What the?? Air on or off???

[pamelakoepke123]

I agree; not a bad idea, but may cause complancency.  I too breathe several times before entering the water and then again several times before descending.  It's not a matter of trusting my buddy, but rather keeping all of my skills and safety checks at their highest.

After experiencing a panic attack at 30 feet, I now never ever dive without taking a few minutes to calm my mind and breathing and think about the procedures of diving - air, gear, mask, etc... and then calmly enter the water and take those couple of minutes on the surface keeping my mind on being safe and ready.

I have a concern that if you take the "thinking" out of diving more divers will become complancent and compromised and run the risk of serious inujury and death.