Bumper Sunday

Last weekend I had the pleasure of teaching Open Water over a weekend course. Actually I got to do all the fun parts as Gary covered the theory in the mornings while I did the Confined Water sessions in the Basildon pool.

The usual sense of friendly envy was felt as I met my three students for the Saturday session to be told that two were doing the course because they were flying off to Cuba on Wednesday. How I long for warm climes and a spot of warm water diving..........

John was on the course bought for him as a present and unlike my two South African friends would at least be going to Open Water in the UK.

I am always excited by the prospect of teaching a course over the weekend as it is such a different experience than doing it over several weeks. The skills and knowledge are all rammed so tightly together and as with most things that are done at pace it is easy to under deliver.

That said the students were excellent and they can all be very proud of their achievements. I am a great fan of getting things right the first time round. It really sets the picture in the mind that then governs how things are done time and time again. So this weekend involved a lot of visualisation as well as dry land practice.

On Sunday we were joined by Tom and Laura for session five. The pool suddenly had a very international flavour with Tom and Laura's mum and dad joining in we had four French divers, two South Africans and the normal smattering of Brits.





Diving is such a bond for people and I get enormous pleasure in seeing people of all sorts enjoying the same thing. When you dive you really don't have to worry about the complexities of verbal communications. Sign and body language are all you have to go on and while the students learn rudimentary signals I believe that underwater communication not only ignores language barriers, it also allows for a much deeper and more subtle art of communication to develop. Anyway I digress, all these student speak perfect English.

What I really meant to get on to was how good it feels to have a busy pool with people really enjoying themselves and having fun together. I always believe that when you are having fun you are learning better. So amongst the jokes and the songs, the banter and the play I hope that all five students have new skills and something worth remembering about how they learnt.

Finally I think it is worth admiring this first ever hover........................

Perfect.