Worst Case Scenario

Some of my underwater educational philosophy comes from the martial arts that I studied when I was younger. I always enjoyed those demanding sessions and I’ve tried to incorporate the mental training and awareness into my diving for many years. 

Our art was a knife fighting style based out of West Java, Indonesia and it focused a lot on “worst case scenarios.” For instance, we didn’t really train or study any standing ready positions because we always approached the fight with 3 primary assumptions. Assumptions that would demand your awareness and attention and help direct your flow and techniques in a battle. 

We always assumed that you would be: 

1. Attacked by surprise
2. Attacked by multiple opponents
3. Those opponents would be armed with weapons

This worst case thinking built an inner calm and awareness while fighting, especially if you were facing someone without a weapon, or only one opponent or if you saw them coming. We trained to be over-prepared for the confrontation, knowing that in real life we would be surprised by the conflict, as well as being out-numbered and unarmed. 

If you learn to consider your diving like a fight, you will walk away with a new balance and centered state of mind. 

Nature is not on your side underwater. Physics and physiology are fighting against your human terrestrial existence and the only way you’re getting out alive is if you are smarter than nature and are over-prepared for this battle. 

Not only will this allow you to remain calm in the midst of chaos, once you’ve trained this into yourself, you will find more mental and emotional space to enjoy so much more of your underwater experiences. When you begin every dive assuming that things can and might go bad at any point and how can you plan for that before the dive starts, you will have a new set of tools to use and a clarity to solve problems. 

Your gas planning will change or maybe it will finally start. Your decompression strategy will begin to develop and your buddy awareness and navigation will become proactive instead of reactive. 

Contrast this with the way most divers learn, which is to follow the leader and wait for the beep.

If we learn to make similar assumptions as divers, we can turn our underwater street smarts on high alert. Always aware and ready to be caught off guard, because we are training for the worst case scenario. 

If we always assume: 

1. Something will go wrong on this dive
2. This will have a domino effect
3. You always have to finish the dive

Things go wrong all the time. Why would you assume they wouldn’t underwater? Learning to start the dive knowing what you need when everything goes wrong, should be mandatory for any diver; especially, if you’re trying to graduate beyond holding the Dive Masters hand on every dive. 

Unfortunate circumstances underwater usually escalate and get worse. A little problem underwater is like kerosene on a flame: it causes some anxiety, which alters your breathing and alters your positioning, and that effects your buoyancy and it generally gets worse from there. Very rarely is an underwater emergency just one big thing, instead, it is usually many little things building and building until you are overwhelmed. 

Regardless of how bad and inconvenient the situation becomes, we must remember that we are diving and we have to finish the dive clean and safe. Just shooting to the surface in a panic is not acceptable. Going to the hospital is not an ideal way of addressing an emergency situation. We prepare by assuming that something will go bad, and we will have the gas and the teammates with us so that we can still get everyone to the surface safely. 

Creating Confident Divers

This worst case scenario thinking is at the core of my educational philosophy. It is extensively pursued in a class like The Essentials and broken up into smaller sample sizes in various workshops and writings I put together on the Mott Underwater website. 

If you have further questions about this or would like more information, or to talk one on one about how to make you or your dive buddies a safer and more confident team, email me for a free consultation. I would be happy to spend some time talking to see what goals Mott Underwater can help you achieve. 

James Mott 
Creating Confident Divers