Knowing when to quit

I have had a very busy few days and consequently not written too much on here for a while. Meanwhile I have been introduced to Facebook which is kind of fun, please have a visit as Orca is also present.

Last week I worked in Bristol with two trainee Divemasters running through a skill circuit. Ian was having a second crack with me on this having spent some time observing Open Water courses. The improvement was immense and Ian should be very happy with progress. Sadly my Nikon is dead so I can't show any of the evidence.

It is really surprising how much you miss something when it is not there. Just to make up for things I have added a couple of shots taken to show skill signals that I am using in the Divemaster skill guidance booklet.

The camera may not yet have gone to the scrapheap,but having tried to dry it out and store it in an airing cupboard the time has come to admit defeat and move on.

I am embarrassed to say I can't now recall the name of the second trainee, doubtless I will be reminded on Wednesday. Interestingly he was from the BBC and is doing the DM course in order to be able to dive at work. He was thrown in at the deep end in terms of skills as he had not been shown what was involved and he kept reminding me of this. Actually I am a great believer in establishing where a new DM student is before looking to develop. It is a little like understanding the raw material before you set to work. The challenge is that this can seem somewhat frustrating for the student.

What is also quite interesting is that here was somebody who has no aspiration to go on and teach. The DM course is a fantastic course and really does improve diver skills and understanding but the bias really is towards becoming an Instructor. I am an advocate of a DM course without this bias, maybe one day?

Over the weekend I was back in the deep pool doing another rescue. There is always the bit in the course where you need to cover post incident stress and issues such as failing to resuscitate. Any rescue attempt is good and if you try your best nobody can criticise you. Dealing with it at the time is not so easy but you have to, little bit like my dead camera.

They say the camera never lies but we all know that is a matter of perspective. I recall a very traumatic incident for me from when I was a Police Officer. A young lad had died and his mother had come to the mortuary to identify his body. Understandably she hugged her son and was distraught. The really tough bit was pulling her away because she couldn't accept that he had died. I was completely overwhelmed by the emotion of it all but I had to do my job and the lad was dead and that unfortunately was the fact.

I hope that none of my students ever have to deal with anything like this but if they do I hope they make sure they are not effected by what they experience and that they seek help. Once you have given up something that is it, it is over and gone.

Anyway here are some signals for you; can you identify them?