Buoyancy control and breathing

[gedmondson]

Hi gang. I had dives 17-20 in the fantastic Puget Sound this weekend. I am much more comfortable now, but am frustrated with my buoyancy control. I have no trouble tuning my buoyancy to the point where is is controlled by my breathing, but I rise up and down (to excess) when I breath. My buddy today was a photographer, and she hovered at will while taking pictures. I was at her side rising 4 feet with each inspiration and sinking with each exhalation. I breath slowly and take full breaths. I have fine tuned my weighting so I can just make my safety stop with 500psi. Any tips would be greatly appreciated.

Gary

 

[tfsails]

prectice, practice, practice! This too will come.

 

[TSandM]

If you are having that large an excursion with each breath, you are taking too deep a breath, and holding it WAY too long.

As you inhale and increase the volume of your lungs, you begin to move upward, but it takes time, because you have inertia and the water has resistance. By the time you are moving upward, you should be exhaling, and therefore stopping the rise. You begin to fall, but by the time you are really moving downward, you are inhaling, and stopping the drop.

If your breathing is relaxed and normal, the net excursion will be a few inches. If you are going up several feet, you are inhaling way too deeply, and holding the inhalation too long.

 

[shoturtle]

take relax and regular breath, and you do not need to fill your lungs all the way.

 

[Teamcasa]

Three good answers so far. Settle down, breathe normally and practice. It will get better.

 

[Tigerman]

Being frustrated with it is probably not going to help you very much. Its easier to be relaxed and breathe normally if you dont give a rats upper hind leg area..

 

[ligersandtions]

I went out with two experienced divers over the weekend and was absolutely amazed at the control they had. They could stay within inches of the bottom (without silting us out at all) and remain seemingly motionless, although they told me later that their upper bodies are completely motionless while they make any amount of adjustments needed with their legs. Both have a lot of dives and have some very good training....it now gives me a goal to strive toward.

I wish I could give more advice, but I'm much more like you than like them....I have weighting down, and can get neutral....but can't stay motionless. I guess my only advice would be to dive with people who have amazing control and pick their brains as much as possible!

 

[TSandM]

A lot of the motionless thing is like learning to ride a bicycle. I can explain that your gear has to be balanced, and you have to find the right arrangement of your body parts that keeps that balance, and make your breathing soft and rhythmical. But when it comes right down to it, you have to get on the bike and experience the instability, and learn how to balance and how to use the small postural muscles in your back to correct any tendency to one side or the other, and you don't do that consciously. You do it by trying, initially not doing very well, and gradually improving.

It's the same with scuba. Set yourself a goal, and then each dive, practice it a little bit. Find something interesting that you would like to look at, and try to sit still and look at it. Force yourself to be motionless for a few seconds, and see what happens. If you have the same failure over and over again (go feet down, for example) think about checking the balance of your gear. If the problem is different each time, then it's just a matter of learning balance.

 

[SteveAD]

TSandM hit it bang on. You should be exhaling before you really start to rise and inhaling before you start to sink. The recommendation in many (most) scuba courses to breathe slowly and deeply is often taken to extreme, think more along the lines of "don't breathe fast and shallow" . Normal relaxed breathing is fairly slow and deep and will not have you bouncing around like a yo yo.

 

[Sinbad the Diver]

From someone in the same position you are in, relax and dive. The more I dive the more relaxed I am, the less I think about breathing, the better my bouyancy, the more comfortable I am, the lower my air consumption, the more relaxed I am, the longer I dive......it's the circle of SCUBA.