I'm too stiff

[beanojones]

beano, I fail to see how relaxing will conquer a tank that is hanging off the right side of the student -- but maybe this is because we use relatively negative steels, and you use relatively neutral aluminums? If our students get the tank off center, they WILL roll, or they will have to fin or hand-wave constantly to avoid it.

The only left right "stability" comes from leg positioning (legs spread wide), but in the end everyone will roll about the long or short access given enough time, once they are actually hanging in mid water.

This is getting into I2I territory in a sense, but one of the reasons I start people in CW without fins, and with very little weight is to convince them to spread wide for stability and get used to (fast) the utter lack of stability that is neutral buoyancy. Once they hand swipe themselves off balance a few times they get it (usually): stability in the water comes from wide legs, stillness, and breath control.

Once they get that, putting them on the surface, and having them learn to spin their body around the long access (without using their hands) usually tells them what they need to know for left right stability. Wide spread legs=stable, crossed legs= spinning around the long access.