Scuba diving lessons led to bubbly results for author

By MAUREEN ROSE
Gold Standard Activing Editor

Last week, I had the privilege of covering a training event for the Warrior Transition Unit at Fort Knox. A foundation known as Diveheart came to the installation to show wounded warriors how to scuba dive. It’s a great confidence builder and many warriors need emotional healing as much as anything else.
In any case, the training coordinator asked me if I wanted to try it.
I dived right in—literally—the next day when I was wearing the appropriate attire.
In no time, I was sitting on the bottom of the swimming pool in 18 feet of water, watching the bubbles rise from my respirator. Every now and then, a huge cloud of aeration would be discharged as I caught myself laughing into the mouthpiece.
I’ve wanted to try scuba diving for quite some time; I was green with envy when we visited Key West and my sons went lobster diving. I really wanted to see the shells, the fish, and the underwater environment, but I was afraid of the whole breathing underwater process. I was sure I would do something stupid and end up inhaling a gallon of salt water. Even if it didn’t result in my demise, salt water in the lungs doesn’t sound like a pleasant experience and I’ve had enough personal experience to know that salt water in the sinuses is no picnic, either.
I just couldn’t bring myself to pay all the money for lessons just to find that I couldn’t overcome my fear long enough to listen.
So when I learned I could try in the safety of a swimming pool, I was eager to get my feet wet—pun intended.
Several of my concerns were quickly addressed and eliminated.
The respirators come in several sizes, and my dive buddy Jeff found one that was small enough to be comfortable in my mouth. (My dentist tells me my something-or-other arch is too small.)
In the past, I always lost my fins because they were too big to stay on my feet, but getting into some dive socks fixed that issue and the fins were on to stay.
The hardest part of the whole process was getting into the buoyancy control device, which looks something like an insulated vest with C-rings, buckles, loops, gauges to measure the air in the tank, a compass, and a Swiss Army knife, I think. We had to add more iron squares to my weight belt to neutralize my natural buoyancy (translation: more fat than muscle).
Previously, I always ended up with a mask that leaked and pinched at the same time. This mask was comfortable and the underwater breathing was a piece of cake.
I can’t believe I’ve been missing out for something that was really so simple. I did it!! I didn’t get any water in places it shouldn’t have been, I didn’t panic, I didn’t feel any pressure to remember all the details of the oxygen tank. The retrieval technique—to find your breathing mouthpiece in the unlikely event that you lose it—was easy to learn. Jim and Jeff were patient teachers and in no time, I believe I could have performed all the requirements for certification—but that wasn’t my goal at the time.
I just wanted to see if I could master underwater breathing and I did it!
Yes, it’s somewhat scary—but once you settle down to the bottom and realize you really can inhale and exhale perfectly normally—it’s a blast.
The more I thought about it, the more I realized something about the self-esteem benefit.
Wounded warriors have some frustrating, intimidating, and challenging tasks before them. Physical therapy is never quick and painless; waiting to see if your body will heal as it should is mentally and emotionally draining; wondering how all those processes will affect your career presents another obstacle. Sometimes the emotional obstacles prevent people from successfully overcoming the physical hurdles. And the emotional labor of working through post-traumatic stress disorder or any other mental illness is just as demanding of concentration and strength as muscle exertion.
But don’t we all have fears? Sometimes we go to great lengths to avoid dealing with them, other times we just refuse to acknowledge that it’s a fear, finding some other excuse to allow us to turn the other way.
The real definition of courage, I’m thinking, is more about facing fears than the absence of fear.
Come on—have a little faith and ask that redhead for a date. Go ahead, volunteer for that extra duty and see if you don’t learn something new. Step up and register for a college class; join Toastmasters and learn to speak in public; try something that has intimidated you in the past.
Trust me—the elation that comes from trying and subsequently conquering that queasy feeling in your stomach will keep you on cloud nine for days and then give you the confidence to tackle other fears.
You don’t have to start by diving the Marianas Trench, start small. Just find a swimming pool and a coach. You’ll be glad you did.