Practicing Buoyancy and Skills in A Pool

[Ubiquitin]

I recently graduated from an Open Water class a couple months back, and I want to continue working on my diving skills, especially my buoyancy. During my open water checkout dives, I can pretty much maintain a hover at rest, fin through sunken playground hoops without touching the edges or the ground, and all the other good stuff in the evaluation, but I can only do these things when I give it 100% focus.

During the drills, especially the mask removal-juggle-replace, and the S-drill, I tend to move up the water column 1-1.5 meters. I chalk it to getting anxious just before doing the drill, and taking a deep breath, causing me to rise up. Mentally, I know this, yet I cannot seem to stop myself from doing it.

I've been practicing my buoyancy in a pool, but the only pool I have access to that rents tanks and allows divers in it is only 1.8m at the deep end. It gets very irritating as my chest either touches the floor, or my fins come out of the water constantly.

Also, my fining needs a whole lot of work. I seem to have some sort of psychomotor problem or something that makes my modified flutter kick not move me at all; my helicopter kick only works well in a clockwise direction; my back kick feels unnatural and while it does move me backward, it sometimes moves me upwards as well.

I was wondering if any of you have some tips for me?

I'm trying to go on as many dives as I can afford, both in terms of time and money, but as a single diver, I have found that most boat buddies don't really want to hang around and watch me try to do drills underwater, and quite frankly neither do I.

I wanna see the fishies.

At some point in the (far) future, I want to learn to dive wrecks, maybe even caves, and I want to take photographs while doing all these terrifying, terrifying activities. But I'll need to get my buoyancy down before I can even think about that.

PS: Are there any good books for me to get learn about the more theoretical side of diving. I've already ordered Deco for Divers that my instructor recommended. Is there anything else?

 

[DivemasterDennis]

As to books, there are plenty (see book and media review forum, or go to amazon.com and search "scubadiving") but none will replace in water time. It's a good idea to mark pool time to practice skills. On you first "real dives," you should just enjoy the underwater world. You will find that you are in fact "working on" and improving your skills throughout each dive. You don't need to just sit and create skill drills. The entire dive is a skill drill when it comes to buoyancy, finning, and body control. Mastering dive techniques take practice, and that means diving. Enjoy the process. Go diving. A lot.
DivemasterDennis

 

[g1138]

Work on having fun dives first. The buoyancy will come with time if you're devoting part of your mind to keeping neutrally buoyant & trimmed during your fun dives. When you have your buoyancy and trim in a better state, the finning will get easier to practice with.

It's hard to start practicing in a 1.8m pool when you're starting to get grips on your buoyancy. At that type of pool, all your buoyancy should be from your lungs, which makes practicing skills very hard for a new diver who has yet to master their breathing rhythm .

It's kinda like starting a new game on the hardest difficulty, rather than starting easy and working up. Have a few more fun dives and when you feel you can devote maybe 75% or 50% of your focus to buoyancy w/o worry, then try working on those skills in the shallow pool.

 

[TSandM]

If you are asking yourself to be stable in 5 feet of water, you are setting yourself a definite challenge, but it is doable. I would focus first on being able to remain horizontal and perfectly STILL. This may require moving some weight around, if you discover that you are consistently tilting head-down or head-up; static weighting that isn't right makes you feel the need to kick all the time.

Once you can simply sit and breathe for as long as you want to, then add the task-loading skills. Remember that mask clearing is not mask blasting; you are not expelling the water with force, but simply replacing it with air. CCR divers have to learn to clear their masks without losing any air at all! If you simply continue the same, rhythmic breathing you were using before you flooded the mask, but let the air out through your nose instead of your mouth, the mask will clear. Try it -- it works.

For the S-drill, it is almost universal that students will take a huge breath before relinquishing a regulator. The only way to stop doing it is to make it conscious. Try simply doing a regulator remove and replace first. Get to where you can take the regulator out of your mouth without any anxiety, and replace and purge it without issues. Then the S-drill itself will become much easier.

For the back kick, if you find yourself going upward, one of two things is true -- either you are starting in head-down trim, or your fin tips are pointing upward before you start the kick. The fin tip thing is VERY common, and results in what's known as the "backward shrimp dance". Once you learn to keep the fins horizontal, the upward motion will go away. And BTW, if you have even a marginal grasp of the back kick right out of OW, you are WAY ahead of the game!

As far as pool versus diving . . . remember that all these skills (except air-sharing, one hopes) will be used during any fun dive! You will hover to watch a cleaning station, or back up because you almost swam over the critter you just spotted. You will have dives where your mask just doesn't seat well, and you have to clear it repeatedly. If you pay conscious attention to the quality of the things you are doing, your skills will develop rapidly. (I mastered my back kick by diving with a photographer buddy. While he took pictures, I back kicked around him in circles )

As far as books go, there are a lot of them -- you already ordered Mark Powell's book. I would also recommend the PADI Encyclopedia of Recreational Diving. Although it is written in the typical PADI fashion, it is packed with information. And another book you might not think of buying is Steve Lewis's Six Skills -- although written for technical divers, there is much in the book of use to someone who aspires to being a skilled recreational diver as well.

 

[Ubiquitin]

As to books, there are plenty (see book and media review forum, or go to amazon.com and search "scubadiving") but none will replace in water time.

Yeah, I know. I'm not trying to replace dive time with books, but I am interested in reading all I can about the sport because it's kinda fascinating.

It's hard to start practicing in a 1.8m pool when you're starting to get grips on your buoyancy. At that type of pool, all your buoyancy should be from your lungs, which makes practicing skills very hard for a new diver who has yet to master their breathing rhythm .

I agree with you that buoyancy practice in the pool very hard. I figure if I can nail it when its hard, I should have no problems in the ocean (barring currents and triggerfish attacks!)

For the back kick, if you find yourself going upward, one of two things is true -- either you are starting in head-down trim, or your fin tips are pointing upward before you start the kick. The fin tip thing is VERY common, and results in what's known as the "backward shrimp dance". Once you learn to keep the fins horizontal, the upward motion will go away. And BTW, if you have even a marginal grasp of the back kick right out of OW, you are WAY ahead of the game!

I've never really paid attention to whether my fins were horizontal or not. I'll check it out my next dive.

Thanks everyone!

 

[fugly]

If you can have some one video you while doing your skills in the pool or open water. It provides excellent feedback.

 

[Ubiquitin]

If you can have some one video you while doing your skills in the pool or open water. It provides excellent feedback.

I'll see if I can find someone. I agree that it would be helpful. My pool training during the OW course, and parts of the checkout dives were filmed and throughly critiqued, and that helped a lot. I used to drop my knees alot, and seeing it on film (as well as frequent exhortations that, "If you can't feel a slight tension in the upper quads, then your knees are probably down!") definitely helped.

 

[Crowley]

You are attempting too much too soon, I think.

I am basing this on the number of dives in your profile, but the modified flutter, helicopter and back kick all take a little bit of practice or are - in the case of the back-kick - next to impossible depending on the fins you are wearing.

You say that you find it difficult to maintain buoyancy in 1.8m of water - and rightly so - it's not easy - but the chest-down/feet up position suggests that your weighting is not correct and this can be down to a number of different factors - the weight belt is too high up your body, or you're using integrated weights with too much lead in the pockets; the tank is positioned too high; you're wearing a thick wetsuit or semi dry or drysuit in which case ankle weights might help... I can't see you so I can't judge, but any one of these can affect your position in the water.

It's entirely possible you are wearing too much weight - if you are, then to maintain a hover you have to over-compensate with air in your BC or wing - taking a deep breath when you are neutrally buoyant and over-weighted will cause you to be too positive, and you will ascend unnecessarily.

When it comes to fin position - if your fins are pointing down, you will go up when you fin, and vice versa. It's a classic sign of too much weight - you have to constantly fin to maintain position, then when you ascend a few metres, the expanding air in your BC very quickly over-rides the negative effect of the weight you're wearing. Without seeing you in the water I can't say for certain, but certainly something to think about.

Get the buoyancy sorted first - everything else will be so much easier afterwards.

I hope that helps,

C.

 

[alan_lee]

S-drills? Backward kicks? Helicopter kicks? Hmm.. Do I know you or the people you dive with?

Believe it or not, a diver who is perfectly comfortable doing the skills during a leisure dive, but everything goes out of the window during a course, or when their instructor is looking at them. It's like the "white coat syndrome", where patients get anxious when they are around doctors and nurses. For us at GUE in Singapore, it's more like the "black wetsuit syndrome", but I digress. When I went through my Tech 2 course, we were all perfectly capable of doing our drills during our own training, but when our instructor was around or when we're task loaded, everything goes out of the window: our buoyancy, trim.. you name it. But that's what training is about, and it's for you to be aware of what triggers you and how you might be able to cope with it.

As I'd told many of my students, a large part of it comes from the stillness of your mind. Yes, it sounds like some Zen mumbo jumbo, but it's true. As you'd rightly pointed out, you get anxious and that messes you up. With practice (and some help with your instructor), you'd discover ways of how to cope. Write that down in your own personal training manual, and rehearse your drills mentally so that they become part of your muscle memory, right down to the sensation that you feel every step of the way.

For your kicks, it sounds like there might be issues with your technique. You'd need someone to have a look at it, and you gotta realise that your fins can also be a factor.

I presume the pool you're talking about is Outram Pool? Actually, if you're able to sort out your buoyancy in the water, you'd be able to cope with buoyancy in the ocean. Reason being 1.8m doesn't afford you a whole lot of allowance, so your problem would be magnified a few times over. Granted, fresh water and sea water would play a small part, but it just means that you have to cope in terms of making allowance for it, eg. putting in and dumping gas from your BC.

Speak to your buddy or the guide if you wanna do drills. You wouldn't wanna be doing drills for half an hour, but if you have sufficient gas, there's no harm in spending a couple more minutes underwater running through the drills (make sure someone is watching you! Never do drills alone!) while the others make their way up. That's why I always encourage my ex-students to dive with me so that we can continue refining the skills.

Seeing we're from Singapore, you can drop me a PM, or you can check out my blog for some tips that I'd picked up over my years of screw ups and also teaching. You can find my email on my intro page, so if you wanna drop me a mail, you can too.

Your desire to improve is certainly a great asset, and you'd make great improvements. Just be patient with yourself, and take time to progress. TSandM can attest to my LONG journey to Tech 2

 

[Ubiquitin]

S-drills? Backward kicks? Helicopter kicks? Hmm.. Do I know you or the people you dive with?

Believe it or not, a diver who is perfectly comfortable doing the skills during a leisure dive, but everything goes out of the window during a course, or when their instructor is looking at them. It's like the "white coat syndrome", where patients get anxious when they are around doctors and nurses. For us at GUE in Singapore, it's more like the "black wetsuit syndrome", but I digress. When I went through my Tech 2 course, we were all perfectly capable of doing our drills during our own training, but when our instructor was around or when we're task loaded, everything goes out of the window: our buoyancy, trim.. you name it. But that's what training is about, and it's for you to be aware of what triggers you and how you might be able to cope with it.

Hmm... GUE Singapore can only mean Living Seas, am I right? Interestingly, I almost did my open water with Living Seas, but ultimately went with Poh Chang over at UTD. I'm not sure if you know him, but given the small diving community here there is a good chance you might.

I presume the pool you're talking about is Outram Pool? Actually, if you're able to sort out your buoyancy in the water, you'd be able to cope with buoyancy in the ocean. Reason being 1.8m doesn't afford you a whole lot of allowance, so your problem would be magnified a few times over. Granted, fresh water and sea water would play a small part, but it just means that you have to cope in terms of making allowance for it, eg. putting in and dumping gas from your BC.

Yup, the Outram Pool. I just realized the other day that the deepest part is 2.3m; not that much deeper than 1.8m, but I think just knowing that helped psychologically (well, that and my brilliant idea to stare at the tiles at the pool edge as a visual reference. Why it took me so long to figure this out, I don't know).

Seeing we're from Singapore, you can drop me a PM, or you can check out my blog for some tips that I'd picked up over my years of screw ups and also teaching. You can find my email on my intro page, so if you wanna drop me a mail, you can too.

You, sir, have been bookmarked.