Proper Finning Technique

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jim ernst:
You can go pretty fast with a couple of seals attached to your feet ... :11:

I always wondered why they liked chewing on fins so much ...

... Bob (Grateful Diver)
 
It's really too bad that dive ops don't put on "finning techniques" classes, and teach the different skills in the swimming pool (at least there isn't anyone in my area doing it). I'd definitely sign up for one of those classes, because although I'm an excellent swimmer, the frog kick isn't quite like the breaststroke kick, and I'd love to have someone teach me how to do it right (both forward and backward).
 
NetDoc:
However, the best finning technique is achieved by folding your hands and learning how to navigate up, down, left and right by using your breathing and your feet. Many, many divers tend to use their hands to adjust their attitude and direction in the water. This alone can cause a huge silt out, and tends to keep you in a heads up position. It will also consume a huge portion of the air in your tank as you need more air to feed the muscles in your arms. So intertwine your fingers and learn how to just kick.
For the newer divers out there, pay particular attention to this advice ... I speak from experience.

I went several hundred dives before even admitting that using your hands to adjust attitude wasn't an effective thing to do ... and by then it was something on the order of an addiction. And trying to stop doing it is almost as bad as trying to quit smoking ... just when I think I've got it licked, I catch myself doing it. So did the videographer on our recent Bonaire trip ... :11:

It does nothing for you that you can't do with a little practice adjusting your head position and using your fins to move you where you want to go.

Catch your bad habits early and you'll spend way less effort trying to break them when they become encumbrances to your skills development ...

... Bob (Grateful Diver)
 
Doc Intrepid:
Every now and again someone loses a fin. A strap breaks, it gets kicked off, whatever. It can be disconcerting...

The dolphin kick can be moderately useful if you lose a fin. Cross your legs at your ankle, and use the dolphin kick with your single remaining fin. Its ungainly and clumsy, but it beats the crap out of trying to do a flutter kick or a frog kick with only one fin... ;)

Give it a shot in a pool with only one fin on, and see for yourself...

I can swim with one fin but you can avoid losing one by not using the cheap straps that come with most fins and wearing fins that fit. I've heard of people losing fins but never actually seen it happen. What else do you think they might be doing wrong?
 
NetDoc:
The flutter kick is a great introductory fin technique. If the trim is right, there is little silting... especially here in Florida.

Why is it a great introductory technique?
Little silting? Maybe if you're not close to the bottom or there isn't much silt but wouldn't no silting be better than a little? Especially in Folrida? The same Florida that I know? Land of the silted out spring basin?

The worst silting that I've seen (aside from divers crawling or bouncing in the bottom) is a head up, usually negatively buoyant diver who is flutter kicking. The second worst offender is a well trimmed diver doing a well executed wide flutter kick just as they were taught.
However, the best finning technique is achieved by folding your hands and learning how to navigate up, down, left and right by using your breathing and your feet. Many, many divers tend to use their hands to adjust their attitude and direction in the water. This alone can cause a huge silt out, and tends to keep you in a heads up position. It will also consume a huge portion of the air in your tank as you need more air to feed the muscles in your arms. So intertwine your fingers and learn how to just kick.

Good advice but... divers who need to use their hands are off balance and ill-trimmed. It's not the moving hands causing the head up position though. They're head up because their trim is off. They are negatively buoyant because if you're neutral and head up you will swim up (as well as foreward) when you kick. So, when they try to move foreward they must be negative in order to move foreward without also going up. When they slow or stop they tend to sink. To counteract the sinking they either skull downward with their hands, go vertical and keep kicking or both and that does cause silting. One can certainly "swim" with their hands without silting. Fins used in the wrong direction will silt far more than a hand just because the fin moves so much more water.

Where you put your hands is not what's causing the problem. What will help in practise is to go slow and stop often (stop meaning, no hand or foot movement). This insures that fins are only being used for movement and not buoyancy control. If you're not neutral you will know it when you stop. A head up diver (most common) will find themselves negatively buoyant when they stop and a head down (less common) diver will be posatively buoyant when they stop. Being trimmed horizontally allows you to move foreward without altering buoyancy to prevent up or down movement.

These are simple priciples that, IMO, should be thoroughly explained, demonstrated and understood before a diver is ever put into the water...otherwise they learn hard to break habits from day one. They often carry those bad habits and lack of understanding on into their career as instructors too. This is really the very most basic mechanical aspects of diving. A child could understand it if we didn't go to so much trouble to keep it a secret. At least we should grant instructors security clearance to access this information.
 
I do a prone scissor kick in which my right leg engages the water on the upstroke and downstroke. My left leg essentially stays in the same position with, perhaps a little ankle motion. The left leg (lowest leg) never falls below my slipstream. This "scissor" allows a gentle glide through the water.
 
Mike Ferrara, those are two superb posts.

At least for me, it is absolutely true that, if I feel like I need to use my hands, it's because I've lost my attitude (no longer horizontal) and if it happens repeatedly, I'm out of trim. Trim was very briefly addressed in my OW class, not at all in peak performance buoyancy, and at no time did anybody suggest anything like hovering and closing one's eyes to find out which way you "pitch".

There is a ton of good information for new divers (and maybe even for older ones!) in this thread. Wow.
 
Mike,

I like to teach more than one single kick. If you feel that Phillips are THE most efficient driver had and only stock them in your toolbox, what do you do when you are presented with a slotted fastener? While I prefer the frog kick, I do not see the flutter kick as necessarily "evil". It definitely has it's place! Since it is the EASIEST to learn, and is somewhat natural for most divers, I have no issue with them using what is best for THEM. The flutter kick is no more a bad habit than having a torx bit in your toolbox. Just because you don't use it, does not make it wrong!

As for folding the hands: no it's not the only way to stop using your hands, but in my experience as an instructor, it has proved to be the most effective. Constant sculling with the hands WILL drive your head upwards exaggerating bad trim. It could not do anything BUT do this and the downward "prop wash" can cause a silt out as bad as roto-tilling. It doesn't matter HOW you stop using your hands, I only suggested folding them as this is easy for divers to monitor themselves.

As for trim... I hope you didn't miss me addressing that in my earlier post. A frog kick with a heads up attitude can cause as much roto-tilling as a flutter kick. Trim and your position in the water column have a considerable impact on eliminating silting.

I hope that this isn't a call to Scuba elitism: where "real" divers use only a frog kick and maintain a horizontal attitude during the entire dive. Diving is far broader than just one discipline and there are as many techniques employed as there are divers in the water. It's important that we don't vilify techniques "just because" we don't use them. It's far more important that we concentrate on the real villains of finning, which would be attitude, trim, weighting, buoyancy control and the use of hands.

Two last thoughts:

First thought: a game for our users to try: Start the game after you achieve neutrality at the bottom with a predetermined sign. In this game, you are allowed to check your gauges as often as possible, and to adjust your buoyancy 4 times. The object of the game? Make the entire dive without releasing your hands! Every time you release your hands, you incur a point, and you get another point for every 5 seconds your hands are apart. Like golf, the low score wins! Learning new habits can be fun! PS... Don't forget to check your gauges OFTEN: they don't count!

Second thought: If you think that your frog kick is stronger/faster than your flutter than please time yourself to be sure. When the fat hits the fan and speed is of the utmost importance, it's best to KNOW which is really faster and not rely on which you HOPE is faster.
 
NetDoc:
Mike,

I like to teach more than one single kick . . .

Second thought: If you think that your frog kick is stronger/faster than your flutter than please time yourself to be sure. When the fat hits the fan and speed is of the utmost importance, it's best to KNOW which is really faster and not rely on which you HOPE is faster.

I'm wondering what kick is the most efficient when you find yourself in a current, say 1 mph. By efficient, I mean speed with the ability to sustain the effort.

Stan
 

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