Unconscious competent or conscious incompetent (part one)

Have you ever wondered why sometimes the skill you need for a certain situation only arrives precisely when you need it or (in my experience regrettably more often) just after you need it? The brain sometimes comes to our rescue. Sometimes it’s something older and wiser.
Twelve years ago I was taking my commercial dive ticket and I kept having trouble breathing water up my nose whenever I removed my dive mask underwater. Of course now I realize that’s because you’re not supposed to breathe water up your nose. That seems simple enough but I’ll never forget the time that I learned that lesson the hard way.
I was in full scuba gear kneeling on the bottom of the deep end of our community pool and my instructor was asking each of us to take off our masks, breathe in and out several times and then replace our masks and blow the water out of it. The student to my right was taking his turn and I had about 30 seconds before the instructor would point to me and I would have to remove my mask. Let’s rewind this scene 15 minutes and I am poolside with my fellow students getting on our gear. “Listen up!” my instructor asserted, “Underwater, there is no freaking out and rushing to the surface. Do that on a real dive and you will have an air embolism and you will die. If I see you panicking”, he continued “I’ll grab onto you and hold you down there until you calm down” Wise words, not comforting, but wise. Anyways I’m ashamed to tell you what happened next but here goes.
Now fast forward back to the bottom of the pool… My partner to my right executed the mask removal, replaced it and cleared it perfectly and then the instructor turned and motioned to me to fill my mask partially with water. I closed my eyes and pulled the top of my mask away from my forehead. Water happily poured into my mask and filled it up to my eyes. Ok, so far so good, I opened my eyes and breathed carefully through the regulator in my mouth. Then he motioned for me to fill it completely with water. I opened my mask and filled it the rest of the way. This was going good. A blurry shape I recognized as my instructor motioned for me to remove my mask completely. Inexplicably I obeyed. Terror! I bolted like a tomcat from the deck of a carrier as water poured through both nostrils and threatened to fill my lungs. How did the pool get so deep? I felt the iron grip of my instructor fasten on to my BCD strap as he pulled me back down. For a split second I thought he might win and drag me back down to the bottom of the pool.
My daughter wants to get onto Webkinz so I’ll tell you what happened next later.