Category: Adventure

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‘Going down’ whats all the fuss about?

Come on now, what were you thinking? I am of course talking about how and where to start scuba diving.   

More specifically, about trying it for the first time.  

If you are one of those odd people who want to dive to the bottom of the ocean, a place where we have no business being, read this to get started.  

In case you haven’t noticed (if not don’t worry, it will become more apparent as the post continues) I am not a diver, well, not a scuba diver at least.  I couldn’t think of anything worse. In fact, the only reason I am writing this post is because my ‘diving expert writer’ was too busy. That and the fact that my son is one of those odd people who has interest in going to the dark depths of the sea where everything wants to kill you. So as any responsible parent would, I suggested he give it a try. I mean what could go wrong?  

It turns out not much, in a local swimming pool at least, apart from legionnaires disease maybe. Better than a shark attack or slowly running out of air 50 metres below the surface though. 

The local pool was where he went for his ‘try dive’. Local pools hire out their facilities to dive clubs for them to train in.  In the words of Peter Sellers… “Not a lot of people know that.” So, you don’t need sea legs at all. You can get your ‘try dive’ done, then be in the pub within 15 mins of being out of the pool! None of that 3-hour chug back to the harbour on a wet, windy day in a cramped boat with someone being sick over your brand-new wetsuit boots.   

So, off he went to Havering and Ilford Scuba club which is a BSAC club. Cue keyboard warriors threatening to kill my cat and feed me to a giant squid.  

If you don’t know the difference between BSAC and PADI, my advice would be; don’t ask! Conflicts in the middle east have been settled with more ease.  All I will do is tell you what they stand for; 

‘British Sub Aqua Club’ and ‘Professional Association of Diving Instructors’ 

Look them up and make your own choices kids. 

Anyway, back to a try dive. It turns out it’s remarkably simple. Ring them up, pay your £15, don your speedos and off you go.  Gonna be a short post this one, eh?  

My boy had an instructor there Called Graham. An excellent teacher and obviously a master diver. In fact, I think that is actually what he is called, something like that anyway. A total pro, who I would sincerely recommend to float you through your first time underwater with ease. My boy couldn’t speak highly enough of his teaching technique and exuberant knowledge… it is his Grandad though. He honestly is a rather good dive master to be fair.  

It all seemed too simple to start on the road to drowning yourself (they think I am mad for climbing up high or skating a halfpipe etc.  We have a mutual fear of each other’s chosen pastimes)  

So, I asked him what are the usual questions people have when they come so I could post the answers.  

  1.  Bizarrely you do not need to know how to swim. Well, not really anyway. If you ask me, it’s common bloody sense to be good at swimming if you are going miles out to sea to dive below the surface. Apparently not though. So long as you can ‘swim’ unaided for 200 metres you’re good to go. Let’s hope the boat doesn’t leave you negative buoyant lot behind.  Doggy paddle counts allegedly!  
  1.  As you have probably guessed by now, kids can give it a go. They must be over 12 though and they need to be at least 14 to be fully trained. Only then are they deemed physically capable enough to fight off angry octopi.  It’s like the diver’s version of the Maasi killing a lion to enter manhood.  
  1. You need nothing, apart from your aforementioned speedos and a desire to go places with literally no oxygen you can breathe.  Maybe an old t-shirt to stop the tank rubbing on your shoulders would be an idea as well.  
  1. Training comprises of 3 parts (this may be different for PADI, don’t shoot me) theory, comprising of lessons, practice, and application. Also, a final ‘checkout’ dive in a lake somewhere.  
  1. Sharks won’t kill you. Nor will the bends, venomous sea snakes, Lion fish, Portuguese Man o War, propellers, anchors, Killer Whales, whales in general (they clearly didn’t read Moby Dick in which coincidently the boat was called the ‘Essex’). Sharks, did I mention those? They deserve a mention twice anyway. 

Yeah, if you listen to those ‘diving fanatics’, it’s a particularly safe sport. The science and stats seem to back it up I admit. If you believe that lot, you are probably as crazy as those fools that want to venture deep underwater. My son claimed that it was brilliant and can’t wait to do it again. Keen as mustard to do his full dive training now.  

He is a bit weird though, takes after his mother.   

So, if you still want to give it a go and you are near to these guys, contact Havering and Ilford Scuba club here https://www.bsac49.org.uk/book-a-try-div.  If not, dip your toes (like what I did there?) into the eternal battle of the Titans and the Gods and pick a local BSAC or PADI club and get involved.  

In the meantime, feel free to book me for a day’s climbing. It’s great, we take a picnic and beers for after. No sharks I promise…none.  

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One word, 7 letters, starts with F … and I bet I am better at it than you!

It’s not that! You filthy lot, it’s not as fun as that, hence no one likes doing it. 

 Its Failure or failing. Damn I am good at that shizza! We could have also used ‘falling’, I will come to that in a bit though.  

There are countless famous quotes on failure out there from Edison to Michael Jordan, so I won’t try to come up with my own. In short though, failing is one of the best things you can do. It’s something you should strive to get good at and teach your kids to embrace.  It’s tough though, right?  

No one likes failing.  Failing is the flea bitten, mangy, skinny, unloved mongrel in the corner of the shelter. It’s been there for ever, no one wants to go near it in case it bites them. No one wants to get bitten by failure.  Everyone wants to take home the pristine pedigree with the shiny coat. It makes them feel good, walking about with the show dog. Avoiding failure is not the answer though. The pedigree dog looks good (like you sticking to your one thing you are good at), but deep down we know that it’s riddled with genetic weaknesses and problems.  Once you have tamed that mongrel and learnt to love it, you are going to end up with a stronger, healthier, fitter beast.   

So, we know failure is good for you but sometimes it’s hard to grasp it when you are young, or even when you are a parent.  It can be a hard thing to learn or practice. How do you really practice failing?  There is, in my humble opinion, one way that is super fun and is a tool that teaches failure like nothing else.  Read on and I will tell you, but first let me give you some insight as to why I think my opinion counts.  

Yes, this blog is about action and adventure sports, many of which I have competed in or coached/taught in, not at a high level I admit.  However, aside from action and adventure sports I have also competed or coached in many other sports such as, Boxing, BJJ, Judo, Karate, Shooting, Rugby, Football and Basketball. I have played around with a lot of others as well. A bit of a ‘Jack of all trades master of none’ but we all know how the rest of that saying goes though don’t we? (It’s included at the end of this post if you don’t!) 

 So, I have experienced failing at a lot of things, in a lot of different ways with a lot of different people.  So anyway, enough banging on, you want to know the best way to learn or teach your kids how to fail, repeatedly in fact, and to embrace it, so here goes.  

Contrary to popular belief, and the impression they may like to give, skateboarders are well adjusted pillars of society. Well, ok that may be a bit strong.  What is true though is that they have a lot of skills and characteristics that can take you a long way in life. I believe that this is, in part, because they practice failing all day long, day in, day out.   

If you want you, or your kids to learn perseverance, determination, courage, humility, teamwork, encouragement, resilience and the value of failing repeatedly and trying again and again until you get it right, take up skateboarding.  

Go to any skatepark and watch the skaters down there for a while. There is nothing that teaches failure like falling onto hard concrete, again and again and again!  

Nothing that teaches you to pick yourself back up, dust yourself off and try again.  To put that last failure behind you and try once more.  

Sure, you can participate in other sports and miss a pass, drop a ball, serve out of the box…whatever. Oftentimes you are carried along by a team though. Or you can just slow your serve down to guarantee it stays in.  It may be a crap serve, but hey, it’s in, right? Boom, success.  

With skateboarding there is generally not the same level of tolerance for error. You either land that 180 kickflip, or you don’t.   

A lot of the time in skateboarding failure comes with a physical consequence as well, unlike a lot of other sports.  

 When you are watching the skaters at your local park next, and you see them repeatedly trying a trick and falling …hard! ask yourself how many times you would be willing to do that. How much determination and resilience have you got?  How many failures are too many before you stop to go back to do something more comfortable?  

Teamwork is something I mentioned as well, and encouragement.  Skateboarding may not be the ultimate team sport of course, but … 

 I have been stood on the top of a ramp before, bruised and cut, bleeding and tired, having failed again and again.  

About to go home when the group of 3 teenagers on the ramp helping me swelled to 10, one more attempt, another failure, now there are 15 kids, now 20 all cheering me, a 42-year-old rubbish skater, encouraging me, shouting instructions, willing me to send it.  One more go, the support making the difference. I land the coveted trick…finally.  The ‘crowd’ erupt, the sounds of clanging decks on the surface of the ramp bring a smile to my face.  

If that’s not teamwork, humility and comradeship I don’t know what is.  

In a world where everything is made as comfortable as possible. Where we flatten as many obstacles for our kids or us as we possibly can. We have forgotten how to fail and be comfortable with it 

If you want to learn how to fail and better yourself in life, take up skateboarding. Its gonna hurt, but it will be worth it!  

 https://actionandadventuresportsuk.com/how-to-buy-your-first-skateboard/

‘Jack of all trades master of none, oftentimes better than a master of one’

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Are extreme sports really extreme?

Extreme sports, they sound, well… extreme, don’t they?  

As a kid I grew up wanting to be an extreme athlete. I saw the VHS tapes and read the magazines of my hero’s doing cool, crazy things and dreamed of following them. I wanted to be a cool kid, who didn’t?   

 I would go outside and ollie a few kerbs and chickenfoot a few kickflips on my skate board or jump out of a tree.  In my head  I convinced myself I was doing the same as them.  

As I got older, I realised of course that I wasn’t, not quite at least. I still loved every minute of it though. 

  I mentioned that I watched VHS and read magazines, real ones you can hold in your hand, so yes it was before the good old tinterweb.   

Getting into an “extreme” sport  back then wasn’t as easy as it today, especially if you didn’t live in a suitable part of the country. These days it’s all there for you on the web, the path to start, the instructors, the courses you can book, the purpose-built walls or parks. It’s easy. So, I wonder why so many people seem to be afraid to try them. 

I have taken so many people out climbing that have told me “there is no way I could climb rock like that” or say to me “you are mad I have seen it on the telly, I don’t know how you do it”   

The secret is that Extreme sports are more often than not, not that extreme at all. 

 Sure, stick big Dave McLeod on you tube and watch him send Rhapsody and you will have even the hardest weekend warrior sweating through his pants. 

 And don’t even get me started on Alex Honnald with his Free solo documentary. If I had a pound for every time someone told me they saw him on telly doing that “free climbing”.   

I got bored of trying to explain what free climbing is and that I take my eleven-year-old son free climbing regularly. And no, that they didn’t need to call child protection on me.  

I now casually mention I haven’t seen it and that it doesn’t surprise me that he doesn’t have to pay for climbing as he is so famous. Throws them off a bit. 

Of course, when we are down the pub with football loving friends, we embellish a few titbit’s and sex it up a little. We are extreme athletes after all, we have a mythical reputation to uphold. 

 Yes, we may have done something at the edge of our limit this particular weekend but there have been plenty of times when we have plain and simply dawdled or bottled it all weekend. 

The point is Dave Mcleod didn’t one day just decide to go to climb a route that has a potentially ‘fall and die’ scenario. Alex Honnald didn’t just decide to go for a ramble and then accidently solo Freerider. 

It’s a progression and most of the time the general armchair viewer or enthusiast only sees the culmination of years of practice and dedication. It’s something we all know but seem to forget when it relates to a sport or anything  we are not familiar with.  

This progression can be voluntarily stopped at any time.  You don’t have to go from riding a few local trails to riding the Cuillin Ridge, you can stop somewhere in the middle or even right at the start.  

 I know lots of casual climbers that never push their grade or fall on their gear.  

I know lots of casual skaters that are not as young and bouncy as they used to be or maybe totally new to the pastime, but still love the lifestyle and skate community. They go to the park, get involved but they are not trying to land laser flips or skate vert.  

You can repeat this for mountaineering, BMX, diving etc. 

There are lots of people enjoying so called “extreme” sports in a totally non “extreme” way. 

I even know people that love going climbing for the weekend but they only belay! Basically, an active picnic for them.  Gold if you can find a few of those to knock about with.   

The important part is that those that are not at the “extreme” end of their action sport career are not having any less fun than those that are.   

If we stopped saying that these are “extreme” sports (are they even sports by the way) maybe we could get it across that the entry level barrier is much lower than is presumed.  

So, get down to your local climbing wall. Buy a set-up from your local skate shop. Take your bike over the nearest trails. Get involved in an action sport. 

Just get started and do something. The world’s most famous base jumper Carl Boenish didn’t just jump off a cliff on a whim he started at the beginning.  

Go find your beginning … it’s a lot easier than you think.