Buoyancy skills

[MichaelMc]

If people are teaching neutral buoyancy in skin gear first, how much do you manage level trim in skin gear? I find trim in skin gear a challenge with just a belt, and fighting trim makes judging buoyancy difficult.

Teaching level trim in skin gear seems difficult as the skin diving weighting norm is to use just a web belt. Which makes me at least tail heavy. At 73 degrees our pool necessitates wet suits. Personally I’ve played with skin gear and a back plate and harness, or a sort of neck weight for trim. But they are a bit odd and only a few students opt for bp/w.

I help teach, though not as an instructor/DM. Encouraging people to have level trim seems a challenge. Some saying they are not good enough divers for it to matter yet. We do one or two pool sessions of skin gear skills and rescues, including mask clearing, before going to scuba. Though not to the level everyone doing a recover, don, and clear of a mask/snorkel off the bottom before progressing. We often have as many instructors/DMs/TAs as students.

 

[Diver0001]

I got a question for the instructors that have responded to this thread and are teaching neutral which I like the shift towards this I get tired of seeing divers crop dusting the bottom. I don't like the shift to shorter more condensed classes. My question is what type of conditions are you teaching your open water portion in "lake, ocean, good vis, bad vis, swell etc". I'm asking mainly because I work several OW classes a year in Monterey CA and most still teach kneeling not sure if it is a conditions thing or just can't break old habits. Typical conditions for us are ocean shore entry with waves vis is 5 to 15 foot on a good day if I can see my fins consider it good swell and kelp in the summer. Also temperature is 52F - 55F.

Normally, 5 pool sessions of max 70 minutes. Conditions in open water are a lake with limited visibility. Temperatures vary throughout the year and can be cold enough that it is necessary to teach OW in a drysuit. Today for example, I expect wind force 4+ and water temperatures of about 10-11C on the surface. Air temperature will be 15-17C. Visibility will be +/-5m.

R..

 

[Diver0001]

But viz can be that low and I'm not sure how doing skills other than planted in the sand would work. Certainly would be a mess with a group of 6. I recall a few times bringing up the rear on our way out to the training buoy when I could not see the fins of the two flanking students on each side in front of me at the same time.

You know, as an instructor you need to account for conditions. In conditions like that I would maintain 2:1 ratios (in other words, each buddy pair gets it's own divemaster) not counting the instructor, who will need to keep his hands free.

In conditions where I couldn't see the whole group at one time I wouldn't do the dive. If you're doing 6 divers and you only have vizibility to see 2-3 of them (I have had this) then I agree to meet 1/2 of them in the morning and 1/2 of them come to the lake in the afternoon and I run it as two sessions.

It's more work for me but you can't start screwing around with safety because you don't feel like putting in the work. This is not a jab at you, but I know a lot of instructors do things like this and I find it hard to understand. I've had to rescue someone before that got in trouble from an instructor who didn't put safety first (the student ran out of air and "drowned" and they left him for dead on the bottom. -- we were able to save him). If you're DM-ing for someone like that then stop. Seriously.

R..

 

[Diver0001]

If people are teaching neutral buoyancy in skin gear first, how much do you manage level trim in skin gear? I find trim in skin gear a challenge with just a belt, and fighting trim makes judging buoyancy difficult.

.

It's fairly elementary but it can require some adjustments. Usually I make a strong go at getting those adjustments made during the 1st pool session (I'm actually not even sure what module "trim" is in because it's just natural to do it straight out of the gate so that's what I do). I try to get students swimming horizontally no matter what gear they are using by mod-2 because by mod-2 they're doing virtually everything while swimming and it has to feel natural. Also since we start hovering/neutral-swimming from the very beginning we need attention for buoyancy and trim from the very beginning.

R..

 

[The Chairman]

If people are teaching neutral buoyancy in skin gear first, how much do you manage level trim in skin gear?

I don't understand this question. What do you mean by "skin gear"?

A bit different than Rob, I put trim before buoyancy. Until I get my students flat and horizontal, there's not much they can learn about buoyancy. However, once on Scuba the first skill my students must master is getting comfortable. That means trim and buoyancy. I use two pool sessions of 3 to 4 hours each. The only drawback is they don't get to assemble gear as often. My students aren't allowed to lie on the bottom ever. Traditional classes like to put students on the bottom and add air. They lie on the bottom and add air until they can do a fin pivot and then off the bottom. I hate fin pivots because they mean your trim is crappy. My students start at the surface and gently work themselves down. If they find that they've gone too far, they're allowed to touch the pool bottom with only one finger. As I tell them, they have to imagine placing that finger on a dead spot on the reef. Then they establish their buoyancy, taking a minute or two to be sure they are neutral and then they continue.

Once comfortable, their ability to learn and master skills is crazy fast. Even the Scuba doff and don is done off the bottom and is wonderfully graceful rather than looking like a monkey trying to have it's way with a football.

 

[Killerflyingbugs]

I wish more people would teach people this way.

 

[Diver0001]

Once comfortable, their ability to learn and master skills is crazy fast. Even the Scuba doff and don is done off the bottom and is wonderfully graceful rather than looking like a monkey trying to have it's way with a football.

This bears repeating. I've often heard people saying that teaching neutral takes too much time but for those of us who are doing it, it's clear that the exact opposite is true. The efficiency is so much higher when you're teaching divers to dive (instead of sit around waiting for something to happen) that any initial effort you need to put into getting them swimming pays back in an order of magnitude efficiency gain later on.

Results are better because efficiency is higher.... a LOT higher.

R..

 

[Diver0001]

There's been a myth circulated since I can remember: You need a hundred dives to get your buoyancy right. This is false. You just need to be taught neutral from the beginning. I've been told that you have to be a "super instructor" to teach this way and that's another myth. However, teaching this way often makes you look like a super instructor. There's no need for a Peak Performance Buoyancy class when your students come out looking like you. It's a wonderful feeling to hear people trying to figure out what class my students "must" be taking and then the almost denial when you tell them.

I'll tell you a story. I taught my daughter to dive using this system and during her training she only ever dove with me and with one or two of my friends. Then while on vacation I got in touch with some local divers where we were and arranged for us to tag along during their club dive.

We went to a site where there was some cargo (pipes) that had fallen off of a ship and they had some nice fishes living in them. We rolled off the zodiac and started to descend. I floated down with my daughter and stopped a couple of meters above the bottom while the ENITRE club of divers we were with impacted the bottom and only then started adjusting their gear and so forth. We initially just hovered there and waited for them to get sorted.

For the first 10 minutes or so they all crawled along the bottom while the instructor who was leading the dive kept coming to my daughter and literally dragging her down to the bottom. Of course as soon as he let her go she came back to my side again... and he came and got her again.... etc. I suspect he was worried that she was going to make an unintended ascent.

After a few repetitions of that my daughter signed "WTF" to me to I intervened and let him know that I would watch her myself, which, of course, I already was since she was my buddy.

The dive lasted about an hour and most of the club divers started "diving" after about the 10 minute mark when things had calmed down a bit. The rest of the dive was uneventful and myself and my daughter floated around a little above and a little behind and to one side the group to stay out of their dust.
When the dive was done two things happened. First of all, my daughter said to me (in Dutch so they couldn't understand her) that she thought there was an accident happening during the descent because of the way they all went to the bottom and the ensuing chaos while they helped each other get neutral and so forth. It took her a couple of minutes to realize (to her utter astonishment) that this is "just the way they dive" (that's what she said). Like I said, the only buddy she had ever had was me or one of my friends so this was quite an eye opener to her.

The other thing that happened was one of the club divers (it was not the instructor) came to me after the dive and asked how many dives I had. I told her and she asked about my daughter too. I told her that my daughter had 6 official open water dives and this was dive #7..... Her mouth literally fell open and she said, "WHAT?". She literally couldn't believe it. She then explained that she had been diving for about 5 years and had 150 dives under her belt but that she was still struggling with her buoyancy control. She wanted advice, which I didn't feel free to give since her instructor was within earshot and he wouldn't have liked to hear what I was really thinking, so I just said to her that the secret was to go slow and practice.

R..

 

[Jim Lapenta]

The reason I teach NASE is that we don't do the CESA in OW. I hear that's the case for RAID as well. CESAs are a horrible example for students as they watch their instructors put their health at rish doing multiple bounce dives, with RAPID ascents. Truly a stupid thing to do over and over and over again. Instructors are the best divers out there and yet we get bent at an alarming rate compared to most other divers. Why? The CESA. I hate it and I won't do it. My health is too important.

SEI no longer does CESA's in open water. Too dangerous for the instructor andsti

Before I discovered the SPG, I used a j-valve. I ran out of air all the time. My first instructor failed to teach me the CESA and yet, I had no problem figuring that out when the time came. FWIW, we do teach CESAs horizontally in the pool. No instructors are harmed doing this.

Same here. SEI eliminated the CESA in open water. Too risky for the instructor and student. Still do them horizontally in the pool. It's also a pretty safe way to reinforce boyle's law and showing the way pressure affects lung volume. Those who have done the 50 ft underwater breathhold swim are sometimes shocked by how far they can swim simulating a CESA and still have so much more air over the same distance than a breathhold swim leaves them

 

[The Chairman]

I wish more people would teach people this way.

The good news is that more people are.

You don't have to be a superior instructor to teach this way, though you'll be accused of being one when you do. When I first started posting about this, I was called a fraud, a liar and it seemed that I was the only one pushing this. Then BolderJohn joined in and even wrote a paper on it for PADI. I've watched as every year more and more instructors are touting the benefits of "teachin' it neutral". No one questions my veracity anymore. No one even called me a liar in this thread. Don't get me wrong: I'm not trying to claim that I'm the first to teach this way. I have no idea who that belongs to and frankly I don't care. I think a few of us came upon it and it's spread from there. How did I get there? If anecdotes bore you, skip past this. But this is how it all began for me.

In 2001 or so, I was invited by @MB to take an IDC with Wayne Mitchel as the Course Director, Reggie Ross as his lieutenant and Dr Bob as the designated candidate basher! We were joined by others and there was one session where there were over 20 evaluators even though there were only two students. It was beyond brutal. I cried. I was so ill prepared to be an instructor and it showed but I stuck with it. One of my grand failures was doing an OW session in King Springs. I prided myself on having just the right amount of lead, so when we all knelt in that black, spongy silt, my inability to sit still on the bottom was revealed. I could not begin to describe the cloud of silt I and my fake students created as we bounced up and down trying to kneel. WTH??? It was pushed, pushed, pushed in the class that I, the instructor, should be the epitome of a diver. I was to set the example all the time. All the time. So why would I want to be over weighted ever, even to teach a skill??? Even by a couple of pounds just isn't a good example.

After I was duly annointed an instructor, I was getting frustrated in my classes. The students could get neutral, but then when we went to OW, they didn't care about standing or sitting on the reef. ARRRRRRRRRRRRRRGH! So, my classes spent a lot more time in the pool getting these people off the floor. I put up rings for them to swim through. Sure it was fun, but it took lots of time. I started teaching a few skills while neutral... but that dang Scuba Doff and Don plum eluded me.

Then it happened. I showed up at Alexander Springs on a Saturday. The absolute prettiest spring to train divers in. Unfortunately, every other Scuba Class within a 100 or more miles showed up too. Dayum. We got down to the water, but the other classes were already in there. I couldn't get my students to hurry up, so it was really crowded and there was not a patch of sand left to do skills. But this was a great class, and they had been doing all of the skills midwater... so screw it. We held class over the other students' heads. They knelt and we hovered. You know. This was pretty easy. Even better: NO PHREAKIN' SILT. Afterwards, I had a couple instructors come up to chew the fat and one asked what class I was teaching where I had them all do OW skills mid-water. Dayum. The look on his face when I told him was priceless. They protested. One even suggested that he would have to report me for not being in 'control' of my students. It was scandalous, and being an internet troll, I was hooked.

After that it was simple evolution. I believe by 2004, I had finally learned the trick to doing the Doff and Don mid water, so my entire class went neutral. The more I did it, the easier it became. Five or six years ago I added my weight exercises as well as other neutral buoyancy exercises to my class. 3 years ago, I added a discussion about vector physics to describe how to get in trim. Don't worry. There's no need to bring your slide rule or remember your calculus. It's simplified. My class keeps evolving and gets easier and easier to teach. As I was taught so strongly in my IDC: my best class is my next one. I don't remember when I added teaching the frog kick. It started out as optional, and now I decide for the student based on their fins.

So, it's not rocket science! It's submarine science and something every instructor can figure out on their own. They just have to commit to it. Of course, as I pointed out, a number of us have reinvented that wheel already. So pick our brains, not our noses, and benefit from our triumphs and learn from our mistakes. Don't set the bar "higher"... no, set it more neutral.