Horizontal Obsession

[garyd54220]

For me it's not some arbitrary rule, it is about maintaining visibility for other divers. I am lucky enough to own my own boat which may or may not be cheaper than chartering depending on how you look at it but still, when I take a group of people out on a dive its plenty expensive. We also dive mixed gasses that can cost at least $60 to fill a set of doubles. Having spent that money, and taken people on my boat for the pleasure of diving some fantastic Great Lakes wrecks, its discouraging to get down there and find that viz on the wreck has been reduced from 100ft to 10 because someone in a previous team has "kicked the crap out of it." This is especially infuriating if I've trailered the boat a few hundred miles to dive wrecks in another of the lakes.

To me this is not so much a matter of horizontal trim but more of finning technique. I've seen divers maintain a horizontal position but then use a flutter kick that kicks up a dump truck's load of silt. On the other hand I've seen divers use a flutter kick and not disturb the viz at all because their situational awareness is good and they know enough to stay well above or off to the side of the wreck. If you want to see things up close; whether a cave, wreck or even to a lesser extent a reef, learn how to frog kick. After all the reef dwellers would prefer not to be covered with a thin layer of sand and crud too -which certainly gets launched into the water column by poor finning technique. Look backwards now and then while you're diving. Is there a cloud in your wake? Work on your diving!

It so happens that frog kicking pretty much results in a horizontal orientation in the water. As a rule good finning technique = frog kick, frog kick = horizontal orientation. Ergo; horizontal trim = good diving technique.

Gary

 

[marcopalla]

At one site I dived, very clear vis on my way through the pond:

is really funny in that thread many diver proud of their photo....
but you are swimming 4 meters (12ft from the bottom....

 

[Sas]

is really funny in that thread many diver proud of their photo....
but you are swimming 4 meters (12ft from the bottom....

That's not me in the photo. I don't really understand your point though? The bottom
was very very silty and the viz clear so usually I was a fair way off the bottom, yep.

 

[Peter Guy]

Many years ago (more than I care to think), I was a senior political science major at Washington State University and decided I'd take pre-calc math for kicks. That idea lasted one day! So what to do? I ended up in a freshman art class taught by a sculptor, Henry Laisner, who sculpted, and painted, what we would all call "modern art."

I still remember parts of his lectures about art and becoming an artist -- and I think what he said then is very relevant to this discussion.

He was very proud to be a "modern artist" who threw art conventions to the winds when creating his work. While not a particular fan of modern art, I loved much of his work because it was so precise and, quite frankly, beautiful. He could see before he started his work what it would be and evoke. He was an artist.

BUT what was most important to him, was that BEFORE he could honestly "throw art conventions to the wind" he had to have mastered them in the first place. It was his belief, and his teaching, that one could only go beyond the conventions once they were mastered -- or else it was just garbage. If you didn't know WHY you were doing what you were doing, how could it be deliberate and precise?

The same is true with diving. Here, Captain has mastered "the conventions of diving" and thus has the ability to dive as he wants -- deliberately and precisely. The same is true of one of our local gurus, the (in)famous Uncle Pug who will do much of his dive upside down (if he so desires).

But "why the obsession with horizontal trim" because that is the baseline. Only once that is mastered can one deliberately and precisely dive outside that parameter. So Captain, why the obsession, because I want to be able to dive like you and Uncle Pug!

 

[boulderjohn]

BUT what was most important to him, was that BEFORE he could honestly "throw art conventions to the wind" he had to have mastered them in the first place. It was his belief, and his teaching, that one could only go beyond the conventions once they were mastered -- or else it was just garbage. If you didn't know WHY you were doing what you were doing, how could it be deliberate and precise?
...
But "why the obsession with horizontal trim" because that is the baseline. Only once that is mastered can one deliberately and precisely dive outside that parameter. So

Great analogy. During my graduate work I had two similar experiences with two giants of the Beat Generation.

I was in a workshop with Gary Snyder, and he was asked about poetic conventions. He compared writing poetry to building a house. Builders create houses of different shapes and sizes, but they use the same tools to create them. Read the brilliant section of Alexander Pope's Essay on Criticism (in iambic pentameter couplets) in which he talks about how meter affects a poem, then look at Snyder's "Yase: September" (free verse) and you will see he is doing exactly what Pope talks about.

That was only partially true with Allen Ginsberg. His Howl is the most important work of the Beat era, but if you read the detailed explanation of what he was doing when he wrote the work (written in a letter to a friend), you will see that he was only vaguely aware of the techniques he was using. In some cases, he thought he was inventing a new technique, not knowing that the ancient Greeks had a word for it. It was not that these were not taught to him, though. They are actually techniques found in the poetry he had read through his youth (his father taught poetry), and he had subconsciously internalized them. In a session with us, he said he realized that much of his early success was based almost entirely on the shock value of the content, and he was finding himself in his (then) middle age working hard on his poetic technique.

If you read my earlier half-mocking post, I think that you will see that one of the main reasons I am usually horizontal, even when I don't need to be, is similar to that. In some cases it is a critical skill, and I want to be able to do it well when I really need to do it.

 

[Nemrod]

I often find huge clouds of silt at sites from careless divers who do not bother to use propulsion techniques that do not stir up the bottom. It is really annoying so I think ALL divers should take care not to stir up the bottom regardless of whether they are in a cave or not.

Well, you see, this is the problem with folks, TSandM and all, you extrapolate your failures and the failures of your buddies to me or to Captain or to whoever.

I can assure you that neither he nor I stir up silt and since you are all about skills, anything you can do your way I can do our/my way as well. You are not the only people that have "skills" though I am thinking some of this is like the numchuck skills from a popular movie and liontars. Y'all seem to work a lot at what I and others find natural. Just saying as I am sort of worn out with the skills bragging, diving skill is not an exclusive DIR right. There are lots of good divers out there who don't do it your way and who are not obsessed with being horizontal.

No silt being stirred up here:

Nor here:

Nor by this fellow though a grouper as big a VW just took off:

This turtle is not DIR obviously because he swims down, swims around and then swims back up, millions of years of evolution have perfected his "skills" and yet somehow he is not horizontal!

And speaking of rude, well, this fellow takes the cake, talk about rude, here I have come all this way to take his picture and look what he does, fans up all the silt, guess he did not read secret DIR rule number 6.17.8790665478:

Ya'll got too many rules, me, I just swim down, swim around, swim back up, best way I can, any which way I can.

N

 

[GrumpyOldGuy]

But "why the obsession with horizontal trim" because that is the baseline. Only once that is mastered can one deliberately and precisely dive outside that parameter.

Bingo - we have a winner!

 

[elan]

Clash of styles always brings nothing good..

Most failures I had in my short diving life were due to cold water, that's where I thanked DIG rig. I I was diving in warm water I'm sure 50%+ of the time it would be single tank no BC and drysuit diving and DH will take the most of that percentage. From the pic it looks that Captain does not wear much exposure, if I was living in that kind of requirements I would most likely do the same most of the time.

Conditions dictate a lot. I have noticed I tend to move much more when diving single small tank as it is way easier. with doubles I cannot afford to move like Captain describes it as it being horizontal is way more stable position, although with single Lp66 no BC no drysuit I pay very little penalty for faster movements. Conditions put restrictions on the style, the style gives it's tools

 

[MXGratefulDiver]

Well, you see, this is the problem with folks, TSandM and all, you extrapolate your failures and the failures of your buddies to me or to Captain or to whoever.

I can assure you that neither he nor I stir up silt and since you are all about skills, anything you can do your way I can do our.my way as well. You are not the only people that have "skills" though I am thinking some of this is like the numchuck skills from a popular movie and liontars. Y'all seem to work a lot at what I and others find natural. Just saying as I am sort of worn out with the skills bragging, diving skill is not an exclusive DIR right. There are lots of good divers out there who don't do it your way and who are not obsessed with being horizontal.

No silt being stirred up here:

Nor by this fellow though a grouper as big a VW just took off:

N

But I notice that the divers in both of those pictures are horizontal ...

This turtle is not DIR obviously because he swims down, swims around and then swims back up, millions of years of evolution have perfected his "skills" and yet somehow he is not horizontal!

The turtle may not be diving horizontal ... but the diver behind him is.

Must be one of them DIR fellers ...

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

 

[Teamcasa]

But "why the obsession with horizontal trim" because that is the baseline. Only once that is mastered can one deliberately and precisely dive outside that parameter.

Ditto - to a point.

There are lots of good divers out there who don't do it your way and who are not obsessed with being horizontal.

Although I would have not put so strongly. However, there many excellent and highly skilled divers that simply choose to dive in their own fashion and for the same reason I do, fun and enjoying the wonder of it all.