Neutrally Buoyant vs Kneeling - What is Better whilst teaching Scuba Diving skills?

[IDC Koh Tao Thailand]

For some people this is a very hot topic Is it better to teach scuba diving skills on your knees on the bottom or when being neutrally buoyant on students first diving experience in confined water?

I would love to hear your opinions in the comments below


My opinion:

(I am talking about the first moment people experience being under water in like confined dive 1 or maybe 2...)

Some Scuba Divers and Professionals say that you have to teach new scuba divers from the start to be neutrally buoyant, others say the opposite and believe that new scuba divers should first feel relaxed practicing skills on their knees first before moving on to buoyancy skills, while others are anywhere in-between with their opinions about teaching skills kneeling or neutrally buoyant whilst scuba diving in confined water.

Personally, I am one of those dive instructors that is in between with my opinion of whether neutrally buoyant or kneeling is better in confined water. I read a lot of opinions from dive professionals leaning towards neutrally buoyant or just kneeling, but to be honest in my opinion a great dive instructor makes his/her choice depending on many different factors...

You can read those different factors in my full ARTICLE here:

Neutrally Buoyant VS Kneeling - What Is The Difference Teaching Scuba Diving Skills?

Is it better to teach scuba diving skills on your knees on the bottom or when being neutrally buoyant on students first diving experience in confined water? Please share in the comments below

Marcel van den Berg

 

[HKGuns]

As a recent student, I would have found it distracting to try to find and maintain neutral buoyancy while learning and practicing the other skills. I don't think you can master neutral buoyancy in the confined water section. I'm still improving mine.

ETA: Heck, I had a hard time staying on my knees in the pool. Had to overweight in order to keep me down and stop me from rocking over to one side while swiping for the lost regulator!

 

[tridacna]

 

[RockiesFan]

Don't get Pete started!

 

[boulderjohn]

I first became a professional in 2004, assisting classes as a DM at first and then teaching as an instructor a year later. Everything was done firmly planted on the knees, as I had been taught in getting my instructor certification. I was never happy with the way the students looked at the end of their confined water instruction. I began to experiment a little at a time, always checking with the Course Director of my shop to make sure I was not violating standards. Eventually I was teaching the entire course neutrally buoyant from the start, although my students were touching the bottom. They started the class lying comfortably on the floor, with enough buoyancy that they rose off the bottom a bit on inhale. They were much more comfortable in that pose than on their knees. They were also properly weighted, as opposed to kneeling, which demands significant overweighting. Most importantly, at the end of the confined water sessions, they looked like confident divers, with excellent buoyancy control.

I knew some other instructors were doing similar things, many active on ScubaBoard, and I invited a discussion group to meet in the Instructor to Instructor section of another dive forum, The Dive Matrix. There we could discuss the issue without interference of certain individuals who would have disrupted such a discussion on ScubaBoard. At the end of those discussions, I wrote a preliminary draft of an article on the topic and circulated it among that group for rewrite after rewrite after rewrite. One member (ScubaBoard name Quero, sadly deceased) was particularly helpful. I submitted it to PADI.

That led to some interesting discussions among PADI leadership, and Technical Director Karl Shreeves was assigned to work with me on a draft to be published in the PADI professional journal. Our original draft was much too long for publication, and so whole sections were dropped. Those included the history section explaining how kneeling in instruction got started (that part was largely written by Dr. Sam MIller of ScubaBoard) and the entire educational rationale. The final document was largely a "How to do do it" description, and it was the result of many back and forths between Karl and me.

I posed for a pile of pictures for it, and I provided suggested captions. The article was published a decade ago, unfortunately with the layout artist screwing up the pictures. If you look up the very first article PADI published advocating neutral buoyancy instruction, about a decade ago, you will see me in a few poses that were supposed to contrast the two approaches.

I could tell by my conversations with Karl that PADI had never thought of doing things that way before. I could also tell that as we discussed it, they were trying it out on their own. By the time we published, they were convinced it was a superior way to teach. They are just facing too much resistance to mandate it. In the dive shop where I worked, the Course Director watched my progress carefully, and when he saw the results, he made it a rule that all instructors had to do it that way.

A few years after that, Two friends and I did a dive off the shore of Akumal Bay, and as we walked up to the dive shop, the DM, who was new to us that day, told us that the three of us were the only ones signed up for the next dive, and he suggested we go to a site more fitting our advanced skills. We agreed, but when we got in the boat for the next dive, another couple had joined us. We got to that more advanced site, and it was clear that other couple did not have the skills needed for the swim throughs and coral canyons, so we just swam over the top of it. After the dive, the DM apologized, saying that the other couple only had about 25 dives and so did have the skills we had clearly developed over time. I pointed to my friends and said, "I just certified them yesterday. You witnessed their first two dives as certified divers."

So I am absolutely convinced it is the best way to teach--by far.

 

[boulderjohn]

As a recent student, I would have found it distracting to try to find and maintain neutral buoyancy while learning and practicing the other skills. I don't think you can master neutral buoyancy in the confined water section. I'm still improving mine.

I don't mean to pick on you, but this is very much typical of the responses I get when I (or others) talk about it. The conversations usually go like this, although I have admittedly exaggerated the terms being used.

Advocate: I have taught scuba both ways, and I am amazed at how much better this approach works.
Resistor: I have only seen and done instruction on the knees, but I have such a powerful imagination that I can clearly visualize how bad it would be to do it that other way.

The truth is that the students find this easier than doing it on their knees. Until you see the difference, you will not understand the obstacles and problems created by being on the knees.

 

[Protondecay123]

I would rather die neutrally buoyant than teach on my knees. - Frank "Scuba" Zappa

 

[James79]

I don't mean to pick on you, but this is very much typical of the responses I get when I (or others) talk about it. The conversations usually go like this, although I have admittedly exaggerated the terms being used.

Advocate: I have taught scuba both ways, and I am amazed at how much better this approach works.
Resistor: I have only seen and done instruction on the knees, but I have such a powerful imagination that I can clearly visualize how bad it would be to do it that other way.

The truth is that the students find this easier than doing it on their knees. Until you see the difference, you will not understand the obstacles and problems created by being on the knees.

I am curious how much may be mis-communication. I was certified through PADI in 2003, in Jamaica at a resort.... firmly planted on the bottom for most of the skills. I spent a very long time out of the water, then started back fairly recently first as a vacation diver, now doing more diving local. Having read much (I over research almost everything) I was on the fence about this subject, and it matters to me more now as my kids get certified. In the many threads I've read on the subject, this is the first I've seen it mentioned to teach while neutral as meaning in what they called a fin pivot when when I learned. Prior to 2 minutes ago, I my mental image of teaching while neutral was no contact with anything... an admirable goal, but I can see the concerns too (in my powerful imagination!). Thinking of it now as you described, my powerful imagination now sees the start of confined water in a fin-pivot position leading to final certification dive being truly neutral, in trim, with decent buoyancy... and a gradual progression from one to the other. I like that idea vastly better than how I previously envisioned from the discussions.
Of course, I could be off my rocker!
Respectfully,
James

 

[eelpout]

Teach the skills while lying on the bottom, instead of being on your knees. Whoever the. Instructor is has to do every thing in the horizontal position in the water. Unless you can demonstrate your position proficiency in the skill, it will be difficult to show your students how to do it. I was an instructor for 23 years before my wife took the GUE fundies course. I followed 3 months later.
She came back with a plan to restructure our teaching instructors were encouraged to take the Fundies course or do pool sessions with us while practicing our changes in teaching. It takes a concerted effort to surround yourself with people committed to change for the better. Our students were better equipt to learn because they didn't see anybody on either knees. The transition to actual desired position in the water did not exist. They were already horizontal in the water column. I don't teach anymore but I came from old school horse collar, back pack no octopus, no spg in the pool teaching , from NAUI, PADI, HSA,and TDI. I evolved because I wanted to improve. I continued learning from better Divers. I also wanted my students to great Divers and buddies.

 

[boulderjohn]

In the many threads I've read on the subject, this is the first I've seen it mentioned to teach while neutral as meaning in what they called a fin pivot when when I learned. Prior to 2 minutes ago, I my mental image of teaching while neutral was no contact with anything...

Some do as I did, in a near fin pivot position for the first skills and then getting fully neutral after that. Some go right to mid-water neutral.

You don't want the full fin pivot approach. There are two equally important things in play here:
1. Being neutrally buoyant and getting used to it from the start/
2. Being in horizontal trim, as you would be on a dive.

A full fin pivot has you in a 45° angle much of the time, which defeats the horizontal trim aspect.

Now, think about the horizontal trim part and think through the introductory skills part (regulator recovery, mask clearing, and alternate air share). In every one of those skills, the skills are done differently on the knees than in horizontal trim. In other words, if you are learning on the knees, you are learning to do the skills differently than while diving, and you have to relearn them later on. When we wrote the original article, Karl was not totally there yet, and he insisted on adding the part that said that if skills are first taught on the knees, they should later be retaught for horizontal trim.

If you teach those introductory skills in horizontal trim, they are MUCH easier for the students than when taught on the knees.

At the present time, I teach pretty much nothing but technical diving, so it has been a couple of years since I taught an OW class.