gone if I hadn't had that panic.

You could have just quickly remedied the situation and we could have been on our way.

Chastity Stern (09:57)
But, we shouldn't have just continued, right? That's game over. That's the end of the dive. You have a problem, you go up. You don't like, it's not a big deal. I just had an equipment failure and I'm gonna keep on going.

Karyn (10:14)
But it really wasn't an equipment failure. It was me. It was a user failure. And you fixed it.

Chastity Stern (10:18)
But it, well, well, true.

But I did, but...

Karyn (10:24)
But if I hadn't been panicking, and if we hadn't started floating up immediately, would you have ended the dive?

Chastity Stern (10:31)
I, yeah, so what's interesting about that is in my mind for like a second or two when I gave you the stop, like I was like, stop, I was holding you and stop, but you weren't stopping. And I was like, stop. But when I reached back and turned your valve on, so this is, this is the, what happened. So Karyn gives me the out of air.

Karyn (10:44)
Mm-hmm.

Chastity Stern (10:57)
I turn around and I pull out my Octo because it's just muscle memory and it just comes out like just like it's got a life of its own. So I have it there and I look down at her console and it's doing all these weird things. It's showing all these weird numbers like five, seven, 14, 25, seven, back up to like 2000. And I'm like, this is not possible. I'm like, she's obviously not out of air. Something is wacky.

Karyn (11:20)
I was still breathing the air.

Chastity Stern (11:22)
Yeah, something's really wacky about this and this isn't something that I've ever trained and they don't train it. Maybe after somebody hears this, they'll be like, Hey, I think we need to add that to the standard. I think subconsciously this has to do with my public safety diving training.

I just think that my brain just immediately reverted back to safe. What's safe? What's safe? And so I just reached over Karyn's shoulder. I was holding onto her and I reached over her shoulder and I just turned the valve on. And I take 50% responsibility for not double checking her cylinder. making sure her tank valve was completely open prior to us getting in the water. I am, I'm always gonna be the first person to be like, shit, I didn't do that thing. But I didn't check it, which is strange that I didn't before we got in the water. Totally one of those bought lessons. As we got deeper, of course, that's how it works there was restriction of flow.

Karyn (12:15)
Mm-hmm.

Chastity Stern (12:32)
From the first stage and that's why the pressure was jumping around on the console display. So I just reached over and I just turned it on all the rest of the way on and it was probably like halfway and I just thought, wow, this is just really, really turning for a long time. And in the moment when I had my hand over your shoulder and I was turning the valve, I actually thought, we're fine to continue.

Then my smart brain kicked in and I was like, no, that's dumb. That's just stupid, because immediately after "that's a dumb thought" my brain said, Karyn's brain isn't in a good place. Your brain may be totally fine because this is how you're programmed, but Karyn's brain isn't programmed that way. As a public safety diver,

Karyn (13:16)
Right, right.

Chastity Stern (13:23)
And that is a very stark difference between being a recreational diver and being a public safety diver is that when the shit hits the fan, you don't panic. You just figure out what the problem is and you fix it and then you're fine. And if you are fine, you're fine.

You're going to go do the stuff and you're going to fix it. And if it had been my own cylinder I would have reached back and turned it on because I have done that. I have been on a dive boat where I had put my gear together and turned my air on and they came around and turned everybody's off for some stupid ass reason. I always check it now. And that was early on in my diving life. 

I jumped off of the boat and on the third breath, I was like, shit, somebody turned my tank off. I reached back and turned it on, which you should be able to do. Everybody should be able to reach back and turn it on and some people can, some people can't, but if you've not practiced that, then you're never going to do it.

Karyn (14:22)
Yeah.

Chastity Stern (14:31)
Being a public safety diver has taught me that there is no place for panic ever, for myself or for somebody else. But in that moment when I just reached over your shoulder, I think that's just what kicked in were all of the PSD skills that I have and they were just like, check the valve dummy. So I just checked it and then I was like, we should probably go up. But for a second, I thought, we're fine. I was totally fine. But I'm like,

Karyn (14:51)
You

Chastity Stern (14:59)
Karyn's not fine. It was obvious that you weren't fine because if you had been we would have remained close to the bottom. We would have remained in the water column and not on the surface, which is fine that we went to the surface. Although we... Yeah, although we, you know, potentially could have...

Karyn (15:03)
right.

Mm-hmm.

Well, I mean, it was kind of fine.

Chastity Stern (15:25)
Had some kind of injury or gotten DCS. I mean, there is potential for danger there, but we were all right. 

Even when we got to the surface, I was like, Karyn's not fine. We're fine. You're fine. I'm okay. You're okay. But you're not okay. Cause you said, "I'm physically okay, but I'm not mentally okay". And that is

Karyn (15:45)
Yeah. Yeah.

Chastity Stern (15:49)
Okay. I'm like sweet! 

I was just in the British Virgin Islands and had to take somebody else to the surface on my octo and I'm like Wow I've had these for four years and they have never gotten used by anybody other than myself. Now that's...

 I was like sweet and so it is an interesting thing because people go their whole entire

Karyn (16:04)
Well, now you got some practice and you know you're still proficient.

Chastity Stern (16:15)
dive lives and never take anybody to the surface on their octo. I was like I just got to do that twice in two weeks, but skills are skills and I'm happy to use mine.

But yeah I did think, that we could for a brief moment, that we could continue diving but then I was like no dummy you can't do that.

Karyn (16:34)
What if I was fine?

Chastity Stern (16:37)
I would have been able to interpret that you were, but you weren't. I have the luxury of having known you since you began diving. So I know how you appear underwater in a calm state and in a not calm state. But had you been with some random person, let's say you were on a trip and you just got an insta-buddy. They might've been like, I don't know what the hell is wrong with this ladyand they might've been like, yeah, we can totally go. Let's do the next 40 minutes!

I knew better. I knew that that was not your normal state and we needed to go up because you needed to get out of that environment.

We got to the surface, we were fine. I was laughing, because that's what I do. I towed you back to shore only because I felt that would give you a chance to just chill out for a sec. Instead of having to work, to surface a swim back. I was like you don't have to do the work. I'm good to do the work right now. So we then got in closer to shore and then we discovered some other crazy thing that was happening on the shore, which we wouldn't have been able to see had we not gone up and did the thing that we did.

Karyn (17:52)
New diver solo diving.

Chastity Stern (17:54)
Solo diving new diver and that's a whole "nother conversation. Like do you solo dive? In another episode, I've talked about failing.

Specifically someone that I know, who is also a woman, who doesn't fail well. It's a very humbling thing to fail, you're going to keep failing. It's just inevitable.
I failed a lot.

Karyn (18:26)
Listen I want to tell you what Colby said about failure today he said failure is just progress yet to be realized.

Chastity Stern (18:30)
yes.

That's

right.

Karyn (18:34)
Gosh, there's still so much to talk about.

Chastity Stern (18:38)
Bye bye.

Karyn (18:38)
Bye.

Chastity Stern (18:40)
And now for the legal stuff. The Just Go Diving podcast is intended for entertainment purposes only. The opinions expressed by the host and guests are not a substitute for professional scuba instruction. All scuba diving training and activities should be performed exclusively by certified scuba divers and strictly within the scope of their training and certification. Neither the host nor the guests assume any liability for injuries, damages, or other consequences

arising from the use of any information provided in this podcast.