The Breakdown- You Don’t Suck, You’re Just Learning

Last weekend I had a few Essentials students looking to move on to their technical training. This is where they will experience their first critical skills dives. Training dives that are run as real dives instead of the typical, “monkey see/ monkey do” dives. After you’ve passed the Essentials and have a solid base of the DIR skill set and understanding, it’s time for failure-based dives with real-time problem solving. 
 
There’s something interesting that happens often when I teach DIR to already certified divers. A diver shows up with hundreds of logged dives maybe, solid buoyancy control, and years of experience. Then, about halfway through day one, it happens… they breakdown.
The frustration.
The anger.
The embarrassment.
 
They’re struggling with something that is supposed to be basic, and suddenly they’re convinced that they “suck at diving.”
But they don’t suck… They’re learning, and it’s my job to find that place in them where they can grow.
And there’s a massive difference. 
 
It’s one of the most common things I see when divers start training with me. The breakdown. Because every other class has always been a success, a handshake, and a certification card. 
So, it’s understandable that when their skills breakdown… because now we are stacking basic skills together… Now that it’s not just clear a mask, hover with perfect buoyancy, or back kick across a platform… but rather get into position to help a diver share gas that requires you to combine all of these skills together…. Well now, when it doesn’t click right away, the instinctive reaction is…
“I must suck.”
But what’s actually happening has nothing to do with your ability… it’s your mindset. And that is what I’m really teaching with DIR, that is what the Mott Underwater Method really is.
A mindset. 
 
I was recently turned on to a book called, “The Flip Side” written by Michelle “Mace” Curran by one of my current students. Michelle was a former U.S. Air Force Thunderbird pilot. She had a quote that really resonated with me, where she said, “You didn’t fail, you just got overwhelmed. That’s why we train.”
 
She says when we approach anything complex, and for her it was flying fighter jets, with a fixed mindset… we see mistakes as proof that we’re not good enough. 
But when we shift to a growth mindset, we understand that mistakes are part of the process. It is the struggling that literally rewires our brains and bodies to adapt to new skills.
 
My student had what most people would consider a successful diving background. He was experienced, competent, and comfortable in the water. But like many divers stepping into a higher level of performance, he hit that wall of frustration when the skills got tougher.
 
Frustrated, he started to say things like, “I should already be good at this. Maybe I’m too old for this. Some people just can’t do this type of stuff?”
 
But then, something changed.
 
On a dive where so many things went wrong, and where the dive team had major mistakes, mistakes that could have been disastrous outside of training… we debriefed the dive in detail, we sat down and watched a video review of how things developed underwater and how they got themselves into this situation… that’s when something clicked. 
 
He had recently read Michelle Curran’s book and began to see his dive training differently.
Mistakes became feedback.
Challenges became puzzles.
And that day, he said to me, “that was one of the greatest days of education I’ve ever had.”
 
Not because everything went perfectly.
 
But because he’d finally stopped measuring his progress by perfection and started measuring it by awareness, consistency, and control.
 
That’s growth mindset in action…underwater.
 
Michelle Curran addresses this beautifully in her book The Flipside when she discusses the relationship between competence and learning. Curran’s “flipside” idea is reframing failure not as a verdict but as a signal that you are in the learning zone.
 
There’s an inherent paradox in what I teach. Unfortunately, in order to really learn how to dive… to really absorb and implement DIR principles effectively, you need to already be a fairly accomplished diver. You need solid foundational skills, awareness, and the capacity to work on multiple things simultaneously.
To some of you reading this, that right there might sound like a pretty good diver, but really… that’s just the beginning. 
 
Experienced divers have grown accustomed to feeling capable in the water. They have certification cards, and a lot of them. They’ve built confidence over years and hundreds of dives. When they suddenly find themselves struggling with new procedures, unfamiliar equipment configurations, or a different approach to team diving, that confidence takes a hit. The fixed mindset whispers in their ear, “If I were actually good at this, it wouldn’t be so hard.”
But that whisper is a lie.
 
A fixed mindset assumes that your ability is static. It assumes you either have it or you don’t. When experienced divers encounter difficulty in a DIR course, the fixed mindset interprets this as evidence of inadequacy. “I’ve been diving for five years, and I still can’t maintain trim during a valve drill. I must not be cut out for this.”
This thinking is not only wrong, but also actively harmful to learning. It transforms every struggle into an attack on your worth as a diver rather than what it is… a natural part of growth.
The growth mindset, by contrast, recognizes that skills develop through practice and that difficulty is NOT evidence of failure… it’s evidence of learning. The diver who struggles with a new skill isn’t proving they’re inadequate; they’re proving they’re pushing into new territory.
 
This has been my problem with the big agency way of teaching for decades.  The overwhelming majority of dive instruction operates on a model that says you can learn everything you need in a weekend. Get your Open Water in three days. Add Advanced Open Water in two more. Tack on a specialty or two in an afternoon each. Tech Diver??? Give me one week….
 
This approach creates an expectation. An expectation that diving skills should come quickly and easily. If they don’t, something must be wrong with you.
But real diving education doesn’t work that way. Especially DIR. Especially the Mott Underwater Method. 
 
It’s a systematic approach to diving that requires rewiring habits, building new patterns of thought and movement, and developing a level of team coordination that simply cannot be rushed.
When you step into this kind of training after years of diving a different way, you’re not just learning new skills.
You’re often unlearning old ones.
You’re breaking down movement patterns that have become automatic and rebuilding them from scratch. That takes time. It takes patience. And yes, it takes being okay with feeling like a beginner again, even when you’re not.
 
You need to embrace this beginners mind. 
This is the critical distinction that experienced divers need to internalize, being new at something and being bad at something are not the same.
You’re not bad at DIR diving because you can’t perfectly execute a valve drill on your first day. You’re new at it. You’re not a poor team diver because you miss a bubble check or lose awareness of your teammates’ positions. You’re learning a new way of diving. 
That is my job, the hard work that I must put in for you. To show you what’s happening outside of your own perception and how you can grow. Not just to watch you do a skill perfectly. Growth happens at the edge of your ability, in that uncomfortable space where things don’t come easily.
 
What I offer at Mott Underwater that differs from most instruction is simple… it’s time. Time to struggle.
Time to practice.
Time to fail and try again.
Time to let new patterns sink in, not just intellectually but into your muscle memory and your intuitive sense of the water.
 
This isn’t because I’m particularly patient or kind (though I’d like to think I am). It’s because real learning requires it. The human brain needs repetition and time to consolidate new skills. Your body needs practice to build new patterns of movement. Your team needs hours together to develop genuine coordination.
You can’t shortcut this process, no matter how talented you are or how much experience you bring to the table.
 
So, if you’re considering DIR training, or if you’re in the middle of it and feeling frustrated with your progress, you have to know that the discomfort you’re feeling isn’t a defeat, it’s a feature. It’s evidence that you’re in the right place, working on the right things.
Be patient with yourself. Be honest about where you are in the learning process. And most importantly, be willing to be a beginner again. The beginner’s mind is poised for the growth mindset.
 
This is the most important skill you can bring to your training. Don’t waste time trying to show up already knowing how to do everything; just be open and ready for growth. 
Because the divers who progress fastest aren’t the ones who never struggle. They’re the ones who struggle, accept it, and keep showing up anyway.
 
Are you interested in learning more about The Mott Underwater Method of DIR diving?
Contact me to discuss training options that give you the time you need to grow as a diver.