Horizontal Obsession

[Gombessa]

Exactly, the key word is ALWAYS= 100% of the time

100% of time without exception? Yeesh.

As for me, horizontal ascents are beneficial because you provide more surface area to control your buoyancy, allows you to control the gas in a drysuit without closing the valve, allows you to maintain buddy/team position and contact by back and forward kicking and puts you in a better position to tilt a few degrees (gosh, out of horizontal! ) to swim up or down as needed.

To me, those are compelling reasons for maintaining horizontal ascents and descents, but I would submit that it's a far cry from someone promoting being horizontal 100% of the time.

 

[MXGratefulDiver]

Exactly, the key word is ALWAYS= 100% of the time

Have you ever actually met anyone who does that? I know I haven't.

Just seems like another strawman argument to me ...

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

 

[Nemrod]

I am not against GUE, I may even take course if it were thirty years ago but the pretentious Do It Right, yes, a little bit, and there is an undercurrent that exists inside this forum and it runs both ways I admit, I just get tired of the preaching to the choir, horizontal, frog kicks, etc, just seems to be something a lot of us do without making a point of it so blast away, I just don't worry about anymore. I use the equipment I use and the style of diving as needed and dictated by the circumstances, not by some play book that requires official sanctioning lest I be not cool or as Blackwood says, I am a dork, good, dork it is, yawn try harder .

Besides, I am more into my camera these days and my new bicycle and maybe a triathlon for the first time in a long while.

However, I did have the pleasure of meeting a real GUE person and such a completely gentle and genuine and unpretentious person could ever be met. At least that was my take and a superb diver by any measure, horizontal or not.

Mr. Bob, lol, don't spring a leak in your suit, it is all going to be OK!

I used to have this little submarine, a model of the Nautilus, you put baking soda in it and then put it in the pool and it would go up and down. But never did it vary from level and was so completely unrealistic in it's motions. Bobbing up and down completely horizontal may be something good at times, I think most of the time it serves no real purpose and is not realistic in the larger context, it is of no consequence to the task at hand, which for most people is having a fun, safe, dive with our friends. Real submarines do not bob up and down, they rip through the water at classified speeds and breach in a most impressive fashion when they surface, a beautiful thing.

Whatever floats your boats, we all float down here.

N, we swim down, we swim around and then we swim back up

 

[captain]

I've been trained that way, but I started doing it before said training. My initial training was to get "nice and negative" and swim up. I found that to be cumbersome and soon after started experimenting. I found that remaining in the prone position was easier to control and less tiring.

Actually I feel your original training was wrong. I have never gotten "nice and negative" and then start swimming up, I start my accent and vent along the way to control accent rate but you don't have to be horizontal to do that or even swim.

 

[boulderjohn]

Actually I feel your original training was wrong. I have never gotten "nice and negative" and then start swimming up, I start my accent and vent along the way to control accent rate but you don't have to be horizontal to do that.

I agree, and that is how we teach it here. Unfortunately, not all people teach it that way. When I was in Belize two years ago, the DM said in every briefing that people should dump all their air out of the BCD before ascending. That works if you are properly weighted in a 3 mm suit, but....

A few months ago I was doing an AOW dive in New Mexico with a student who had just moved to our area. We were at depth near the end of her first dive. She was wearing a full 7 mm suit, hood, and gloves. Of course, due to wet suit compression, she was of necessity overweighted at depth. I signaled for her to ascend, and, as she had been taught wherever she had been initially trained, she emptied her BCD.

It took some prompt action, but I caught her before she sank too far.

 

[Nemrod]

There was this lady on a dive a few weeks ago, a young lady, really nice, but in the water she did the "bicycle" continuously to the point that I thought for sure she might need to be rescued, from herself, it was, literally, pitiful. If some horizontal training would help her I hope she gets it.

If it were not so predictable to watch the gaskets blow there would be no sport in funning with DIR, so, in the interest of world peace and human harmony, I ban myself from mentioning, uh, hmm, well, the three letter acronym that get's y'all all spinning at least until I forget my self imposed moratorium. I am forgetful these days so, it is what it is.

N

 

[Uncle Pug]

Are we there yet?

 

[Adobo]

Yes, that is the normal OW instruction.

On the other hand, others have been taught to do the ascents and descents horizontally, and the purpose of this thread, unless I misunderstood Captain's point, is to understand why.

In contrast, there is a perception that some divers are obsessive about being horizontal in all situations, even when it is not necessarily needed for the dive. Captain was asking people why they do this, I believe.

I'm all kinds of confused. Is he asking about being horizontal during ascents/descents or is he asking about being horizontal even when you don't need to be?

 

[Adobo]

Exactly, the key word is ALWAYS= 100% of the time

I could be wrong on this but I suspect some cave divers (even GUE trained ones) will tell you that being horizontal 100% of the time is stupid.

 

[Scott L]

This and other threads are combining recreational and technical diving discussions which is silly. IMO only newer divers have issues controlling bouyancy regardless of horizonal or verticle trim.

When a newer diver can master staying in horizonal trim throughout the majority of the dive including ascent they certainly should have the skill set to acsent vertically should they prefer for whatever reason...