Several skills that are not really being taught much by instructors anymore.
By Rusty Miller
Last week I mentioned there where several skills that are not really being taught much by instructors anymore. It’s not that theses skills are bad but do to equipment development they less common to the diver than in the past. Kind of like the manual transmission I spoke about in the last article, you just don’t see them much anymore.
Lets talk about buddy breathing, some of the younger instructors get this term confused with alternate air source breathing. They are two entirely different skill sets. I will try to explain this so you can see and understand the difference. Remember that buddy breathing is a skill that needs to be practiced over and over until it is second nature to you.
I first learned the technique of buddy breathing using the old double hose regulators, for those of you that have only seen the double hose regulators in old diving movies or television shows, or read about them on the internet let me explain quickly how they operate. When they where first invented they had a big round first stage that attactched to the tank valve with a similar type of system we have today. The two big 2-inch hoses came out of each side of the regulator and were joined to a big mouth piece with a type of bite piece to hold with your teeth. It was a very uncomfortable thing to have in your mouth but as you used it you got more use to it.
In the right hose the air would constantly flow while the left side had a one way valve for the exhaust breath. So if you removed the mouth piece out of your mouth it would continue to free flow air.
Now that you have a better idea of the system you learned the buddy breathing skill. When your buddy ran out of air and you have air in your tank he/she would come to you and signal in a cutting motion across their neck letting you know they where out of air, you would have them facing you and you would then take two breaths from your regulator and grab your mouthpiece with both hands (one on the right side and one on the left side) and roll it out of your mouth into theirs. They would take two breaths and you would roll it back into your mouth. During the buddy breathing while the regulator was out of your mouth you would exhale tiny bubbles like you do now when every the regulator is out of your mouth.
You did this while swimming to the surface at a quick but safe pace. Normally you would have to pull your J valve wire down because at that point you were down to 500 psi worth of air.
It’s a little easier with today’s regulators because you only have a single hose that you can hold while holding your buddies BCD to swim to the surface. Since we have an octopus we can let our buddy take it and not have to worry about trying to share the same regulator.
I still demonstrate the buddy breathing system to my students just so they can see alternatives in an emergency.
Next week I’ll clear it up a little more and tell you about other near forgotten skills we no longer teach.
Keep making bubbles.
-Russell Miller #59999
