There’s a well known training matrix which can be applied to any learning, but which lends itself particularly well to learning to scuba dive. Essentially, everyone, in learning new skills goes through the same process, so I thought it would be interesting to explore it and relate it to the sport we love.
Unconscious Incompetence
This is the phase you are in before you begin to learn to dive. It means you don’t know what you don’t know! In this phase you might think, for example, that divers use oxygen in their tanks!
Conscious Incompetence
You enter this phase when you start training. Having read the books, seen some videos, and perhaps carried out a try dive, you now know what you don’t know! In this phase you cannot dive without close supervision, and early dives seem to disappear without you ever knowing what on earth you have been doing as you practice your basic skills.
Conscious Competence
You hit this stage after you have qualified. You now know what you should be doing and you know how to do it. Some divers stay in this phase forever, and that’s fine. Generally they are safe, sound divers who constantly think through what they are doing.
Unconscious Competence
Divers who reach this stage are the lucky ones. They do everything they need to do, and don’t even have to think about it. They’re the ones who always get their buoyancy correct, who can hover without movement to look at something, who are always in control. This is diving nirvana, when you can totally relax about the equipment, and simply enjoy the dive, the sea life and the tranquility.
Which group am I in? Well, I hover between the last two. From time to time I slip into the last, and those are always the dives that have the words “great dive!” in the log book. From time to time I slip into group three, and very occasionally (usually when SMB’s are needed!) I can slip into group two!
What about you?
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