Are most flutter kickers negatively buoyant?

[MauiScubaSteve]

A recent post contained this statement;

"but I'll say most divers who use the flutter kicks are slightly negative with a normal breath."

This seems to imply that flutter kicking is not a good kick for diving. I personally am not trying to teach beginning divers the frog kick, because when I teach them a proper diving flutter kick their body is head down, feet up (~15 deg) and if they were negative they would scrape their nose on the bottom.

I am not always right so I am keen to hear other's opinions. If you don't want to type it out, let us know in a poll.

 

[Colliam7]

This seems to imply that flutter kicking is not a good kick for diving.

I have no basis for presuming that divers who use a flutter kick are divers who are negatively bouyant. HOWEVER, I do see more than a few divers who appear to be (flutter) kicking in order to maintain their position in the vertical water column, because if they stop kicking they would sink, because they are negatively bouyant. So, I see the problem as one of weighting, not necessarily kicking style. Perhaps, a flutter kick is considered, by the person making that original statement, a kick more likely to be used by a less experienced / newer diver, and less experienced / newer divers are also more likely to be overweighted or have poor bouyancy control. Or, maybe I don't get the point of that original comment.

I personally am not trying to teach beginning divers the frog kick, because when I teach them a proper diving flutter kick their body is head down, feet up (~15 deg) and if they were negative they would scrape their nose on the bottom.

I am not altogether sure I am interpreting this statement correctly, but what I think you are saying is that you work on teaching a proper flutter kick, and if a student is doing the kick properly, AND they are overweighted / negative, they will find that out very quickly. The good news is that you are teaching good flutter kick technique, and you are helping student divers figure out if they are negative. I don't see the reason for NOT teaching the frog kick, based on what you said. Not disagreeing with teaching a proper flutter kick, I just don't get the connection between that and not teaching a frog kick. I personally prefer the frog kick, and prefer to see divers use it. But, I also have the impression that most (new) divers don't know how to frog kick, or haven't used the kick since they took swimming lessons as 8 year olds and have forgotten how to do it.

 

[Alex777]

The flutter kick is a fundamental skill of swimming and snorkelling. By the time someone takes up scuba diving, they should be proficient at it. The problem referred to above is another consequence of people wanting to run before they can walk or, in this case, dive before they can swim. Toal Immersion has a good series of videos on swimming technique, including the flutter kick.

 

[Charlie99]

There is a glide phase to the typical frog kick. You get good feedback on your buoyancy during this glide phase, so someone using the frog kick is unlikely to go around significantly negatively buoyant.

A diver continously flutter kicking doesn't have this feedback on his buoyancy, so it is more common for a flutter kicking diver to be negatively buoyant.

Staying neutral while flutter kicking requires more skill than with a frog kick.

 

[fisherdvm]

The poll is a little confusing.

The title is: POLL: Should flutter kick be part of diving instruction?

Yet the poll is: Should flutter kick be part of diving instruction?

The options should be : Yes vs. No.

And yet the options are:

No, it is only for those with no real understanding of how to dive.
Not really, but we do it 'cause of the split fins.
It's OK, for divers who only dive over a hard bottom.
It's the predominant kick in diving so we just need to teach it better.

 

[MauiScubaSteve]

Good questions and statements Colliam7, I believe that much like walking, which for most begins with a crawl, advanced skills are not necessary in beginning training. Ironic how the flutter kick is part of the crawl in swimming. Also, the frog kick that most swimmers learn is way different than a diving frog kick. The poll is a knee JERK reaction to the quote from another thread. Do you think most flutter kicking divers are negatively buoyant with a normal breath?

 

[fisherdvm]

Not to be critical, but it seems like the poll does not answer the initial question, as the poll question changed, and the options lean one toward an opinion. So the result can be biased.

 

[MauiScubaSteve]

Staying neutral while flutter kicking requires more skill than with a frog kick.

So you are saying it would be easier to teach divers buoyancy control if we did not have them flutter kick in their beginning OW course?

 

[Web Monkey]

A recent post contained this statement;

"but I'll say most divers who use the flutter kicks are slightly negative with a normal breath."

The flutter kick with moves water perpendicular to the fin's axis, moves the diver in the opposite direction, and has nothing to do with buoyancy.

I personally am not trying to teach beginning divers the frog kick, because when I teach them a proper diving flutter kick their body is head down, feet up (~15 deg) and if they were negative they would scrape their nose on the bottom.

If you point a neutrally-buoyant diver down, of course they'll go down. If you point them up, they'll go up. You can't blame that on the kick.

Terry

 

[Charlie99]

So you are saying it would be easier to teach divers buoyancy control if we did not have them flutter kick in their beginning OW course?

I'm saying that maintaining neutral buoyancy is more difficult if continously flutter kicking than when continuously frog kicking.

If you don't want to teach the frog kick, you can simply teach divers to periodically stop their flutter kicking for a few seconds to check their buoyancy.

I've dove with many instabuddies where that simple tip made a huge difference in their ability to stay neutral, their overall comfort level (once they no longer have to keep finning to keep from plumetting), and air consumption rates.

I've seen lots of vacation divers with 10-30 lifetime dives that just didn't know what it felt like to be neutrally buoyant. Just coaching them for a few seconds on getting the right amount of air in their BCD made a world of difference. Rather than them not being able to do the skill, it was more like they were completely unaware of it. Once they get a taste of that floating mid-water feeling, then they know what to work towards.

Another way this unwareness displays itself is when you mention that they should try to hover horizontally for their safety stop, rising slightly when breathing in and descending slightly as they breathe out. Often, divers respond with something like "what does breathing in and out have to do with staying at safety stop depth".

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I'm not an instructor. The above comments are just observations I've made from a couple dozen instabuddies, mostly in the Florida Keys. The usual reason the discussion starts is that my buddy is amazed that I've used less than half as much air as he has and wants to know why. We chat a bit during the SI, do a simple buoyancy check at the beginning of the dive and a few times during it, and more often than not they come up from the dive bubbling with enthusiasm and saying things like "Wow! I didn't know that diving could be so effortless".

I've found that rather than working directly on horizontal trim, first working on being neutral forces the diver to get horizontal while finning.