My Open Water Diving course - part 2 of 2

Me in diving gear

There’s nothing quite like that moment when your head bobs under the surface of a 20 metre deep lake. Your jacket deflated, you know there will an inevitable moment when you sink under. And it’s not even up to you when you come back – it’s all in the hands of the teachers. You mind is fighting it even as you sink, and you hope that it is really only a swimming pool you’re sinking into. Then the water closes right over the top of your head, and you’ve done it.

This experience was one I was determined would be a part of my personal growth, the combination of fear and the knowledge that I was going to overcome any fear that decides to take a ride on my back. As those who already follow my blog know, last week I undertook the first part of the Open Water diving course, which qualifies you to dive down to depths of 18 metres. Well, this weekend was the meaty part of the course – the actual open water section. In good old Britain that means that it was cold, it was deep and the visibility was almost nonexistent. Swim two metres from your diving buddy and you would have to come up for air before you found them again. This means that I stuck like glue to my teacher for the weekend, Bobby.

We arrived at 8am that morning (some of us having lodged over at a hotel, and others driving up in the morning), and all the kit was quickly laid out all over the grass at our chosen spot. The boxes that we had before were laid out ready. The wetsuits were actually dry for the one and only time of the whole weekend. If you know about diving then you know that this means they were an absolute bugger to put on. The first time I went to the changing room and began to gamely tug myself and my clothing about trying to contort myself into a wetsuit, I’m sure that the yoga community would have been proud of me. To make it even more interesting, there were actually two to put on, a long one and a short one. I saw another girl in the changing room who had a sleeveless wetsuit and a short jacket over the top. It made me feel very glad for what we had. In true preparation mode, 2Dive4 had actually brought along hoods and gloves for use in the water as well, which definitely felt necessary. Although the temperature on top of the water ranged from 12-15 degrees Celsius, once we had descended a few metres it felt decidedly cooler. I discovered a cool trick with my hood. It warmed up the water inside it, so when I equalised it blew open slightly and a rush of warm air swirled about my head.

The lake

After an initial briefing to let us know what we should expect from the first dive (basically, not a lot, as we just needed to get used to being in an open water environment) we were split into two groups and advised to get ready to dive! I was in the first group, along with a couple of other students. With the cylinder weighing the same as a small herd of horses (I imagine), I trudged with no small difficulty across the grass to where we were going to enter the water. The lake is pretty cool to look at. The sun shines across it, and there are a little gaggle of geese marauding around claiming their spoils of war (everyone’s sandwiches). This means that the grass in front of the lake has an abundance of goose poo to avoid as you walk. Still, I managed to avoid it all, I think, and carefully stepped down the metal steps to the entry point. I was relieved to hear that we would be doing giant stride entries all weekend, so I didn’t have to relieve the horrible backwards entry that I did last week. The thing I always forget to do as I step up to the water is inflate my BCD! It is only a matter of time before I shoot like a missile down to the bottom of whatever body of water I’m diving in.

In the water, I instantly feel the rush of the cold water, followed by a rush of panic. To check your weighting, the instructors make you dump your BCD air so that you start to descend. I had a terrible fear that I was going to just go right down, and I would be at the bottom without anyone else there. So I did quite a lot of flapping and finning and gasping before I managed to collect myself. When we descended, we went over to a rope that you can hold as you descend. This means that if you are not used to controlling your descent rate, it allows you to go slow enough to equalise your ears. Equalising is much easier in the lake! I was having difficulty at less than 2 metres in the pool. In the lake I was submerged down to 12 metres and I was fine! We each descended with our instructors, and landed on a little wooden platform that was set at 7 metres depth. I wanted to look up, but that was risky. If I panicked, then I couldn’t simply shoot straight up to the surface. So to control my fear I kept my head low, and knelt on the platform, letting all the air out of my BCD. Once everyone was down, it was time to have a little swim. And by a little swim, I mean we literally swam in a circle around the platform. I tried my hardest to keep my arms in front of me and not wave them about too much. I was making sure that I could see Bobby all the time. After we had a swim about, we floated near a horizontal rope, and practiced swimming straight holding the rope. I kept rising upwards any time I let go of the rope. Bobby later told me that it was because I was orientated diagonally and not horizontally. In the future I should stick my bum in the air to swim straight! After a short time I did dare to look up, and I could see the sunlight dappling on the surface overhead. I could see that it was actually really close. Then I relaxed a little in the water.

After some time swimming about, we made an ascent to the surface and did a couple of skills. Just as in the pool, we had to prove we could swap from regulator to snorkel and back again underwater. The second skill was the tired diver tow, in which I basically had to drag someone over the water (ever so slowly, so as not to tire yourself out) using their cylinder to grip onto. Then it was the turn of the second group, who were congregating on the edge of the entry point. As soon as I got out and had stripped down my kit, I went and got changed into my normal clothes immediately. They had told up that we would likely have about two hours between dives. Definitely enough time to make a change worthwhile. Although it meant that they had to wait for us to get back in the gear before each dive, it also meant that they didn’t have to drag us out of the water in the early stages of hypothermia. So...every cloud. I availed myself of the hot chocolate on sale. I am fairly certain I almost entirely depleted their hot chocolate stocks whilst I was there. I drank about five cups per day, and it is only a little machine. It was very nice, but whether due to reality or just due to the circumstances post dive I’m not sure. The bar inside sells food and drinks, and is right next to a cool little dive shop. Round the back of this building is an area where you can place your cylinders to be refilled. You place them in the empty section, and like magic they reappear full over the other side! Okay, well there was a slight time interval – it’s entirely possible someone just picked them up and filled them. Bah. The magic is gone now.

Getting kitted up and ready to dive!

When everyone was done we had a little dive debriefing about what we had just done, and it wasn’t long then before we were being briefed for the second dive! This one of course was not as nice as the first dive, and was the beginning of the scary underwater skills bit of the second weekend. Two of the skills that we had were the horrible mask skills. The first one is a partial flooding and clearing of your mask. I did the flooding very delicately and deliberately, and must have got about a cm of water in the bottom of each eyepiece on the mask before clearing it. Then came the full flooding. Yup, the one I freaked out over in the pool. I breathed a couple of times, and then pulled the top of my mask away. I cleared it. But Bobby didn’t give the ok signal. She gave the repeat signal. Again, I pulled my mask away and water went in. But when I cleared it the second time I realised what I was doing wrong. I wasn’t actually doing a full flood; but a wimpy half flood again. The third time with determination I yank the top of my mask, and this time there was no doubt. The whole thing filled up, and I hadn’t had the wherewithal to close my eyes beforehand this time. Argh! Closing my eyes I gave a short snuff out of my nose, but since I wasn’t pressing my mask it was to no avail! I opened my eyes expecting clear mask and it was full of water still! Blurred vision shimmered in front of me. Panic rose, and I executed a full body twitch as I could not decide whether to try and break for the surface. But no! With determination, I tried a final time to clear it, and this time I got most of it out. When I opened my eyes again I thought for a moment that I was being told to repeat it, and I shook my head, vehemently refusing. But lucky me, it wasn’t that! I was just being told to clear the remaining water.  Unfortunately I have developed an almost pathological fear of mask removal or flooding now, it was so unpleasant. But turns out I’m not the only one! One of my friends who has done the course and a girl I was chatting to in the waiting room both told me that they actually rushed to the surface during the drill as they inhaled air through their nose. After this we had a few more skills to rattle through. We had to demonstrate the buoyancy control from the pool, both raising/lowering on our knees and floating horizontally. We also had to do the out of air drill with our instructors, both ways. I was okay at giving the signal and breathing from her regulator. However, she did the signal to me a few minutes later, and I completely failed to register what she was asking! I only realised when she did it a second time. I have really got to get my brain on the ball. In a real situation of course that person would probably have taken mine from my mouth.

After the skills we got to explore the lake a little bit more! There is a short rope down from the 7 metre platform, and it leads to a submerged bus! Yup! Well, why not. There is apparently all kinds of random stuff submerged in the lake for the trainees to see (as it is a training lake). The bus is slanted diagonally, almost (but not quite) propped up on one end. We swam all the way round this bus, holding on the glassless windows of the upper deck. Little fish flitted in and out as we swam.

This was the end of the dive unfortunately, although there was a small sense of relief that I was definitely going to be alive for another day! It will take me a while to get used to being underwater and relaxing there, I think. But it will be worth it for all the amazing things you can see in the waters of the world! After a couple more hot chocolates and a debriefing, I was dropped off at my hotel to relax for the night. I went to bed at 7pm and slept for eleven hours. Man, diving is tiring! And I hadn’t finished yet!

The second day

Bright and early the next morning, we were back at the dive site and raring for more! The temperature had dropped by a couple of degrees, and there were substantiated rumours that a storm was due to arrive at some point during the day. I was just hoping that we would get all the diving done before then! A couple of the teachers had changed due to other commitments, but I was pleased to see Bobby was still there. I confided to her that I felt really scared about the upcoming mask skills. She said that I should do them in a slow and controlled manner, over about six seconds, rather than trying to rush them and getting panicked. She was due to be diving with me, so I know she would help me!

The instructors

But that wasn’t the first skill of the day. Before we got in the water, we had to turn how to navigate outbound and reciprocal headings with a compass. I have to admit I haven’t really had anything to do with compass navigation before, so this was all new to me. But it seemed fairly straightforward! You set your heading and keep the arrow in the right place, and you can’t go too far astray. We all did a practice run in the car park with a coat over our heads. I wasn’t far out from the point! We had used a different entry point today, and I noticed that a bar on the edge of it slightly jutted out. Which meant my giant stride was extra giant! Once in the water we had to do this with our heads in the water using the snorkel, and navigate to a black buoy in the distance. Then we had to set a reciprocal heading and make our way back. Next we had to descend down, but this time we weren’t allowed to use a rope to aid our descent. Using Bobby as a guide for how fast we were supposed to be going (I think the general rule is not so fast that you cannot equalise), I made it to the platform. Then we did the navigation underwater as well. It didn’t go too badly, I don’t think. Then we knelt on the platform, and let all the air out so that we were steady on our knees. I knew what was next, and I was right. I got the signal to perform another mask flood. As soon as she gave the signal, my heart starting hammering ten to the dozen, and my breaths became short. Bobby counted to six on her fingers, reminding me to control the speed of the task. I took a few slow breaths to calm myself, and then flooded the mask, fully. I wasn’t going to mess about with any more accidental half mask floods. I thought: Do it once and do it right! Head down and eyes firmly closed, I pressed the top of the mask and breathed out decisively through my nose. When I opened my eyes the water was almost entirely gone! Just a tiny bit left to clear, no problem. I got a big double okay, and an underwater dance of celebration from Bobby, which I joined in with! But I hadn’t forgotten what was coming up later – the full mask removal.

Ready to descend

We had a little bit of a swim about, as I had begun to get cold. Then we had to do a Controlled Emergency Swimming Ascent (CESA), which involves swimming to the surface whilst continually breathing out. The point of it is to prevent your lungs over expanding due to the rapid ascent. You’re supposed to make an Ahhhhh sound as you ascend to control the rate the air leaves (and make sure you still have breath left up until the surface!). I imagined the Tetley tea advert (yes, I know it existed before then, but that is my reference), and sang “A lovely daaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay” all the way up! Even doing this I was still about two metres under every time I completely ran out of breath. Another student later told that he didn’t think I was actually kicking with my fins! Hmmm, yes maybe that would have made a difference. Oopsy. Finally managing it, I breached the surface and immediately had to inflate my BCD orally. It took about ten puffs of air from me, and eventually I managed it, and was happily floating.



Surface skills

Then came literally the most exhausting drill of the whole weekend. We had to take off and replace our BCD on the surface. When you think that I had 6 kilograms strapped around my waist, accidentally letting go of it would mean a not so slow trip to the bottom of the lake, sans regulator. So I held it in no less than a death grip as I made various clumsy attempts to sit on it , pin it under the water and get my arms back in. It bobbed and weaved all around me for what felt like at least ten minutes. Finally, drained, I managed to get it back on and tighten all the straps. After that, the weight belt removal felt like an ice cream on a Summer’s day. I remembered almost tripping backwards as I came out of the water. I was absolutely bursting. Desperate to shed my gear, I formed a little trail of abandoned items as I emergency dashed to the toilet.

We had the same amount of time in-between the dives to recuperate. So I had had chocolate and sandwiches aplenty by the time the second (and final!) dive came. This was the dive that we really got a lot of depth, and a fair bit of swimming around and exploring! But before that was the dreaded mask removal. I’m sure that Bobby got me to do it early as she knew I just wanted to get it out of the way! She gave the signal for mask off, and I started to prepare. I thought it through. I remembered what it would feel like. I wondered if it would get stuck on my hood. I wondered if I would drop it and lose it. Thumb in the nose pocket, I remembered. Whilst all these thoughts were running through my mind, I must have taken at least another thirty breaths from my regulator. And something that I was so grateful for – I wasn’t rushed or hurried at all. She just sat and watched me and didn’t do anything. Then...BAM! Off the mask came, and the first thing was not to rush to get it back on, but to take a couple of breaths from the regulator. I wonder if my mind has forgotten it slightly to cushion me from the reality of it. But before I knew it, the mask was back on, and half cleared. An automatic response. I remember blinking through the remaining water in the mask and seeing the double okay that meant, thank fuck, I didn’t have to repeat it. Now, having talked a lot about how much I disliked the mask skills, they are extremely necessary. Imagine your first mask flood being on a recreational dive at 30 metres? Imagine panicking and trying to surface from that? I can definitely see why they are necessary. As long as your regulator is in your mouth, there is absolutely no problem.

Now for the fun stuff! We got to do loads of swimming about on this dive, so I was concentrating on my positioning and my arms. I did get an odd sort of panic attack near the end at the bus. When suddenly my brain announced “You do know you’re underwater?!” (I’m imagining a sort of upper class voice). I had to take a few breaths whilst gripping the bus and calm myself down. I imagine Bobby was a little confused as to what was happening as she kept flashing the okay sign, and I didn’t respond. Eventually I got it together and flashed okay at her. I guess that is what it is like when people have panic attacks? Just a feeling that you need a lot more extra effort to breathe. At the end of the dive we did a safety stop – at an underwater pool table! How epic. There were no pool cues anymore, but there was one very waterlogged tennis ball, and a frying pan that was a poorly chosen Frisbee substitute. After the safety stop we surfaced.



Open Water qualified!

Out of the cold water I went! Back to my dry clothes and hot chocolate. In total this weekend I spent over 2 hours underwater, and I learned a lot. Now I can’t wait to put this into practice and head out to Australia to meet my best friend. Together, we’re going to dive out there. It should be amazing! But I won’t forget the UK waters...I think I’ll just wait until they’re a bit warmer again.

Flatt7

My Open Water Diving course - Part 1 of 2

 

Swimming around

This past weekend, I undertook the first part of the Open Water Scuba Diving course. The idea of being able to undertake and master such a complex skill, along with the adrenaline of diving and the beauty of seeing different underwater environments, really appealed to me. So a few months ago I dropped a few hundred pounds, and signed up to the course!

This first weekend, the mornings are spent going through the theory of scuba diving, and most importantly, the safety aspects. This includes various concepts such as nitrogen accumulation,  air compression and expansion, no decompression limits (the amount of time you can spend at a particular depth before you would need decompression stops to safely ascend without getting decompression sickness), procedures for out of air emergencies and first aid priorities. This information is a very important part of the course, as without it, you wouldn’t have the background to really understand why certain scuba diving rules are in place. Plus, it takes place in a room with plenty of tea, biscuits and oranges! This of course is never a bad thing. The first day we had the added advantage of a bouncy (and slightly windy) black Labrador called Scuba wandering around the classroom, and making sad eyes at us whilst we ate biscuits.

The theory part

But of course nothing can be all theory. So after a few hours we all headed off for the swimming pool, in which we had lanes booked to try out diving for real! The first thing we had to do in the pool was jump straight in and swim eight laps nonstop! This was to test out fitness, and ensure we could actually swim. After we had finished we had to tread water for ten minutes. This bit was fun and easy! There is nothing better than the jump into water unencumbered. It was a bit different once all the dive equipment was strapped to me! Afterwards we had to learn how to set up and dismantle all of our equipment. This included the BCD (Buoyancy Control Device), the air cylinder, fins, mask and various bits of tubing that would help us stay underwater and, you know, not die there. Whilst we were standing there listening, I caught a sight of one of the other students looking a bit worse for wear. He stepped forward with a sway and announced:

“I don’t feel very well – very well at all!”

His face was bright red and he looked sort of unfocused. The instructor Jon sat him down, and he had to get some orange juice down him and eventually go home. Chatting to one of the other students about it, I think he had struggled a little with the initial swim, and it had made him feel unwell.

So now we were down to six, and it was time to get in the water and get kitted up. There is a wetsuit, boots, the BCD, the mask, fins and weight belt. It took a little while to get it all on, but finally we were ready to go! The first step was getting our faces in the water and ensuring we could breathe okay with our regulators. It took a while to all even get down on the bottom of the pool, especially as the student next to me kept rolling sideways into me, and I had to help stop her entirely rolling on her back! She was having some difficulty with the weights that were in the BCD. After this was the first of the skills. There are a lot of these to be covered within the course, and we seemed to do a lot of the scary ones today! The first skill was letting a small amount of water into the mask (just below the eyes) and then clearing the mask to remove the water. It is definitely a trick to get the hang of this one! My mask felt like it was constantly filling with water no matter how much I cleared it. After a quick change of mask it was much better and actually sealed to my face which I was fairly chuffed about! It still took a few tries to get the knack of the mask clearing though. We had to be able to easily find and replace our regulators if they were accidentally knocked out, so this was the next skill. Every time we took our regulators from our mouth we had to ensure we blew a little stream of bubbles the whole time. We have to develop the habit so that we don’t accidentally hold our breath when we are ascending, especially if we’re 20 foot underwater!

Practicing skills underwater

Then it was time for a little swim about. The first swim was a little iffy, as half the class was buoyed up at the top of the water, while the rest (including me) were scraping along the bottom having difficulty getting afloat. BCD control is a real skill, which I think would take quite a few dives to master. The second swim about went a little bit though, with a bit more practice, and some finning about! We all went in an ordered queue, so there was less confusion as well.

The final task of this first swim was practicing the ability to locate and use a partner’s alternate air source. I saw someone else doing it and trying to take a breath from the other side of the regulator (i.e., not the mouthpiece!), and determined not to do that. When it was my turn, I grabbed the instructor, signalled ‘Out of Air’, removed the regulator from my mouth and took his from the holder. Then we held arms whilst I breathed his regulator to simulate a buddy descent to surface.

By this time I was absolutely bursting for a wee, so thank god it was the end of the first swim. For some reason diving makes my bladder extremely unstable. I know how enriched I have made all of your lives now that you know that.

After a quick wee, and an undignified struggle trying to tug my wetsuit back up, I returned to the poolside for the second swim. Each time one swim officially ends we have a debrief on what happened in the water and how we did on our skills. Then we have to dismantle and set up our equipment. This gets lots of practice in so we have a clearer idea of what exactly we are carting around on our backs, and how to piece it together. We also had a prebrief before each dive so we knew the plan and didn’t have to rely too much on unintelligible underwater gesturing.

Now we got the chance to do a deep water entry (instead of simply sitting in the shallow end and putting on gear on like that). The first one to try was a giant stride entry, which we did from a rubber mat at the side of the deep end. Putting on all the heavy gear, I struggled to my feet and watched a couple of the others do their entries. It looked scary (mostly because I could imagine my other leg slipping and going ass over tit into the pool), but I knew that it should be a decisive movement. I stepped! And was in the water before I knew it. As I surfaced Ken gave me a little “Well done.” which I was pleased with!

There were a few more skills lined up to be practised. We hadn’t paid much attention to the snorkels attached to our masks thus far, but now we had to learn how to use them. Breathing through a snorkel is much more preferable if on the surface, as the air is not compressed, you don’t use your air supply but you still don’t have to hold your head up at the surface to breathe all the time. We practised swapping between regulator and snorkel underwater, and back. Sinking to the bottom of the pool, we learned how to orally inflate our BCD. It was bloody impossible taking off the pressure hose thingy, even though I was shown several times in the slowest mime the instructor could manage. Eventually he part undid it before I completely unscrewed it – so one to practice. When he let the air back out of his BCD it filled the water around our heads with a deluge of bubbles. When I let mine out, a short stream of maybe three bubbles emerged. Hmm.

Now we had to do more messing about with our masks. I can obviously see the reason for this, as it would be fairly rubbish if you were to go into a panic just from your mask being knocked off, but I hate it with a passion. It’s so unpleasant. We had to fill our mask right up with water, and then do the technique to clear it out. I was hyperventilating a little as I did this, which I’m sure Ken could see, but I managed it. After this step the next was, of course, to completely remove the mask and have it off for a full minute whilst we simply sat and breathed through our regulators. I thought I was going to freak, but I did manage to last quite a long time doing this. Whipping it off, I squeezed my eyes closed as the water swirled around my nostrils and tried to concentrate on the slightly panicked pace of my regulator breathing. After ten seconds I calmed a little and got into the rhythm of it. I opened my eyes. Everything was blurred around me, and I could only see the faint shapes of the instructor Ken sitting in front of me. It looked like he was looking at his watch, timing it. Then, by accident, I breathed in through my nose! Argh! I huffed out the water and then continued breathing with my mouth. But, again! It went through my nose! This time I couldn’t regulate it, and I panicked. I shot up to the surface with Ken gamely trying to stop me. But, mid panic, I wasn’t having any of it! I broke the surface, my regulator already out of my mouth, tearing my mask off. Then proceeded to have an epic coughing fit at the surface. Ken came up and waited for me to recover myself before going back down under the water.

The final test was the one I was absolutely dreading all day. The instructor sits behind you and turns off your air supply. Yup, you did hear that right. Part of the course is knowing what it feels like when your tank is empty of air. The main instructor Jon referred to this as the Dead Man’s Suck once during the briefing. It literally is breathing in, and realising there is nothing to breathe. Once you feel it, you look at your gauge, see it reads zero, and give the ‘cut’ sign. Then the instructor turns it back on. I am telling you right now, if this happens to me on an open dive, I won’t waste time looking at the gauge if I can’t breathe!

That was the end of day one! But not the end of the weekend. As despite a half four start in the morning, I still had another long day to go.

 Day 2

Before I knew it, the morning’s theory session had flown by, and I’d passed the theory exam. Now I was standing back at the pool, assembling the kit which no small amount of confusion. Today the instructors focussed much more on the buddy system, and made sure we were paired up and checked each other before getting into the water.

“Hey...” I piped up to Steve who was walking past looking relaxed “Is...my air working?”

It was an odd question, I know, but even though I had taken a couple of breaths from it, I had a feeling it wasn’t really working, or wouldn’t if I got in the water. Having heard all about the things that can go wrong underwater (and yes, I admit, googling a few Scuba horror stories), I was getting quite paranoid about suddenly running out of air. The fact that I was diving in less than 2 metres of water probably makes the likelihood of dying a little less likely. Steve took a couple of breaths, and pronounced it fine.

Out of air drill

Then we got to practice another water entry, this time the backwards roll. I really wasn’t sure what on earth I was meant to be doing here. A head over heels backwards? A short step backwards? A backflip? I hadn’t managed to see the others doing the entry, and I was first up. So shuffling to the pool, I queried:

“So I step backwards?”

“Roll backwards.” Said the instructor.

“As in the literally roll? Or step? Or bum first?”

“ROLL backwards.”

“What’s the difference?!” I cried, a little exasperated. But with that explanation, I had to go. So backwards I went. Bum first, into the water, knocking my mask sideways as I went. Probably the clumsiest water entry anyone has effected. Replacing the various diving accompaniments, I swam aside to make way for the next student. We also practised a little sideways swing in, which is definitely my favourite, as it’s much less splashy!

Remember I said that buoyancy control was quite a difficult skill? Well, the master divers don’t just use their BCD to control it. They breathe in and out to control the air in their lungs (and thus their buoyancy). We knelt on the swimming pool bottom and practised this. We also had to try and hover horizontally midway between the top and the bottom of the pool.

So, wanna know something fun about the regulator which provides all your air underwater? Sometimes, it malfunctions, and starts to gush air out uncontrollably. This is called free flowing. In this instance, having it in your mouth normally could overinflate your lungs. So you have to learn how to breathe in and out from the bubble of air coming off of the regulator. Ever played that sonic game where you have air bubbles coming from cracks at the bottom of the ocean? It’s just like that. In other words, if you can do it properly, IT’S AWESOME! Alas, I did not do it properly for about the first four tries, and incurred no small amount of the instructor’s wrath. As the free flow eats up an almighty amount of air each time, I imagine that was probably linked.



Sonic gets some much needed air

Now for the mask off swim! I thought that I would be terrible at this, but once I had mentally prepared myself, it was actually much less unpleasant than having your mask on but flooded. The worst bit is putting the mask back on and having to clear it.

Now, for some reason that I possibly missed in the briefing, we have to practice taking all our equipment off above and below the water. I can definitely see the reason for knowing how to ditch the weight belt, but we also had to do it with the BCD. Taking off all your gear makes you bob and swing about a fair bit, and it’s pretty hard to control it!

Today we also combined two of the skills; we did the out of air, and then used the alternate of our buddy to get air underwater. We did pretty well in this I think!

Near the end of the swim, the instructor made the sign asking how much air left to one of the other students. She didn’t understand what he meant. Finally he grabbed the gauge and looked at it, and immediately told her to go up. I found out later on that her air was pretty much at zero!

So that was the first part of my diving course! Exciting, scary, interesting and more than a little stressful. But I figure it is all going towards my zombie apocalypse training! Next weekend I will be back in the water, this time in a Baltic lake, to complete the course. Catch the second part here next week!

Flatt7

Parkour Generations Morzine 2013 Camp



Double Kong in progress!

 

This week just gone, I spent the time participating in a Parkour camp based in Morzine, and run by Parkour Generations. Here is my experience!

Saturday 20^th July 2013

I’m going to Morzine tomorrow! Right now I’m on my way to the Gatwick hotel. Damn, I’m achy! Had three weeks off all exercise as I got a really bad muscle pull. So a trip to the women’s beginner class has rendered me an invalid! Would like to swim and stretch, actually. I did a PKG workout of the day last night and managed to give myself blisters on both my hands! So now I’m loving the Savlon.

 Sunday 21^st July 2013

 

Chalet Philibert

Finally at the Chalet Philibert! It took a long time travelling here, but now am sitting clean, freshly clothed and out by the pool! After the flight there was a long wait time at the meeting point, but I used it to learn some French from Kevin and Annty! Now I’ve got a few more words under my hat! As I sit here I can see a hang glider in the nearby sky and hear church bells chiming. The wind is refreshing, but also a little chilly! So now I’ve moved inside to the little spa room. The chefs are making us dinner just now. I already took a little jaunt down to the town, where I bought some bread and pastries using my basically nonexistent French. With pointing, pretty much. It’s quite a steep way down. I am not looking forward to running up this! I hope my side holds up.

The town

We spent ages playing Jenga tonight – think it may end up being a sort of cult Morzine 2013 game! I started that shit, someone called me ‘Jenga Jenny’! Ehhh, definitely had worse nicknames. Then we had dinner, and then a big briefing where we all introduced ourselves, got a bit of the lowdown and took a group photo.

 Monday 22cnd July 2013



First day warmup

 

Just survived my first morning run! It was only a little way and mostly downhill, so not too bad. Afterwards we did some press-ups and squats. I was struggling to the max! My arms are wobbling now as I write, and that was supposed to be the gentle, easy start! And guess what, we were bowls in hand about to get breakfast, when five more surprise press-ups were sprung on us! Learned a bit more French whilst we were eating. I pretty much plan to leech French from the French speakers until they get supremely fed up of me!

River adventures

 

Just been out for a morning’s training. Some scary, some hard. We were split into four groups and all rotated around the groups. Each instructor took one group. Kevin did precisions, Shirley did rail vaults, Chris did rail balance and Andy did scary river bridge climbing. Andy’s was the scariest! Dodging along wet rocks and climbing up onto a bridge with the raging river and sharp rocks below! I tried not to use my knees, but as my arm strength is still severely lacking I had to. I also needed a boost to get up on the framework. I was scared to just jump and try to catch as the rocks were so slippery. Some of the stronger people were doing traverses out along and above the water. I traversed, but my feet were on the bridge. Right now it is rainy and thundery! I sort of hope it keeps up. I love this weather.

Muscle up

This afternoon we went down to a sports ground kind of place and played a game. We had to be the first person to win seven rounds of Rock, Paper, Scissors. If you lost the forfeits varied from running to the basketball courts and back, over a fence to monkey walk, squats and press-ups. Once we had a few games of that we went to play a game with a rather dubious safety certificate. We stood on either side of this wooden structure and proceeded to throw rocks back and forth over the frame.  With a squat in between for good measure! Chris worked out later that he did approximately 300 squats in that time! I think ours worked out to about 240. Me old legs hurt! Because they were using different rocks to each other, Shirley and Chris were ducking through every other throw. It was during this time that I threw my rock astray and it fell about an inch away from Shirley’s head. So close I yelled out in fright! Everybody was like

“It’s fine, it’s fine, don’t worry!”

I think I was pretty much still hyperventilating when we left there 40 minutes later. At one point a dog came galloping in amongst all the falling rocks! We had some confusion and everyone shouted for the game to stop so that the dog didn’t get hurt! So although for fitness this was a good game, I wasn’t a fan of the near misses. On the last day the coaches did mention the game and say they planned to make it safer next year.

At dinnertime we were introduced to the often nightly riddles that are presented by Andy and Chris. I won’t give any of these away here. They are more fun to play if they are introduced fresh!

After dinner we met again for some night training where the whole group didn’t speak and moved as silently as possible. I am getting confidence going over obstacles again!

 

Tuesday 23^rd July 2013

 

Strides and precisions

Extremely achy today! My whole body aches, my quads the worst. Soooo. At the end of a long day of training today (but not as long as yesterday!). In the morning we went for another run. This was a little bit longer than yesterday with some stairs thrown in for good measure. I struggled at first, but then I got warmed up a little bit and started to do okay I think. My main problem is that my quads have been literally dying all day from the rock squats yesterday! We played a cool little game where we had to get down to the ground in seven seconds, and then back up in seven seconds. This reduced to six, then five, down and down to one second! We also played a ‘Cat and Mouse’ game. You had several people lying in a circle in pairs. One person was the cat and one the mouse. When the mouse escaped it was by lying next to one person of a pair. Then the other person in the pair becomes the mouse and has to run.

Then we did some strides and precision jumps. I got a few pics of me jumping, pretty chuffed. I think my marker to jump from was a tiny bit too forward, as I did land most of the jumps. When Chris made me move it back I was like, Noooo, why?! I got a bit scared but I decided to give the jumps my full commitment so that I didn’t flake out.

Gymnastic rings

We did some ring work with gymnastic rings set up in the main church area. The most advanced were swinging about at height, grabbing the pillar, swinging round and going for the parallel set of rings. I was literally just swinging from one to the other and trying to land my second hand. Managed that about twice. The other part of that session was quadrepedal movement work with Shirley.  The first bit was a game where in QM you had to slap the other person’s hands ten times without getting slapped yourself. The second bit was crazy hard as it included backwards monkey walk upstairs. Embarrassing as I basically had to push up with my knees on every step. My legs are bruise-a-rama! I was paired with Leanne, who was much more capable than me.

QM games

We also did some climbing up rock faces covered with metal lattice and a normal building wall up to a balcony. First off I climbed the latticed rocks with Chris and Shirley. Chris knows that I am absolutely fucking terrified of heights. So was quite chuffed when despite much trembling I actually got to the top on the first try! The second one I bailed, but the third one I managed again! Then we swapped over to Kevin and Andy. As we were all just getting started a man came up and shouted.

“STOP!”

Then he started talking in angry French to Annty. Andy got really annoyed as the man was refusing to talk to him, and then the police were called! So we were forced to move on.

Wall climbing

Before we went up, we did a killer session with the small balls where we basically rolled the balls over various tight spots to try and roll out the muscle fibres. I don’t think I can even explain how much it hurts!

 Wednesday 24^th July 2013

 

Well, isn’t this nice. Actually having a bit of an afternoon break (scheduled of course!). I get to sit, chill out and write a bit. We had a bit more of a longer morning run today. It was long enough that it was getting to the stage of starting to find my flow and enjoy it! But right at that point, we stopped! Boooo. I thought we would be done then, but ohhh no. The next challenge was to traverse a long bridge either underneath or up on the railing. I could do neither. So had to put my feet on the railing and my hands on the bridge floor and traverse that way. Even so, I found it very difficult and dropped many times. In between traverses we had to do punishment squats because of the late people this morning. My problem is that often when these sorts of things are done, the count is so fast I do about one for every five counted as I can’t keep up! So end up doing less anyway. Other people I spoke to also said the count was really fast for them!

Hill sprints

After breakfast we were split into two groups. We went off to do hill sprints as we chose the hard option for today. I thought it would be sensible, as we were due to have the afternoon off today. We weren’t allowed to tell the other group what we had done all morning, under threat of having to do it again the next day! Between each sprint we were supposed to do pull-ups or at least negative pull-ups. But my muscle was playing up, so I asked for an alternative exercise just to be safe. I didn’t want to reinjure myself so that I can’t even train. The sprints themselves got higher and higher up the hill until I couldn’t do them in one. I was feeling pretty shitty about my sprinting ability, but somebody told me at dinner that they didn’t think I was too bad...chuffed at that!

Night training

In the night training, the main challenge was getting right across the long wooden bridge without making a sound. Any sound at all, and we all had to go back to the start and try again. As we went on the people in front were pointing at whichever boards on the bridge were making sound, and we had to pass it back along the line so that everyone knew. I think it took us about eleven attempts to get right along the bridge, and even then there were a few noises that Andy let slide. The funniest thing about this is that people were walking past us completely normally as we went and wondering what on earth we were doing! But we even had one randomer join in with us! To give him credit he took it seriously and really tried to stay silent.  I took my camera on this night session, but not sure it was appreciated. It went off by accident at one point and blinded half the people around me. At one point I laid it down to do an obstacle, and Kevin picked it up. He seemed rather reluctant to return it! Maybe I was not being Ninja-like taking touristy pics of everything! As part of the route people were doing a traverse along wooden beams maybe eight feet off of the ground. I was going to try it, but was worried I would not have the strength to do it. Later on at the end of the session, I popped back to the spot with Chris and tried it while Chris stood ready to catch me! But, no need. I got right along the beam without dropping once, even including a tricky middle bit where I had to transfer my hands about awkwardly. It didn’t even feel too physically difficult, just had a bit of the fear of dropping!

 Thursday 25^th July 2013

 

This morning we did some warm up with a game very similar to “What’s the time, Mr Wolf?”. Then we started out for our run...but aha! We only ran for a short way to a wall. Here we were told that as a whole group we had to do a thousand wall runs, plus 200 for the latecomers yesterday. I have a couple of problems with wall runs. One is that I always strike with the same foot, my left foot. The second is that I always strike the wall with my foot twisted. Even so, I tried to alternate legs and gave it my best shot! I now have massive bruises from my bad habit of slamming into the wall with both forearms. I did maybe 35-40 of the total amount, I think.

Slide Monkey

After breakfast today we got the easy option of working on various movement techniques. Andy was trying to teach getting out of the mindset of only ‘acquiring moves’ and leaning towards having the attributes to be open to all new moves. One game I was partnered with Annty with was ‘Start here, finish here’. You should try to use the start and end points and get there in one to two movements. I was trying to give super hard and inventive ones as I know Annty is a bit of a Parkour superwoman. Luckily she gave milder ones back! Then we headed over to the rails to play add-a-move. I’m pleased to say I’ve gained back the confidence to Lazy Vault over this height. But slide monkeys are still beyond me, unfortunately.

The Double Dragon

After the fun flips and tricks session, we had to monkey walk backwards up 650 metres of mountain. I’m not even kidding. This was very hard, very steep and had a lot of gravel which opened my blisters right up. Paedar was being amazing, counting out loud 10 steps and then 30 seconds rest. This was really the thing that got me through it. They call this challenge The Double Dragon. I think there are supposed to be two distinct sections of massive, torturous hill? But it all blurred into one. When the hardcores had finished they came back down to carry bags and bring water. I must have drunk about a third of Annty’s water in one swift gulp, she told me to slow down on it. About a third of the way up the hill, I was almost knocked out by a bag thrown from in front! I growled a little at that one, it almost knocked me out on the spot! The Double Dragon was finished up with twenty eight press-ups per person. After the challenge I felt really irrationally angry all through lunch. I tend to get very emotional after I do a hard physical challenge and still never know whether that means I will be sobbing (as at the end of Tough Mudder), hyper or raging.



Bar work

In the afternoon we did the dreaded Morzine Megaroute. I was so dreadful at this. It was so hot that the tarmac was literally melting and sticking to your shoes. I had zero energy. I couldn’t run uphill and could barely run down. I climbed up the wall on one section and then didn’t have the courage to jump across. Then I got told I was holding everyone up by staying on the wall. Wasn’t by choice! Literally couldn’t figure out how to get down. I had to be helped down. This route had so much uphill, with the sun beating down. I managed to slice my hand doing a wall run. Everyone running past me kept high fiving my still bleeding blisters! I have to say this is the one exercise that I genuinely found absolutely miserable. Running downhill at one point, Andy came past and asked if I was okay. I guess I must have looked like a sweaty mess!

“No!” I grumped as he passed. I was so slow, I only did the whole route one a half times before the session ended. Hmmm. Something to aim for next year!

Friday 26^th July 2013

 

Trekking up the mountain



Final day! A mixture of relieved and sad. At 5.30am we all got up as usual for our run, and were told that instead of that we would be spending the morning hiking right up to the top of the mountain. It was about a 10km hike I think, and very steep! It took about four hours. It was knackering! Every now and then we waited for a little while to rest and make sure we were all together.

 

Wild horses

Once we were right at the top we found a little herd of semi wild horses! They were very skittish, but did allow some petting. They also had a foal with them. Here at the top of the mountain we placed something very special. If you are going to the Morzine camp next year you may find out what. We all got a picture at the top of the mountain too. We stayed here maybe 20-25 minutes and then all made the descent down. Most of the people took the ski lifts down, including all the instructors. Some people walked down, either due to lack of money, fear of heights or just keenness. Everyone was faster than me, and I was left on my own walking down the mountain. At first it was alright, but then it got a little miserable as my feet hurt and the sun was beating down. In hindsight, I think it would have been good for one of the instructors to walk back down the mountain with those choosing that route. Halfway down, two other students came back up to fetch me and walk me back! I felt pretty tired and was definitely slowing them down considerably. I felt so grateful that they came back. If not I think I would have just sat down. When we finally got back to the chalet and walked in, everyone was already there enjoying their lunch. The whole crowd of people clapped. I really wish I had taken a back entrance...I was embarrassed that I was last and more than a little miffed at being left up a mountain. Also feeling really ill at that point. I was so thirsty I drank about ten glasses of water in the same amount of minutes, which promptly returned back to the world in a not so pleasant fashion.  So er, yeah...not quite as hardcore as I could be yet.

Backwards roll

In the afternoon, after a bit of a sleep, we all went back out for a slightly more relaxed session of rolling and drops. I was keen to get back into it after the mountain fiasco. But as I did a roll I felt my back go! Dammit! Instantly I knew I would not be able to carry on as my back was radiating a sharp pain whenever I leaned slightly to the right. It is still there now. It had better bloody recover quicker than the other muscle pull. I don’t want to be out for that long again. But the injury meant I got to see an amazing festival performance happening in the middle of Morzine, with stilts and scarves and fire!

In the evening we had a little ‘End of Morzine’ talk after dinner and a final photo. Many of the people after that went on the night training. I had planned initially to go to every session, but had to miss that one as I couldn’t move well at all. A bag of ice was my good friend!

 Morzine on the whole

 

Coaches Kevin, Andy, Chris and Shirley

I loved the physical challenges of the camp, and it is inspiring to see those with greater skill and try and leech some ideas and skills from them. As always with the Parkour Generations team, innovation was in abundant supply, and many things were sprung last minute which is a great way to do things! Also, let’s face it, watching people who are good at Parkour is always pretty fricking cool. The food was great, I thought, and plentiful. The chalet rooms were great as well and each had a little shower in the room. I do tend to be a little bit of a grumpster if I’m in company for extended periods of time, so this is the one aspect of the camp I found difficult. I didn’t have time to ‘reset’ back to normality. So definitely found the challenges more mentally challenging approaching the end due to this aspect. I am looking forward to coming back to the camp next year and will have hopefully improved enough to be better at the challenges!

 Flatt7