@djpeteski
I have complete empathy with you. You're not the first to go through this, you won't be the last. I had similar issues when I first learnt to dive.
1. Fast descent. If you vent the air from your BCD at the surface, and go start falling like a stone, you're over weighted. On descent, with an empty BCD and an exhale should get you down the first 3'. After that pressure will take over. Now here I accept that as a new diver you'll probably take a huge gulp of air and may stop or come back up so a bit more weight will be necessary. For the first part of the descent at least, cross your fins to stop them moving. With a little more experience try to move to the horizontal position after 6' or so.
As others have said, add air to the BCD little and often. It's considered bad form to descend like a burning Messerschmitt then hitting the sand in a great cloud of dust. Little and often
2. Corking. When you get anxious or panicked your body activities it's inbuilt Fight or Flight reflex. What this does, is lowers your diaphragm increasing your lung volume and thus making you more buoyant. Because as a new diver, thus diving in shallow water, just rising a few feet in the water means you get a significant pressure change. You will be slow to pick this up, and suddenly you start to rise fast. Often you cant' seem to dump air fast enough.
So being slow and relaxed is the key, but this takes time, hence newer divers start dropping lead from their belts quite quickly with practice and their bodies becomes accustomed to begin underwater and you become more relaxed.
3. Air consumption, the fastest way to bad air consumption, is worrying about your air consumption. Just don't. what will be will be for the moment. Again with practice, you'll stop moving as much underwater, you'll become more relaxed. You won't mess about with your BCD as much.
the important thing is to breath normally, don't shallow breath, don't hold your breath underwater (pausing between breaths is okay but basics first) as these make consumption worse.
Don't worry about your wife - as I say eh reason my wife has low air consumption is that she can't talk underwater
But seriously, everyone is different. My wife by her own admission is 50, unfit and slightly over weight. on our last trip without fail she would surface with 500-600 psi more in her tank than the 20 something tiny Indonesian dive guide. She just breaths slowly and is very relaxed underwater.
At this point just concentrate on making small improvements to your own consumption and your own diving, you're not in competition with anyone.
Things will improve and get easier as you dive more. If you go on a week long trip where you dive daily you'll soon notice the difference from your start and end point. Keep assessing your weight, at the end of a dive let the air out of your BCD on the safety stop, if you start to sink take 2 lbs off for the next dive. (Or at the surface let all the all the air our for a weight check and see if you sink or if you hold at eye level. Keep a record. and keep checking. Don't keep the same weight for many dives because at the start you'll have large improvements.
Yes by all means do the PPB course, but time in the water counts as more than back to back courses. Consolidate what you have learnt before moving on.
