Fin Pivot

[DORSETBOY]

whilst I agree with Mile that a fin pivot isn't the 'be all and end all', I do find it useful myself to keep good bouyancy, esp if I havent dived for a bit. I often practice fin pivots and hovers during a safety stop.. the former if i can find a nice patch of sand at about 5m

 

[devilfish]

My, my my, let's not all get hot under the collar about an exercise which has taken on a name of fin pivot. If the exercise is usefull or not is up for discussion. It is the first step to introduction of breath control and to demonstrate the effect of it. However, to "pivot" is to rotate. Even according to Webster's definition. What it is practiced now, and I don't care what the manuals call it, regardless of the agency, is not a fin pivot but a fin hover. A fin pivot is the next step. To hover at the tips of the fins and then rotating on the fin tips 360 deg, maintaining the hover angle. Thus fin pivot.
It's all trivial now, lost in the wind. Most divers nowadays are over weighted 5-10 lb or more. Breath control? It's rather breath holding. Inhale, hold, rise, exhale, drop, etc.
Neutral boyancy is a skill, a monkey can learn that. Just add air to compensate for the lead. Boyancy control is another story, it's an art and it takes a long time to master. Here's a starting exercise to practice. Fins off, mask off, hover in mid water column with the head couple inches below the surface, breathe normally for couple minutes, put the mask back on and clear it, without changing depth more than couple inches down and the head never breaks the water surface through the whole process.

 

[DORSETBOY]

Here's a starting exercise to practice. Fins off, mask off, hover in mid water column with the head couple inches below the surface, breathe normally for couple minutes, put the mask back on and clear it, without changing depth more than couple inches down and the head never breaks the water surface through the whole process.

sorry but no, that might be great if you've been diving for a while and feel comfortable but that's about as useful to a new diver as teaching a school aged physics student nuclear physics... Way over the top.

 

[Jason B]

However, to "pivot" is to rotate. Even according to Webster's definition. What it is practiced now, and I don't care what the manuals call it, regardless of the agency, is not a fin pivot but a fin hover.

So you are saying that a pivot can't rotate on the Y axis instead of the X axis?
The definition of hover is "To remain floating, suspended, or fluttering" according to the dictionary.

 

[MikeFerrara]

sorry but no, that might be great if you've been diving for a while and feel comfortable but that's about as useful to a new diver as teaching a school aged physics student nuclear physics... Way over the top.

I have OW students do mask R&R midwater. I wouldn't take a diver to open water if they couldn't do it.

 

[jbd]

I have found it to be a valuable skill for some on their way to learning buoyancy control. If a student has "floaty feet" and basically hovers horizontal while trying to perform a fin pivot, then they just whipped past the fin pivot to a hover. No problem. No need to make them do a fin pivot, they met the ultimate objective w/o doing one.

The key here is that you are using your judgement as a good instructor and evaluating whether or not the fin pivot will be useful for a particular student. It is a tool in your bag to use at your descretion.

Mike has taught far more students than I have but my experience has been the same as his, in that most students don't need to be taught the fin pivot. Most can go straight to a horizontal hover if shown that from the very beginning.

Too many instructors seem to be operating with the thinking that students just don't get it at all, so they go straight to the remedial methods first.

 

[northcoast_diver]

hi , could anyone explain to me what a fin pivot is exactly
this term sounds self explanatory but cant really see this as a skill thanks

Troll, troll, troll yer boat?

As a NAUI instructor, surely you have at least heard of it. It is not a NAUI required skill, but it comes up during the conversations in NAUI ITCs usually.

The Put-Another-Dollar-Ins use this. I have also seen SSI crossovers from PADI use it in their SSI teaching as well.

 

[DORSETBOY]

I have OW students do mask R&R midwater. I wouldn't take a diver to open water if they couldn't do it.

yep but not fins off, mask off maintaining a hover.. that's just daft to get an ow student to do (in my opinion)

 

[MikeFerrara]

yep but not fins off, mask off maintaining a hover.. that's just daft to get an ow student to do (in my opinion)

No, I let em keep the fins.

Although...a while back an AOW student lost a fin on a planned 80 ft dive with the bottom at 120 ft. He sunk down past 100 ft, paniced and blew for the surface. When he got there he wasn't breathing. He lived but it was a close one.

 

[SmokingMirror]

However, to "pivot" is to rotate. Even according to Webster's definition.

Of course, managing to read further than the first line of the dictionary definition might have revealed that a 'pivot' is also responsible for a reciprocating action (such as seen in a child's see-saw, which works on a 'pivot point'), and for a pendulous action (as in - obviously - a pendulum, which hangs - but not necessarily freely - from a 'pivot').
So, taken as intransitive, it refers to something which can 'turn on' or move 'as if on a pivot', viz. the action of hanging on fin tips or gently ascending/descending whilst maintaining a single fin position.
Or, of course, you could take the second meaning of pivot and have its intransitive refer to the act of 'hinging on' or 'depending on' the fin.

All just semantics really.


Personally, when doing OW, I found the fin pivot skill quite useful. As I hadn't yet gained the experience to achieve what I considered to be a good degree of controlled neutral buoyancy whilst in mid-water, I found having the bottom clearly visible provided a great visual reference as to my depth whilst I fine tuned my BCD.