FIT Level III...

Overall I struggled in the course. But I learned a lot, it just took awhile to get my head straight and appreciate it. Not having a lot of opportunity to dive, I wanted to take the first day of open water to get comfortable. Unfortunately FIT has the activities all planned out. I could have stepped back and taken the time I needed to get comfortable, but I just went for it. I had trouble getting the Diving Reflex to kick in.

The second day, same thing. I went through the motions of what we were covering, but I could not get to the stages I needed to in order to do the drills. I never felt the reflex come in. I was getting frustrated with myself and could not get comfortable. I decided to ask about my discomfort in the water. It wasn't the water or being in 500' and not seeing. It's everything that goes on around the floats. I was bumping into people and felt I was in the way. So I asked Martin and Paul about surface edict. I think that helped a lot to put me at ease. I must say my classmates were a big help with that as well. Tony and Jared have both spent some time on the floats and were able to help me out some.

A brief note about my classmates. They were all very cool people to be in class with. It's not just the great instructors that made the class, it was also the collection of people that enjoy the sport and clicked well as a class.

The instructors, what can you say diving with two pro divers in Martin and Niki. When they go to compete, I feel like I will be there with them. Paul is just Paul. I may not know how to take him at times, but he is always supportive and knows his diving and a great teacher also. The FIT staff are great friends.

Day 3 was good and bad all in one day of diving. The waves were rolling, but that did not seem to bother me. I was comfortable. Everything felt really well on the surface and during the dives. I went through the warm-up and I felt the reflex come on. So I went to another 10m pull-down. I hung out there for 2 minutes with no contractions. I started feeling nauseous, the heat and waves were working on me. I did one more pull-down as I wanted to get off the surface. This pull-down was to 20m and felt really really good. I just sat there and counted the weights and thought about nothing. I let the waves pull me back to the surface, I let the weights sink and as they started to rise I grabbed the line. As I broke the surface, that motion sickness hit me again. I hung in for one more dive. I wasn't feeling well, I just wanted to get underwater. But even at 10m the feeling was still there so I surfaced and called it a day.

Day 4 was more frustration. I stepped back and just tried to repeat the previous day. I think I was trying too hard and put too much pressure on myself. Nothing went well.

Overall, the class was of course worth it. All the fine tuning and tips gained will take me far. We were told from the start that what we were learning would not give us the big gains Level II did. That was all well and good, but I still put pressure on myself to do better. I think I beat myself as far as results in the water. But I have all the knowledge I need, not I just need time in the water and use the tools I have been given. Just like anything else....practice, practice, practice.

Last thing about the class. Wreckrunner, thanks for making the sacrifices you did to make the class. I would have had fun either way, but you deciding to go made it a lot better. Thanks for all your help. I tried not to take advantage of your profession to much