ScubAvatar

How to become the diver you wish you were.

In today's world of social media and digital-online communities, it seems like everyone has an avatar or bit-moji to represent themselves in forums, text-messages, or facebook political arguments.
These avatars, although often slimmer, fitter and younger looking, are manifestations of who we want to be. What we want to look like, feel like and become. Sometimes people can go overboard and lose touch with reality a little bit, but if applied in the right way we can use them to become something we are working towards.

The Perfect Diver
There are many different reasons for why divers originally got certified, to see pretty fish or maybe a life-long interest in a specific shipwreck. Additionally, there are also many reasons why divers may have continued their training. Taking additional specialty classes to further your education and ability underwater so that you can do and see more.
But a lot of divers feel that they are still lacking in performance despite a particular certification card. This is understandable, particularly today, because in our community it is accepted that one weekend of diving can take someone from novice to advanced or make a recreational diver a technical diver. The proverbial “zero to hero” in a few short dives.
So, what does that diver do who has the certification but not the comfort or confidence? Where do they gain the necessary practice and experience to become the diver they aspire to be? And can making up a fictious character really make you a better diver?

Your Scubavatar is your portrait, the painting of you on any canvas you desire.

The way in which you create this diver, this perfect diver, is how you will train and act and work towards your goals. It is a person, a person that you are working to become. Your Scubavatar is the manifestation of the skills, knowledge, preparedness, ability, experience and anything else that you want to attain in your diving life.
STEP ONE- Define your Scubavatar
If you just continue to do your same weekly dives, or yearly dive trip without definition and focus, you will be on the slow road to achieving your underwater goals. Taking more and more classes will help but without an image of what you’re looking to become, your training will remain hit and miss.
This is where defining yourself and building your self-image comes to life.

What your Scubavatar is not:
“My Scubavatar is a really awesome diver that can dive deep.”

A Better Scubavatar is:
My Scubavatar is 30-50 years old and dives a lot. My Scubavatar has multiple certifications, dives locally and travels to a week-long adventure every year.”

An even better one is:
“My Scubavatar is named Scuba James. He is 45 years old and is an active diver, meeting up with a small group of like-minded buddies on a weekly basis for practice and fun dives and is also actively seeking out training and mentorship. Scuba James is a pretty good diver and new divers look up to him but he is always trying to improve his own buoyancy control and team cohesiveness on every dive so that the big shipwreck dives that he loves to do are without confusion or apprehension.
Scuba James wants to become an instructor because he wants to share and give back to his local community, but he also knows that he needs a healthy collection of quality experience in more environments than he currently has. He has all his own gear and knows why he takes each piece of equipment with him on every dive that he does. His equipment configuration makes sense and he can logically explain the philosophy of it all and how it works to buddies with less as well as those with more experience than him.”

At first, we were very vague in who we wanted to be. It’s too general and doesn’t allow us to get in touch with what we are trying to accomplish. As we got better and better again with our description, we start to see who we really are and what we are trying to do and become as divers. We can use this creation to keep us true to ourselves and our commitment to practice and training. The better the description of our Scubavatar the more we will see our struggles and obstacles underwater. We can learn our pain points in the water and what we need to work on. If we define our Scubavatar as a diver who continually works on correcting his faults it will give us the duty to hold true to that principle ourselves.

Becoming your Scubavatar
Is this diver real? Can you really become Super Diver?
Yes! Take the time to really think about what you want as a diver.
Who are your role models?
Who is doing the dives you want to do?
What do they wear?
Why do they wear what they wear?
Who can help you get there?
How much time can you really commit to your success?

Once you’ve built your Scubavatar, which can change and grow along with you. You can use it to find yourself and what your struggles are. You can use it to define your diving goals and help you realize your dreams and aspirations. Where you want to dive and travel to, how deep you want to go and what it will take to get there properly. You will see what it means to be that kind of a diver.
Looking at your Scubavatar will help you to understand the things you don’t know about yourself and your diving habits, the parts you don’t like or have trouble with understanding or doing and what you want to change and improve in your own diving.

This is how you grow and evolve.
Just because you’ve built this Scubavatar doesn’t mean you will always be that same “Scuba You.”  As you gain experience and ability your goals and dreams may change. As this happens you can alter who your Scubavatar is. Keep fine tuning and keep diving.
You will use this to find the right training and teachers. You will use it to choose the right equipment and experiences that move you closer to who you really want to become. Your Scubavatar will help keep you honest and focused on your goals.

What kind of diver will you become?