The communication skills of the diving instructor

by Gerard Condal | 24/01/2018 | Skills

Diving can definitely be a personal challenge. Scuba diving takes you underwater, a completely new context where you will have to learn again to feel relaxed and calm. Breathing under the water and feeling the weightlessness is a wonder, but it requires some patience and getting used to calm down in a new context. Also, the more relaxed you are, the more slow your breathing will be and the lower the air consumption. Therefore, you can enjoy more time underwater.

Especially during diving courses, but also in any dive, the communication skills of the diving instructor are key to create a climate of confidence.

To be a good diving instructor, it is recommended that you should:

• Provide relevant information and not lie: having all the information, both of the good points and of the possible weaknesses or risks, help to manage the expectations and to solve possible challenges during an immersion. Having the right expectations about the experience you are going to live generates confidence and helps you find a good way to react agains any difficult situation.
• Use a clear language: we need to convey the messages using clear and direct language to make it understandable. And we have to adapt it to the audience we have: it is not the same to talk with experienced divers, with people who are learning, individuals who put themselves in water for the first time, children…
• Reinforce nonverbal language: it is important that we control how we behave and communicate physically, so that it is aligned with our verbal message. We have to be calm, feel safe and show it to our audience.
• Show empathy: we have to place ourselves in our interlocutor’s mind and show understanding of their mood and emotions.
• Be humble and recognize that we do not know everything: we may be asked complicated questions or issues that we do not dominate. There is no need to invent the answer or presume certain knowledge we do not have. I don’t see any problem to say that the question can not be answered at the moment but it will be investigated to try to provide an adequate response as soon as possible.
• Give constructive feedback: there are likely to be skills or knowledge that need to be improved by the client. And obviously, by the instructor. Nobody is perfect Therefore, it is important to discuss about it and find ways to improve it. And it’s good to emphasize possible solutions to achieve a continuous improvement instead of feeling guilty or pointing somebody as the cause of a problem.

The power of the gaze underwater

by Gerard Condal | 22/01/2018 | Skills

One of the things that fascinate me most about diving and its teaching is the power of the gaze. We live in an accelerated society, where everyone looks to himself and in general, we have only few relaxed moments and not so much interpersonal contact. We do not look enough to eachother.

Looking at the eyes of a person, known or unknown, is sometimes difficult. The eyes are a great element of expression of emotions and mood. But often we are not able to hold our eyes on people, because we have the fear of showing too much about ourselves.

When we dive and are under water, one can not speak. And, even though any educational system in the world of scuba diving has its own signs to be able to speak with the hands, the eyes are a great source of information. Under water, especially during training, we look at our eyes. And through the observation of the eyes, the instructors can understand the overall state of the person: we can detect very good things, such as joy, excitement and enthusiasm; or things that alert us to give a tranquilizing response, such as fear, stress or anxiety.

Acting responsibly to respond to a look is a very enriching task that helps me to empathize and recognize the state of people in the water, which has a direct impact on improving this personal ability also outside the water. And the best of all is that this can also help you! Come to dive with me and check it out!