is "never freedive alone!(!!)" safe?

[efattah]

Aquarius blue is quite right. Is your purpose to
A) reduce the number of world wide fatalities
or
B) absolve yourself of guilt

Option B is far more selfish, concerned only about yourself, and it has an easy stance; never dive alone, and if you do, it is YOUR FAULT YOU DIED, NOT MY FAULT.

I am more concerned about (A), reducing the number of fatalities; I don't care whose fault it is that someone died. If the death could have been prevented, it should have been.

 

[Mullins]

The "never dive alone" dictum is an important part of both options. Though it's not sufficient in either case and isn't universally applicable. Sometimes you only have the opportunity to get one simple point across and anything more complicated just won't be understood. In those cases NDA is probably still the best message (well, maybe alongside "don't hyperventilate"). When you have a captive audience who are prepared to listen to more complex points regarding freediving safety, obviously you're doing them a disservice if you don't give them a fuller account.

Don't confuse fitting the message to the audience with 'selfishly absolving yourself of guilt' - though that can and does happen too.

 

[esom]

Don't confuse fitting the message to the audience with 'selfishly absolving yourself of guilt' - though that can and does happen too.

exactly- it´s about the how. And i can not understand anything else from eric´s post

Sometimes you only have the opportunity to get one simple point across and anything more complicated just won't be understood. In those cases NDA is probably still the best message

is this saying something about the slogan and it´s worth or more about the problems of your hypothetical situation? i´d say second. though i see a growing number of contexts, that seem to force us to make one simple point*.

i think this forum shouldn´t be one of those contexts.



*this is a subject on its own, isn´t it? aren´t we heading right into problems of standarised and payed education?

 

[fcallagy]

Esom tbh we are 10 pages into this thread and I still dont know what its about.

1. There is information out there if you want to dive alone on this forum and others and its blindingly obvious dont push "it". "It" is a variable that depends on the persons physical state, mental state and the environment on the day so there is no way to say dive in this way alone and you can be safe. You cant.

2. Every freedive agency and anyone worth their salt will advise don't dive alone as its best practice. Sometimes in life its hard to practice best practice for whatever reason but as an agency you can only advise what is best practice not say as long as you do a or b you should be ok. Shoulds and maybe make for lawsuits.

Like I say still cant see what your driving to get at here esom but willing (ish) to go through till we find out?

 

[esom]

fcallagy,
i feel i have to guess, what this thread is about just like everybody else, because i´m just one of the contributors. i could illustrate single posts of mine which were written in a context of other post.

... maybe it´s much more simple: i consider the development of the use of "never freedive alone!" problematic. if this is actually the case, a discussion regarding this subject can be part of a positive evolution. in this sense the thread is not "about" something, but it is hopefully part of a positive evolution.
consequently, if you are convinced that the talk about safety is just fine, the thread i had in mind, when writing my first post has no topic.

 

[Ms Mer]

fcallagy,
i feel i have to guess, what this thread is about just like everybody else, because i´m just one of the contributors. i could illustrate single posts of mine which were written in a context of other post.

As you started the thread I would have hoped that you knew what it was about! :head

consequently, if you are convinced that the talk about safety is just fine, the thread i had in mind, when writing my first post has no topic.

Part of the problem Esom, is that you do not write in a way that makes it easy for others to understand what you are trying to say. Perhaps writing in a way that does not try to "academicise" the topic unnecessarily would mean that you would get your point across better and cause less frustration for others trying hard to understand.

 

[Simos]

Esom tbh we are 10 pages into this thread and I still dont know what its about.

1. There is information out there if you want to dive alone on this forum and others and its blindingly obvious dont push "it". "It" is a variable that depends on the persons physical state, mental state and the environment on the day so there is no way to say dive in this way alone and you can be safe. You cant.

2. Every freedive agency and anyone worth their salt will advise don't dive alone as its best practice. Sometimes in life its hard to practice best practice for whatever reason but as an agency you can only advise what is best practice not say as long as you do a or b you should be ok. Shoulds and maybe make for lawsuits.

Like I say still cant see what your driving to get at here esom but willing (ish) to go through till we find out?

Hi Feargus - I really hope Andy (esom) doesn't mind me putting words into his mouth here and I hope I can explain a bit more, at least in my understanding.

It's a tricky subject because it's not perhaps as 'obvious' or practical as others or with an obvious answer and to the point of Ms Mer, I find that expressing such ideas especially when English is not your native language can be tricky at times (Andy feel free to kick my a$$ if I'm stepping over the line here in any way).

I misunderstood the thread initially to be whether one should dive with a buddy or not i.e. whether the advice 'never freedive alone' is right or not - the thread naturally got side-tracked many times towards this directions but I am fairly sure this is not the original discussion here.

If you read back to the original post, Andy is posing the question on whether using the "command" Never Freedive Alone is in itself a safety risk. The point being that NFA does not allow the talk about 'real' safety or perhaps the 'real' reason on what causes freediving accidents and how they can be avoided.

So I guess this thread is about exploring how perhaps the same message (i.e. dive with a buddy) could be passed on but without eclipsing or stopping the real information from being communicated and discussed.

Consider this: someone is freediving alone, blacks out and sadly passes away. The truth is that the overwhelming response currently from us all will be 'he shouldn't have been freediving alone'. While it's true that if this person might have been alive if he wasn't freediving alone, for sure the reason he BOed in the first place is not the lack of a buddy (it might have been for example due to lactic acid). But the fact that there was no buddy will no doubt shadow any other discussion about how this person could have been safer.

Anyway, I'll leave it here as I might be going down the wrong route too...

 

[ThomasB]

I agree with your "analysis" Simos, he probably means something along the line:

"The point being that NFA does not allow the talk about 'real' safety or perhaps the 'real' reason on what causes freediving accidents and how they can be avoided."

and also complained about the "fact" he could not find any info about safety around ( he mentioned googling for it and finding no results).

I think this, and other site, are a proof he's quite wrong on both subjects. People talks about safety a lot, and the most common sentence around here to some beginner asking generally about starting freediving is "take a course" and "never freedive alone", because they are probably IMHO the best one liner you can give to keep someone on the safest side on a forum.

 

[Simos]

I agree with your "analysis" Simos, he probably means something along the line:

"The point being that NFA does not allow the talk about 'real' safety or perhaps the 'real' reason on what causes freediving accidents and how they can be avoided."

and also complained about the "fact" he could not find any info about safety around ( he mentioned googling for it and finding no results).

I think this, and other site, are a proof he's quite wrong on both subjects. People talks about safety a lot, and the most common sentence around here to some beginner asking generally about starting freediving is "take a course" and "never freedive alone", because they are probably IMHO the best one liner you can give to keep someone on the safest side on a forum.

I agree that 'Never freedive alone' is probably on balance the best single piece of advice you can give to keep someone safe Thomas but there is a point to be made that this advice does nothing to reduce the risk of an accident happening in the first place (possibly the opposite in some cases).

In some way it's a bit like advising people to always wear their seat belt when driving - it might be the best way to reduce casualties but it does not help whatsoever in reducing the number of accidents in the first place or understand why they happen.

The way I see it is that there are two things - preventing an accident from happening in the first place and preventing a fatality once this happens. Given that as proven even buddies cannot prevent fatalities 100%, we need to strike the right balance between focusing on preventing the issue in the first place and preventing a fatality in case there is an issue.

If focusing on the latter in a particular way detracts from focusing enough on the former then there is a problem; obviously it seems to be debatable (and i guess the point of this thread) whether the mantra 'never freedive alone' and the way it's used are tipping the focus too much on one end.

 

[esom]

@ ms mer: to me it´s direspectful towards the other contributors, to prentend to know, what the thread is all about -especially after 9 pages of discussion!

simos, not over the line at all. "real" causes of BO as a subject, is for me directly on the line, if one recognises that there is a connection of the way safety is talked and the way accidents happen. i agree fully.
about the "same message": personally i think it´s good to not play the fear game, so no, not the same message. but this is less important. i think it would be good, if some space is given for more realistic concepts than the 1 or 0 difference between buddy/no buddy, which is told to be most important. (see also laminars post!)
interestingly with loosening the yes or no, buddy or no buddy, making all the difference, it becomes possible to develop the buddy system itself, because divers can work on the difference between the two ways of (free)diving*. the two contexts have a huge potential of helping us sharpening our idea of freediving safety on a practical level by creating a second perspective onto the respective other way of diving. meaning: practical solodiving safety knowledge is a unique practial buddy diving safety knowledge and vice versa.


@ thomas:
regarding google: you confuse two different DB members!!! if you want to put shit on the things i wrote, please take a little more effort. also do not be shy to use the quote button. thanks
..."safest side on a forum" - same as my reply to mullins post: is this saying something about the worth of the golden advices or about the complex of problems of forums. i think we shouldn´t deny the second as we are the forum ourselves. i´m with eric here, to tell the golden rules and think this is the best way to cope with the complex of problems of forums, is done very much for our own conscience. there is need for this oversimplification, because we know -at least intuitively- that alone giving advice is highly problematic by itself. (as a potential in the communication)


*at the moment the difference often is set: unsafe - safe.

 

[ThomasB]

/.

@ thomas:
regarding google: you confuse two different DB members!!! if you want to put shit on the things i wrote, please take a little more effort. also do not be shy to use the quote button. thanks
..."safest side on a forum" - same as my reply to mullins post: .

My fault , sorry for the confusion, and Not my intention to put shit anywhere. I think it's simply unbelievable how you focus and complain about NDA as if it's the only concept talked about here. Get trained, inform yourself on the risk and how to avoid it, read the thousand pages about freediving safety on DB and never dive alone if you can and want to have help if any of the above goes wrong, what's so wrong with that it's still a mistery to me after 9 pages....
I

 

[Simos]

Thomas broadly I agree too - I don't see 'never freedive alone' as such a big issue.

Having said this, I have been thinking about this lately and particularly the following. Those familiar with climbing will be probably also familiar with free soloing - it's an extreme form of climbing with no ropes where if you fall, you pretty much die (rings a bell?).

I climb a bit and every now and then, like everyone, I take a fall (of course I wear a harness and use ropes, so I'm still here!). Sometimes (just because I know I am tied to rope), I go for a super hard move or try my luck with a dyno/jump.

I could be more conservative but I genuinely couldn't climb without falling - sometimes I just get overly tired and I can't hold on any longer.

The people that free solo, (almost) NEVER fall. Somehow they've worked out how to climb without falling, which is a skill/technique no climber I know has, no matter how good they are.

I believe it's undeniable that free soloists know more than other climbers on how to prevent falling. The point being that the lack of the safety mechanism has made them understand what it takes to climb a lot 'safer' (in terms of falls taken) than other climbers. (sadly of course a few of them are no longer with us)

If we could potentially find a way of understanding and mastering the techniques needed to almost eliminate the BOs (like the free soloists) while at the same time having a buddy it would be ideal but for sure, the focus on 'never freedive alone' and buddy system, while necessary, must at some degree slow down the development and sharing of even safer, BO-preventing techniques/training.

Not much we can do about this (climbing without harnesses/ropes is not the answer!) but good to be mindful on how we could approach this in order to also still promote the further development of the right prevention techniques.

 

[ThomasB]

I don't know simos, I think some people have more skills, training, dedication, talent and luck than other. I don't think manolo started climbing without rope or maybe he did but sure as hell he knew a single mistake could cost him his life. I'm not surprised either will t. Can do static at 50 meters unassisted but then again he surely trained for years and he's not the average freediving joe.
I would not tell anyone to do what these two guys do or imitate them since they are way ahead of anyone in what they do and even knowing how they achieve it would not be enough for 99% of humanity to replicate...
I see an amazing effort in the freediving community trying to figure out how to advance in the sport in term of safety and therefore logically in terms of performance(how many sports have forum line this with the best sharing basically every details of their routine?) I do not believe never freedive alone has, is or will ever be an obstacle to that.

 

[Siku]

I always dive with buddies, so I'm always diving in the presence of other freedivers.

It's other freedivers that have taught me about BO preventing techniques, relaxation, surface intervals, etc.

In this way I think NDA does indirectly encourage the development and sharing of even safer, BO-preventing techniques/training.

 

[Kars]

Ok just another addition from a neuron-linguistic point of view.

"never freedive alone" is a bad choice of words because people's subconscious does not register the negative never, not etc. The subconscious reads: "freedive alone".

From an NLP subconscious perspective one needs to word things in a positive way.

"Freedive Always With a Buddy" therefore is much better then "Never Freedive Alone".

You also see that the proposed phrasing feels much better and is much more digestible, acceptable to people.

---
another side branch discussion.

Freediving.

And then there is the apparent contradiction inherited in the word and practice of Freediving.
I think it boils down on our definitions of the words, freediving, breath-hold-diving, apnea diving, etc.

How do you define these?

 

[esom]

started this today morning, before kars´ post was online...

I always dive with buddies, so I'm always diving in the presence of other freedivers.

It's other freedivers that have taught me about BO preventing techniques, relaxation, surface intervals, etc.

In this way I think NDA does indirectly encourage the development and sharing of even safer, BO-preventing techniques/training.

very good point siku. for me the question would be, what else do we learn from our fellow divers,that is operative in a safety context- apart from practical safety knowledge*?

the answers that come to my mind** are all giving reasons, why this could also be a warning: "you never freedive alone!"
because this warning would be told by someone , it´s just meaning itself and by this hardly good for something. one glimpse or a gesture which is not seemingly extracted from a person like a spoken rule is, could tell what is actually ment***

sure, the slogan "NFA"! is always part of a actual safety talk, and this actual talk is necessarily proving the potential, that collaborative work has.
on the other hand: a command as a symbol for collaborative work? i believe there are wordings which make it more easy to be truthful in this respect. siku, you ment collaborative work, didn´t you? if you ment the right rules given by someone, whom your safety consequently is depending on, "NFA!" is just great, because it sums up exactly this in an uncomparable and double fashion (you need someone else to be told "NFA!", as well as you need someone else to be reasonably safe while diving).

still i like your logic a lot somehow. it´s base as you told is:

I always dive with buddies

because of this "NFA!" makes no sense in a community like this. "we always freedive with a buddy" puts it together much better, doesn´t it? this would reflect, that it´s stated by someone who is part of a apnea diving community, that cares about safety, that the their safety is connected to the technique of observing each other and consequently, that developing this technique is integral part of the community. at the same time "we always freedive with a buddy" would be told by someone, who decides to be part of "WE" and also would imply that he/she agrees to a way of freediving, which the self given rule is adapted to.
i´m inclined to underline the second part of the last sentence, but am too shy at last...




*i´m speaking of a practice not of a knowledge-the knowledge i mean is integrated
** a freedive is..., meaningful is..., good enough is... and so on...
*** something like: "i´m easy. i have full trust you are too, this is why the warning is meaningless to us".

 

[esom]

I think it boils down on our definitions of the words, freediving, breath-hold-diving, apnea diving, etc.
How do you define these?

cool you pic it up kars, actually this was ment to be my main point in the thread starting post and also my latest one: "never freedive alone!" is derived from a freediving definition. BUT "never freedive alone!" gives a definition too. this itself gets safety relevant, when "NFA!" is used generally and disconnected from a choosen way of freediving.
arguments for the last point were posted earlier...

 

[esom]

very good point siku. for me the question would be, what else do we learn from our fellow divers,that is operative in a safety context- apart from practical safety knowledge*?

the answers that come to my mind** are all giving reasons, why this could also be a warning: "you never freedive alone!"
because this warning would be told by someone , it´s just meaning itself and by this hardly good for something. one glimpse or a gesture which is not seemingly extracted from a person like a spoken rule is, could tell what is actually ment***
/QUOTE]

EDIT: this got too complicated. i wanted to reply to Siku, that a slogan pointing at the social context of freediving, on the one hand stands for social mechanisisms enhancing safety, on the other hand for social mechanisms, that can be considered dangerous.

 

[Siku]

I just wanted to point out that NDA enforces diving in a group. And being part of a group, a culture, encourages the flow of safety info.

You ask an interesting question:

What else do we learn from our fellow divers, that is operative in a safety context- apart from practical safety knowledge?

One thing I remember learning and being very impressed by on my very first dive was how relaxed and cool the good divers were in the water. And it was infectious. I forgot my fears, banished panic, had fun and trusted them. One girl in particular, brash and a bit hectic out of the water, became as solid and reassuring as a light-house.

Since observing this I've actively tried to cultivate an 'in-water demeanour' that emanates trust and reassurance.

 

[Kars]

I believe the safety consists of much more then just mantra's, knowledge, peer pressure, following orders, thinking logical, being safety conscious, etc. I think it mostly comes down to the individuals attitude. This attitude is a result of his past and his current environment.

People who have dangerous habits often have a matching attitude. I think we can only help these people outgrow this attitude if they want it themselves. Empathy understanding and their needs matching solutions can help these people at times. Sometimes their ways are very deeply rooted and change is far away. Then my question is how do we treat these people?