The Mindful Diving Standard

Mindful Diving™ is the first international standard uniting recreational diving, mindfulness and the science of wellbeing. This document defines what the standard requires — of divers, of instructors, of centers — so that anyone can read it, teach against it, audit it or challenge it.

The standard is complementary. It sits on top of the diver's existing training agency and never replaces it. Every practice described here fits entirely within the diver's certification limits, the agency's safety standards and the dive plan agreed before entry.

• In scope: attention, breathing above and below water, pre-dive intention, surface-interval reflection, instructor wellbeing, ocean ethics, and the assessment of all of these.
• Out of scope: dive safety procedures, gas planning, decompression theory, equipment configuration and rescue protocol — these belong to the diver's agency.
• Explicitly out of scope: therapy, clinical mindfulness, psychological treatment, medical advice or any claim of cure.

Mindful Diving™ is complementary to, and independent of, SSI, PADI, CMAS, RAID and other agencies. All third-party marks belong to their owners.

研究院

The Mindful Diving Institute — the governing body holding the standard, the curriculum, instructor training and research.

标准委员会

The body that approves every published version of this standard.

安全与潜水医学委员会

The body that reviews every practice and every piece of safety language before publication.

研究委员会

The body that governs measurement, instruments and the publication of evidence.

Mindful diver

A certified diver holding a current Mindful Diving credential at MD-1 or above.

Mindful Diving Center™

A dive center certified by the Institute against the center requirements in §7.

Practice

A named, teachable attention or breathing exercise defined by the Institute and reviewed by the Safety & Dive Medicine Board.

Safety-critical item

An assessment item whose failure cannot be compensated by performance elsewhere (§6.3).

Shall / should / may

"Shall" is a requirement. "Should" is a recommendation. "May" is permitted.

The pillars are normative. Every course, every center audit and every credential is traceable to them. They are never reordered and never renamed.

• 1 · Safety & Excellence — the practice shall never reduce margin. Where presence and procedure appear to compete, procedure wins, and the practice returns afterwards.
• 2 · Mindful Experience — the dive shall be taught as an experience of attention, not only a set of skills. Briefings shall name what the diver is invited to notice.
• 3 · Instructor Wellbeing — instructors shall be treated as the load-bearing element they are: workload, rest, and the right to stop are part of the standard, not a courtesy.
• 4 · Ocean Connection — divers shall be taught no-contact ethics, buoyancy as care, and the ocean as teacher rather than backdrop.
• 5 · Human Connection — the buddy pair, the group and the surface interval shall be treated as the social core of the practice.
• 6 · Evidence & Impact — the standard measures rather than assumes; claims shall be traceable to instruments or withdrawn.
• 7 · Happiness Leadership — those who hold the standard shall carry it outward: into their centers, their communities and their coastlines.

Every Mindful Diving practice is placed in one of four phases. Placement is a safety decision as much as a pedagogical one.

Before

Intention and grounding. On the surface, in the briefing, in the kit-up. Practices here shall be complete before the diver enters the water.

水下

Presence in the water. Slow, continuous breathing; open awareness; buoyancy as attention. No practice shall be introduced during a task-critical phase.

Between

The surface interval. Reflection, integration, and the conversation the dive left behind — the most under-used hour in diving.

延伸

Transfer to daily life. What the water taught, carried home; what home carries back to the water.

八个练习模型在此以标准定本呈现。每张卡片、每节课程、每份脚本及中心材料，都须逐字复现这些表述。

抵达

A — ACKNOWLEDGE

你此刻的状态，不试图让它变得更好。

R — RELEASE

不必要的紧绷：下颌、肩膀、双手。

R — READ

环境：水况、风况、入水、出水、团队。

I — INTENTION

你将在本次潜水中练习的一项行为。

V — VERIFY

与你的潜伴一起，依照计划。

E — ENTER

遵循计划，不超前行事。

E — ENTER with the plan and not ahead of it.

准备状态检查

BODY

疾病、疼痛、疲劳、寒冷、水分补充情况、既往压力平衡情况。

MIND

注意力、压力、恐惧、急迫感、分心、意愿。

SKILL

近期潜水经历、环境条件、任务负荷、装备熟悉程度，以及对自身信心的诚实评估。

情境

天气、潜点、团队、计划、时间压力。

GREEN proceed · AMBER say it aloud, adjust · RED a clean limit

潜伴约定

• 当我出现……时，可能需要暂停一下
• 在水下，最能让我全神贯注的方式是……
• 我希望能尽早说出的一个顾虑是……
• 当我们任何一人结束潜水时，我们同意……
• 我们将共同坚持的一项环保行为是……

注意力循环

须知

此刻，你的身体、呼吸、任务、潜伴和周围环境，正在发生什么？

NAME

只是一个轻巧的标签，不是定论。

选择

在你所受训练范围内，采取最安全且有效的应对方式。

返回

重新拓宽觉察；不要让注意力停留在刚刚解决的问题上。

五通道觉察扫描

SELF

呼吸、舒适度、温度、压力平衡、任务负荷。

气体与深度

压力、时间、深度、上升要求、限制。

BUDDY

位置、手势信号、状态、共同计划、彼此距离。

路线与条件

方向、水流、能见度、出水点。

环境

生物、危险、脆弱之处，以及其他潜水员。

静

S — STOP adding

停止非必要任务；稳定位置和浮力。

T — TOUCH the anchor

一个接触点——齿间的调节器、手中的充气阀，或呼出的气流。

I — IDENTIFY out of the tunnel

气体、深度、潜伴、出口——四项事实，按此顺序。

L — LINK

现在处于黄色警戒状态，请立即向潜伴或领队发出信号，不要等到红色警戒状态。

L — LISTEN

将注意力转向呼吸所传递的信息，以及恐惧真正想表达的内容——是信号、脑中的叙事，还是背负的负担？

开放规程

致意

下潜时，将这次潜水献给某个人或某件事。

THREE

达到中性浮力后，缓长、充分地呼气。

静下来的一分钟

在状态稳定、情况允许时。

感恩

在安全停留时 — 轻轻加上一句默念。

FFLN

F — FACTS

发生了什么，是相机或仪器可以记录下来的？

F — FELT

你们各自在身体、呼吸、情绪和注意力上觉察到了什么？

L — LEARNED

什么有所帮助，什么让觉察范围变窄，什么让你意外？

N — NEXT

下一潜要做的一项调整。

Each level requires knowledge development, water sessions or practicum, and assessment. Knowledge development may be completed online; water sessions shall be completed in person with a qualified Mindful Diving Center™ or Instructor.

5.6 — Passing the final examination issues a credential with the status knowledge complete. Each supervised water session shall be logged by the diver and verified by a Mindful Diving Center™ before it counts. When every session a level requires is verified — and, for MD-4, the practical assessment is signed — the credential upgrades to certified and the public register shows it as such. A verifying center may return a session with a note; a returned session is not a failure and may be resubmitted.

6.1 — The pass mark for every final examination is 80%.

6.2 — Module knowledge checks are formative. They may be repeated without limit and do not contribute to the final score.

6.3 — Safety-critical non-compensability: a candidate who answers any safety-critical item incorrectly shall not pass, regardless of overall percentage. There is no averaging across safety. Safety-critical items are marked as such in the item bank and reviewed by the Safety & Dive Medicine Board.

6.4 — A candidate who does not pass receives named review topics and may re-sit after review. Re-sits are unlimited and unpenalised; the standard measures readiness, not speed.

6.5 — Passing the examination completes knowledge development only. The credential records knowledge completion; water sessions are recorded separately by the certifying center.

6.6 — Every credential carries a public identifier verifiable at /verify. Credentials may be suspended or revoked by the Standards Council for breach of the code of conduct.

Centers are certified against the seven-pillar rubric. There is one Seal — Certified Mindful Diving Center™ — with one fee, one renewal and one audit: a center meets the gate, or it does not yet.

7.1a — Inside that one Seal live three earned growth levels, recognising the depth of a center's work over time: Seed (the practice planted), Branch (alive across the team) and Reef (an ecosystem others shelter in). Levels are read from evidence already on file — certifications issued, guest sessions run, team seniority, community and research contribution — and are never purchased, upgraded for a fee, or required to remain certified. Any Certified Mindful Diving Center™ — Seed, Branch or Reef — carries the same Seal, the same standing and the same Standard.

7.4 — The Current is the annual renewal: a short self-audit against the seven pillars, the wellbeing policy and the measurement return, reviewed by the Institute. A center that does not complete The Current lapses to unlisted until it does.

7.5 — A center shall never present Mindful Diving as a replacement for its agency affiliation, and shall display the Seal honestly and only while certified.

• Agency standards first. Where this standard and an agency standard appear to conflict, the agency standard governs and the Institute shall be notified.
• Stop authority. Any diver, at any level, may end any dive or any practice at any time, for any reason or none, without explanation or consequence.
• Breathing. Slow, continuous breathing only. Breath-holding, skip-breathing and hypoventilation shall never be taught or implied on scuba.
• Task-critical phases. No mindfulness exercise shall be introduced during descent, ascent, gas management, navigation under load or any emergency. Safety is the first mindfulness practice.
• No-contact ocean ethics. Divers shall not touch, chase, feed, ride or collect. Buoyancy is the ethic made physical.
• Non-clinical scope. Mindful Diving is not therapy or medical treatment. Instructors shall not diagnose, treat or advise clinically, and shall refer when appropriate.
• Psychological safety. Reflection is invited, never extracted. No diver shall be pressed to share, and what is shared in the surface interval stays there.
• Honesty of marks. Credentials, the Seal and affiliations shall be represented exactly as issued.

9.1 — This standard is versioned. A published version does not change; changes appear as a new version with a new date.

9.2 — Anyone may propose a change. Proposals are recorded as proposed and are clearly distinguished from published text; nothing is normative until the Standards Council approves it.

9.3 — Any change touching safety language requires review by the Safety & Dive Medicine Board before Council approval. Any change touching measurement requires review by the Research Council.

9.4 — Minor versions (v1.3) clarify without changing requirements. Major versions (v2.0) change requirements and carry a transition period of at least twelve months for existing centers and credential holders.

The diver-facing pillars above define the practice. The rubric below defines how a center is certified to hold it. Each rubric pillar operationalises the practice pillars at the level of an organisation.