Breathing from a Free Flowing Regulator

[Ronniemu]

During my class for certification I performed the excercise as instructed for a free flowing regulator. I was very comfortable with it and was surprised how easy it was. From time to time I practice what was taught during certification in my pool. I tried the free flowing regulator and although it went okay, I was not as comfortable as during my class. Can some of the advanced divers give me some ideas as to how you breathe from a free flowing regulator?
Such as how close you hold the regulator to your mouth, do you tilt your head, etc?

 

[BrianS]

I used the in one side of the mouth method and seemed to work well.

 

[couta0938]

Right. Keep a firm grasp of the regulator as it can blast itself all over the shop and potentially hit you if you've got a loose grip of it. Don't seal your mouth around it, you need to sip at the air, and try and direct the main flow of air out to your side, otherwise you risk having your mask blown out of place, and therefore, flooded.

The way I do it is I place the right hand part of the mouthpiece loosely in the left hand corner of my mouth, tilt my head slightly to the right and take breaths when I need to. Just keep practicing and find a technique that works for you.

Regards,
Andy

 

[Scottri]

I keep the reg in my mouth and draw from the stream of air. You actually have to draw air out of the bubble steam as it creates a venturi affect. I had a reg freeze up while ice diving this year and that is what I did. No problem.


Scott

 

[String]

A proper freeflow is likely to be far more fierce than the pool exercise so its worth remembering. The one thing is it will feel very cold on your teeth and mouth.

People develop their own techniques for using it - some use it in the side of the mouth, some just hold the reg lightly near the mouth, some in the mouth (but not jaw sealed).

There are a variety of ways of doing it.

And when it happens for real you'll be glad you did it

 

[jepuskar]

All good suggestions...pick a couple and find what your comfortable with...the important thing here is too practice until your comfortable doing this....and dont forget about it once you got it down....practice when you can.

J

 

[Ronniemu]

All good suggestions...pick a couple and find what your comfortable with...the important thing here is too practice until your comfortable doing this....and dont forget about it once you got it down....practice when you can.

J

I am going to give each a try to see what works best for me. Thanks for the information.

Regards to ALL, Ronnie

 

[Rick Inman]

Before I bought my Atomic M1 (environmentally sealed) I had a bunch of them. Kept the reg loosely in my mouth until I got the tank turned off for 1st stage melting. No problem.

 

[dbg40]

UNFORTUNATELY, it has hapened to me more than once. I keep the reg in my mouth, and hold it loosely by hand. A good full on freeflow is really not at all like a practice. There pretty powerful, so I just hold on to it, get a pi$$ed off look on my face, and surface. It's not really bad, but it can stir up the nerves the first time it shows up on you!

 

[SueMermaid]

I press my top lip against the mouthpiece and keep a deathgrip on it with my hand.