THE "PERFECT ( being horizontal ) TRIM" HOAX

[Blackcrusader]

I often get into discourse with people who see my videos and go oh so you changed from horizontal and are not in perfect trim. My reply is that whatever position I am comfortable in is perfect trim for me. I hate that restricted view and get a sore neck from being in the "perfect trim" position so many think I should have. Sometimes I get in that vertical position in a nice drift to let my body act as a sail and be pushed along siting there not moving my fins. I can sit there watching those in horizontal trim finning along and wasting air as I pass them by on my magic water carpet. Often at the end of a dive on a safety stop I like to hang in the water watching things on the reef or just passing the time with songs in my head.

I thought I would start a new thread and took this from another thread
First dive at 40 meters - Newbies recreational

BOULDERJOHN wrote

"I got certified quite a while ago and logged quite a few dives as an AOW diver before rapidly going from Rescue Diver to DM, after which I assisted in classes for a couple years before becoming an instructor. After being an OW instructor for a couple of years, I thought I was pretty much at the top of the game. Then I started tech instruction in the DIR mode. I realized that I was pretty much a beginner again, and I worked hard on my new skills.

I began to apply those tech skills to recreational diving, and I saw my fellow recreational divers in a new light. I remember one drift dive in Cozumel in which I was in the approved DIR position, flatly horizontal, my knees bent 90° with feet up and head tilted back as far as possible as I drifted. One of the other divers had assumed a (to me) strange position, almost a sitting hover, as we drifted past the coral wall. For some reason watching him annoyed me. He was clearly doing things wrong, because I was Doing It Right. Looking back at it, though, I realized he was totally comfortable in that position, and by moving his head wherever he wanted, he could easily see all the sights as we went by. As for me, my range of view was extremely limited by my body position, and I had to use my new helicopter turn skills to keep my body in position in the current to see even that narrow range. But I was doing it right, by golly, so he was doing it wrong.

Today I am a (non-DIR) trimix instructor and a cave diver. I have decent tech skills, but they rarely come into play on recreational dives. I realize now that I had a false sense of superiority during that middle period of my diving."

 

[OTF]

great old post by TSandM about this:
My day with Jarrod, or how I was right all along . . .

 

[Streydog]

I think sometimes we take rec diving too seriously.

 

[Blackcrusader]

great old post by TSandM about this:
My day with Jarrod, or how I was right all along . . .

Just enjoying a drift dive letting the current take us along. I was horizontal head into current going in reverse so to speak my friend was just enjoying controlling depth with his lungs.

 

[Angelo Farina]

@BLACKCRUSADER, I am entirely with you. I often laugh seeing those "tec" divers making significant effort for keeping that unnatural "horizontal trim" position, which was developed for entering caves or wrecks, where there is risk of raising suspension from the bottom, but it is entirely wrong in other situations...
Same for equipment, or other procedures typical of a very specialised way of diving in caves, which are simply meaningless in different environments.
A "complete" diver should recognize the need of adapting everything (procedures, trim, equipment, planning, etc.) to the local situation, which can vary significantly from the one for which the DIR method was developed.

 

[Pressurehead]

@BLACKCRUSADER, I am entirely with you. I often laugh seeing those "tec" divers making significant effort for keeping that unnatural "horizontal trim" position, which was developed for entering caves or wrecks, where there is risk of raising suspension from the bottom, but it is entirely wrong in other situations...
Same for equipment, or other procedures typical of a very specialised way of diving in caves, which are simply meaningless in different environments.
A "complete" diver should recognize the need of adapting everything (procedures, trim, equipment, planning, etc.) to the local situation, which can vary significantly from the one for which the DIR method was developed.

Yes +1 .

 

[Dan]

There is no need to be perfectly trim in the blue. It's like walking in a park looking at the sky & missing what's happening around you. Even when you are diving with sharks, you are supposed to look big by going vertical.

 

[lexvil]

True in warm water but not so easy in a drysuit. When tropical diving I’ll drift along inverted a lot.

 

[BoundForElsewhere]

i really thought this was going to have something to do with Russia.

 

[Jafo19D]

Funny that you post this because I recently got the Hydros Pro which puts me in "perfect" trim. I tried it out for the first time recently and I noticed that my neck was getting sore. During these dives I put 2lbs in each of the trim pockets and 3lbs in each of the integrated weight pockets. Any recommendations on how to redistribute the weights in order to bring my head up a bit?