Maintaining Trim while motionless

Please register or login

Welcome to ScubaBoard, the world's largest scuba diving community. Registration is not required to read the forums, but we encourage you to join. Joining has its benefits and enables you to participate in the discussions.

Benefits of registering include

  • Ability to post and comment on topics and discussions.
  • A Free photo gallery to share your dive photos with the world.
  • You can make this box go away

Joining is quick and easy. Log in or Register now!

I know, but when I am deeper I am too busy having fun!

Hanging at the wall or just above the bottom getting a critter into that perfect shot works for me.

Edit: no, I haven't succeeded so far in case anyone's wondering.
 
So if I am supposed to be at 10 feet and I go from 5-15 ft would I pass?

No, that wouldn't pass. It has to be within 5 feet total depth change.

Having said that, what they don't tell you is that if you go beyond a total of 5 feet from the target depth at any point in the last couple of days of the course, you are likely not going to pass. Sometimes a diver with otherwise very good buoyancy control moves to stay with a diver who has gone off the target depth and both divers will be deemed to have gone outside the window. They much prefer that you signal the diver and wait for them to return to the target depth.

Also, even though within 5 feet of the target depth is technically allowed, I've never seen or heard of anyone actually getting even a recreational pass who was anywhere close to those parameters. Trim within 30 degrees of horizontal is technically allowed for a recreational pass, but I've never seen or heard of anyone passing anywhere close to 30 degrees off. They might get a probational pass and have up to 6 months to upgrade to a pass. Most GUE instructors that I know aren't going to compromise their signature.
 
No, that wouldn't pass. It has to be within 5 feet total depth change.

Having said that, what they don't tell you is that if you go beyond a total of 5 feet from the target depth at any point in the last couple of days of the course, you are likely not going to pass. Sometimes a diver with otherwise very good buoyancy control moves to stay with a diver who has gone off the target depth and both divers will be deemed to have gone outside the window. They much prefer that you signal the diver and wait for them to return to the target depth.

What are the conditions in which students are evaluated?

Swells at 15 feet can easily eat up the entire 5 foot window. Do the students get a visual point of reference?
 
What are the conditions in which students are evaluated?

Swells at 15 feet can easily eat up the entire 5 foot window. Do the students get a visual point of reference?

The conditions are generally pool or similar conditions. No one is evaluated in heavy surge. There is always some type of visual reference, even if it's only your buddy.
 
What are the conditions in which students are evaluated?

Swells at 15 feet can easily eat up the entire 5 foot window. Do the students get a visual point of reference?

We did it in spring-clear water, in a basin with several training platforms. Again, that was in a class with only Rec students; nobody was aiming for a Tech pass. Now, from class reports I have read, for a Tech pass they do generally take students to another location that has some slightly deeper, perhaps less pool-perfect water, so they can at least do an ascent from something more realistic than a platform at 30 ft. Can anyone who has taken Fundies in N. FL confirm?
 
What I found worked EXTREMELY well for me diving doubles:

Get yourself in proper trim with your hands folded neatly infront of you, and your legs at the correct angle above you, as you should be in a perfect hover. Also, if you're in a drysuit, get your suit with just enough air to prevent squeeze, but not have a huge bubble riding around. With your OVERALL weighting, make sure you are weighted correctly so you can only just comfortably maintain a 3m stop with your tanks at 20-30bar (~300psi) with no gas in your BCD/wing. This will prevent excess gas slopping around in your wing/bcd and in turn exacerbating things whilst you try and get your weight distribution sorted out.

Once you've got the above sorted out, cross your feet at the ankles. You'll find that even if you try and maintain a completely still hover, you are making subconscious correction kicks. Crossing your feet at the ankles helps prevents this and makes you stop these kicks whilst you analyze your weight distribution.

Stay as still as you possibly can with your ankles crossed, and look at which way you tip. Tip head down? - Move some weight further down your rig. Tip head up? - move some weight further up your rig. Tip left/right - move some weight accordingly.

Keep repeating this and moving weight around till the tipping happens at a slower rate takes a much much longer time to happen.

After the above, you'll need less kicking to maintain your trim, and the tiny tiny subconscious correction kicks you are talking seeing in videos will become second nature.

That and it'll also help you sort out your back-fin much, much faster. That's a skill which is near impossible if your weight distribution isn't correct.

Bevan
 
Last edited:
No, that wouldn't pass. It has to be within 5 feet total depth change.

Having said that, what they don't tell you is that if you go beyond a total of 5 feet from the target depth at any point in the last couple of days of the course, you are likely not going to pass. Sometimes a diver with otherwise very good buoyancy control moves to stay with a diver who has gone off the target depth and both divers will be deemed to have gone outside the window. They much prefer that you signal the diver and wait for them to return to the target depth.

Also, even though within 5 feet of the target depth is technically allowed, I've never seen or heard of anyone actually getting even a recreational pass who was anywhere close to those parameters. Trim within 30 degrees of horizontal is technically allowed for a recreational pass, but I've never seen or heard of anyone passing anywhere close to 30 degrees off. They might get a probational pass and have up to 6 months to upgrade to a pass. Most GUE instructors that I know aren't going to compromise their signature.
I just want to make sure I understand what you are saying. Is the following a fair summary?

The standards give very specific limits for student performance, but instructors use their own independent judgment instead.
 
No, that wouldn't pass. It has to be within 5 feet total depth change.

Having said that, what they don't tell you is that if you go beyond a total of 5 feet from the target depth at any point in the last couple of days of the course, you are likely not going to pass. Sometimes a diver with otherwise very good buoyancy control moves to stay with a diver who has gone off the target depth and both divers will be deemed to have gone outside the window. They much prefer that you signal the diver and wait for them to return to the target depth.

Also, even though within 5 feet of the target depth is technically allowed, I've never seen or heard of anyone actually getting even a recreational pass who was anywhere close to those parameters. Trim within 30 degrees of horizontal is technically allowed for a recreational pass, but I've never seen or heard of anyone passing anywhere close to 30 degrees off. They might get a probational pass and have up to 6 months to upgrade to a pass. Most GUE instructors that I know aren't going to compromise their signature.

As someone who has a Tech Pass and has seen multiple instructors and classes conducted, this is just wrong.

First, I'm going to address individual instructor teaching philosophy. Some GUE instructors like to teach the class and have one final dive demonstrating all of the skills learned over the past 4 days. This dive is treated like a final exam and has the most weight when determining your final passing level (provisional, rec, tech). I am not going to say it needs to be a perfect dive, but let's just say it needs to be very, very good and an issue on the dive can't be something that you have routinely struggled with.

The other philosophy is to use the entire class from start to finish in determining final pass level. In a way, even instructors that have the final exam philosophy incorporate this into the evaluation, but the key take away is that there is no "ultimate final exam". Different skills are taught and evaluated throughout the course, some may be done on multiple dives, some may not be. In my fundies, I did basic 5 and no mask air share exactly one time.

Now to address some of your points

The "at any point in the last couple of days of the course, you are likely not going to pass." is false. Mistakes happen. Having this happen once or twice isn't grounds for a fail. Breaking the 5ft window multiple times during the last day of the course would indicated control issues and mean you probably won't pass.

As for GUE standards being applied in the real world, those are the standards required for a pass. What you are witnessing and mistaking for not following their own standards is a combination of two things.

1. GUE instructors teach for perfect (aka 0) so even when a student falls short, they are still pretty close if they apply what they are being taught. It's the "Aim for the moon, even if you miss you'll land among the stars philosophy".

2. They are each independent standards, but also cumulative in the creation of a complete diver. What I mean is, you might find a GUE diver who is pushing the 30 degrees of trim limit or you might find a rec pass holder who pushes the 5ft window, but you are not going to find one who pushes 30 degrees of time AND the 5ft window. You need control and there is no way a diver can walk the tight rope of pushing the boundaries of multiple standards while still completing the different skills at a passing level.

The key difference between course evaluation between GUE and the other agencies is that there is no rounding up for a passing grade in GUE.
 
What are the conditions in which students are evaluated?

Swells at 15 feet can easily eat up the entire 5 foot window. Do the students get a visual point of reference?

My Fundies class was in the St Lawrence river. The shore dives we did were in areas that had current, but not massive current. We had to learn to do a lot of back kicking to maintain our position during all the skills, task loaded or not. On the third day, they told us that we didn't have to be facing each other with one person facing the current and one against; we could be almost beside each other diagonally facing each other, both downcurrent, so we could slightly kick forward to stay with our line or point of reference. It was of course so much easier. When I practiced with 3 people, we took turns being upcurrent and backfinning.

We always had a visual point of reference, our wrist computer(s) at least, our buddy, and often a shot line. At the beginning of the four days+, they sometimes had a bolt snap at specified depths on the line, then the bolt snaps would be taken away. We didn't have a platform.
 
I just want to make sure I understand what you are saying. Is the following a fair summary?

The standards give very specific limits for student performance, but instructors use their own independent judgment instead.

Haha, I knew you would make a Standards comment. I'm not an Instructor. I see the within 5 feet and within 30 degrees of horizontal as minimum standards. I can't say that that's what Instructors strive for. I can only say that I have seen people pushing those limits that have not passed at that time. The reality is that quite often people who usually maintain 0* trim and target depth tend to stay well within the limits when task loaded. Those who are somewhere in between when not task loaded can easily go close to or outside of the parameters. Honestly, I haven't seen them pass, and I haven't seen a diver who has passed doing that either.

I post not as a standards comment, but as information to be really squared away before, for example, doing Fundamentals Part II. I see the high standards as an exceptionally good thing.
 
https://www.shearwater.com/products/teric/

Back
Top Bottom