I'm too stiff

[shmuggy]

It is a common thing to see in new divers- as you develop your skills by doing more dives, you should get better now that you know. The really good thing is that once you stop moving your arms when not needed, your air consumption will improve too and the fish life will not run from you.

 

[TMHeimer]

I do the folded arms as well. There only two times I use my arms to move forward. One is when going along the bottom (or side of a jetty) into a current--I grab the rocks & pull myself along (it works in sand as well, not as good). The other time is if I get leg cramps. You can get some forward motion by moving hands out in front (like praying) then "breast-stroking' out & back. It is the palms of the hands that create drag and nullify arm use in a forward crawl manner. Other than that (and for picking up shells, poke spearing flounders) arms should not be used at all.

 

[Matt S.]

I dont think its ill-fitting equipment. All the dives Ive done so far have either been with a master diver or an instructor and whenever anyone has checked my equipment its been right.

Even if the equipment fits right you could have a weight distribution problem that isn't easy to see. The solution to your problem may be as easy as scooting your tank up or down a couple of inches, or moving or removing a weight. An experienced buddy can help you with stuff like that while you are under. I've seen a poorly trimmed driver fixed right up when an experienced instructor loosened the tank bands and repositioned it in the middle of a dive.

When you are properly trimmed and weighted things get a lot easier and you won't feel the need to use your hands so much. It is well worth iterating until you have it optimized.

 

[beanojones]

As Quero said, hand waving is common, and comes from a feeling of instability. This is often due to ill-fitting or poorly designed BCs, that don't hold the tank in the middle of the diver's back, creating a tendency to roll. It can also come from being very unbalanced fore and aft, as the diver tries to avoid doing a headstand if he stops.

Unusually I am going to disagree with this one pretty strongly.

I think, given your (TSandM's) gear progression, from Jacket to BP/W which followed your progression from struggling diver to expert diver you are putting too much credit into your gear choices and not enough into your own comfort and expertise.

I train people exclusively in jacket style BCDs. As is the case with most things in diving, if people are told something is hard, and aren't told that gear will solve their problems *, they don't think of getting stable as hard, and don't look to gear to solve their problems.

Almost everyone tries hard at diving at first, and quite simply trying hard at diving gives bad results. Diving is a Zen activity in that conscious effort is not rewarded, rather it is punished. What this comes from mostly is the fact that any "trying hard" messes up the breathing, which is (outside of rebreathers) the most important part of balance and buoyancy. Trying hard in the upper body (putting tension in shoulder and arm muscles) actually physically restricts the ability to fully exhale by restricting diaphragm movement. Trying hard in the legs tends to stiffen the ankle joint into a 90 bend, and that, along with the fact that most people extend their legs when trying hard, results in fins not staying parallel to the surface of the water, which means that the back end of the body has no stability. And trying hard in general causes greater average volume in the lungs which makes buoyancy (and stability) next to impossible because of the big air bubble in the lungs popping the front end of the body up, (which unfortunately too many people, both divers and instructors, try to solve by overweighting the front end, and/or moving trim weights up.)

All those problems add up to a lack of breath based buoyancy control. And lack of breath based buoyancy control makes it next to impossible for people to lose their fear of falling, which means the hands swipes never stop, because the diver never learns to drop the head down and enjoy the weightlessness.

(on the other hand the point about floppy fins is spot on. I cannot stand training open water students in split fins because they cannot get any feedback from their leg action, and so they simply keep using their hands.)

* I am always interested in the basic contradiction of GUE training: Don't use gear to solve problems is a basic mantra, and yet BP/W, which the whole system is built around is exactly that.

 

[Griffo]

Unusually I am going to disagree with this one pretty strongly.


* I am always interested in the basic contradiction of GUE training: Don't use gear to solve problems is a basic mantra, and yet BP/W, which the whole system is built around is exactly that.

Actually that's missing the point of GUE - the quote should also be don't use gear to solve skills problem. But people always focus on the gear for some reason - the gear mandate is all about team uniformity and having one setup that works in (almost) all environments to make the human interface automatic. I could rockup in Mexico tomorrow, meet up with a random GUE diver, and go diving with the same deco schedules, the same mnemonics, the same gear setup. I could borrow a complete set of gear and instantly know where everything is from the SMB to the knife to the wet-notes. And it would be the same if I rocked up in the UK to do a deep tech wreck dive.
But i'm not the best spokesperson for GUE and should really keep my mouth shut

It was also taught on GUE fundies that you have to learn to correct for equipment - don't expect your rig to always be perfectly balanced for you, you need to know how to change your body position (notably your head, arms an legs) to in effect act as levers to correct any balance problems inherent in the gear setup.

However, by getting the initial balance of the gear right, then the newer diver can for once work on just their body position, and understanding what "right" feels like. Once the diver knows that, they can then correct any balance issues with the rig by adjusting their body position in the water. When both the gear is unbalanced, AND the diver is new, then it makes it particularly hard. I reckon I could go out and dive in a jacket BC and get in horizontal trim, but until I was taught how to, i simply could not make it happen despite trying my hardest for many a dive.

When i finally had an instructor show me where my body should be, it felt totally foreign as what I thought was horizontal was nowhere near so. That's why the OP should get someone to take photo's, or get someone with real experience to help them out. I too was trying too hard as you describe, but that's because no instructor (and I tried 3) could offer any decent advice on how to get properly stable in the water. Just "keep trying" when I had a dozen variables was just never going to make it happen. I was shifting weights around, and moving tanks and trying to play with my breathing and trying to move my legs etc etc etc but because I had no recognition of what balanced in the water column should feel like, it was just pot luck.

When my Fundies instructor sorted out my rig, adjusted the plate, moved weight around, forced my body into certain positions, then video taped it so I could see what he was on about, it finally clicked, but only after a couple of dives of continued monitoring and correction by him. Now it seems easy.

I think I'm rambling but what I am trying to say really is what I said above. A properly sorted rig makes it easier to learn. After you learn, the rig doesn't matter as much anymore.

 

[beanojones]

Actually that's missing the point of GUE - the quote should also be don't use gear to solve skills problem.
...
A properly sorted rig makes it easier to learn. After you learn, the rig doesn't matter as much anymore.

The last statement is kind of my point. Since the vast majority of experienced divers are comfortable and stable in their jacket BCDs, then getting comfortable and stable must be a skill.

The italicized bit is just not true. People can get stable in any gear, hence my sentence one. It's just that most instructors and divers are not really aware of hat makes someone stable in the water. GUE is rightly praised for focusing on what the student is doing in the water. But good instructors focus in the students anyway.

 

[TSandM]

beano, I don't disagree with you at all. An experienced diver can compensate a lot for unbalanced or poorly fitting equipment. But new divers don't have that ability, and equipment that doesn't fit or work well really plays havoc with their stability. I did not mean to say that the only good option for a new diver is a backplate (although I may believe it!). I have, however, observed that a great many training BCs do not provide much stability for the tank, and are often not properly sized by the dive shop, compounding the problem. Tank slewing is, in my experience, a significant cause of instability which leads to flailing in general, and hand-waving in specific.

 

[Griffo]

The picture below is me not long after I learned to dive in rental gear. Looking at it now, it's obvious that I am over-weighted which is resulting in heaps of air in the BC. The BC is also too large so the tank is floating miles away from my back. It also looks like I'm breathing pretty heavy


Was it any wonder I couldn't get balanced in the water?
The problem is most shops and many instructors don't seem to care.

 

[lostcajun]

These are all very good and helpful responses. I might add one other aspect. I think a person physical health and condition are vital to being relaxed and confident while diving. Fitness matters. Also if one desires to dive, perhaps that person might want to include swimming in their weekly fitness routine. I have always loved the water, but it wasn't until I put swimming into my fitness routine that I became confident and relaxed in the water. And of course the more relaxed and familiar one is with their body in the water the more likely this positive experience will transfer to diving. This should transfer also to buoyancy control and breathing. Just a thought...

 

[beanojones]

beano, I don't disagree with you at all. An experienced diver can compensate a lot for unbalanced or poorly fitting equipment. But new divers don't have that ability,

I have, however, observed that a great many training BCs do not provide much stability for the tank, and are often not properly sized by the dive shop, compounding the problem. Tank slewing is, in my experience, a significant cause of instability which leads to flailing in general, and hand-waving in specific.

Here's where for me having students do the U/W BCD R&R swimming comes into play. Once people realize that the tank has its own mass, and has its own balance, and they stop trying to make the tank balance, and just worry about their own balance, they get it: trying to sling the tank around to get stability is a losing cause. Trying hard to do anything on scuba is a losing cause.

(On a non-basic scuba note, this is where teaching sidemount with AL80s also comes into play as well. Once the tank mass (not weight but mass) is understood by paying with them in sidemount, then people stop confusing weight and mass, which makes everything clear.)