NASE Scuba Blog

[NASEHQ]

We just finished a great new article on our scuba blog, check it out:

[h=1]NASE Doesn’t Offer a Remedial Mask Clearing Course, Either…[/h]Posted on August 17, 2011 by NASE Worldwide
The number one complaint among dive operators is that new divers can’tcontrol buoyancy. And no wonder! The typical scuba student spends up to 90 percent of his time in the water standing, sitting or kneeling on the bottom. How can he ever learn buoyancy control doing that?
The situation is so bad some agencies offer remedial buoyancy control courses to try to help new divers fix problems that never should have been allowed to happen in the first place. That’s just plain wrong.

NASE doesn’t offer a remedial buoyancy control course any more than we offer a remedial regulator recovery or mask clearing course. To us, buoyancy control is not a “skill” to be demonstrated by doing fin pivots in open water.Controlling buoyancy is at the heart of everything we teach, right from the start. And, as with so many things in diving, it begins by building good habits.
In this series, we will be talking about ways to do just that. Among the topics we will cover:

• Start with the right equipment
• Overweighting students: It’s just plain wrong
• Properly weighted divers don’t always float at eye level
• Say No to fin pivots and Buddha hovering
• Buoyancy control is not a “skill”

 

[cudachaser]

As a NASE instructor I teach buoyancy control as an integral part of all skills

 

[mselenaous]

Loved the articles!
I preach bouyancy control to my students. It's heart breaking to see so many classes kneeling in the sand here in the Keys...even worse when divers with poor skills are kicking the reef that is being planted with new baby elkhorn and staghorn corals.