I'm new and was practicing clearing my mask in the local pool before my OW class.
During my earlier discover scuba class it went easily - but I only did it once. Doing it over and over in the pool again I had some good and some not-as-good experiences. I'm posting a couple tips that I found for both helping in mask clearing and in not freaking when it doesn't go great.
The teaching method I remember reading here and was told in a discover scuba class is this: look up, press the top of the mask and breath out from your nose. It may just be me but I found that it helped me to change the order a bit and do this: press the top of the mask, breath out my nose, and look up. It's a small change but I found that the order makes all the difference in the world to me.
Looking up without breathing out of my nose allows a bubble of air to come out of my nostrils and be replaced by water. I think this is what causes the commonly reported feeling of "water went up my nose and I felt like I was drowning". I believe that water going in and moving the nose hairs is just like the internal ear hairs, but instead of telling me how I'm moving, they're telling me not to keep breathing in and aspirate the water. This happens even if the water wouldn't be enough to actually choke me. To get past the "fright" feeling I found that taking a second to swallow, even if I'm not actually swallowing water helped a lot. I think it just lets my mind realize that I've got proper control over my epiglotis.
I practiced mask clearing using both sequences many times. Doing it so water went up my nose a bit helped me to recognize the feeling and realize that it was just the water going up a little bit and initiating the reaction noted above. That familiarity and the simple quick swallow gave me the confidence to be able to clear my mask easily even if I didn't get the timing just right.
Now I just need to practice it more so that I'm not using such a full breath to do it.
During my earlier discover scuba class it went easily - but I only did it once. Doing it over and over in the pool again I had some good and some not-as-good experiences. I'm posting a couple tips that I found for both helping in mask clearing and in not freaking when it doesn't go great.
The teaching method I remember reading here and was told in a discover scuba class is this: look up, press the top of the mask and breath out from your nose. It may just be me but I found that it helped me to change the order a bit and do this: press the top of the mask, breath out my nose, and look up. It's a small change but I found that the order makes all the difference in the world to me.
Looking up without breathing out of my nose allows a bubble of air to come out of my nostrils and be replaced by water. I think this is what causes the commonly reported feeling of "water went up my nose and I felt like I was drowning". I believe that water going in and moving the nose hairs is just like the internal ear hairs, but instead of telling me how I'm moving, they're telling me not to keep breathing in and aspirate the water. This happens even if the water wouldn't be enough to actually choke me. To get past the "fright" feeling I found that taking a second to swallow, even if I'm not actually swallowing water helped a lot. I think it just lets my mind realize that I've got proper control over my epiglotis.
I practiced mask clearing using both sequences many times. Doing it so water went up my nose a bit helped me to recognize the feeling and realize that it was just the water going up a little bit and initiating the reaction noted above. That familiarity and the simple quick swallow gave me the confidence to be able to clear my mask easily even if I didn't get the timing just right.
Now I just need to practice it more so that I'm not using such a full breath to do it.