Struggling to clear my mask during Scuba training.

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What about being in a seated position? For every exercise that we spend submerged in the pool, we are always seated or on our knees (same for the instructor). Keep in mind, this is a 5 ft deep pool.
The instructor has mentioned how you want to be neutrally buoyant and encouraged us to do so while swimming around the pool, but we haven't really reviewed in depth on how to stay Neutral buoyant/Trim. He has mentioned that we need to practice using our natural breathing to control our buoyancy, but he's never had us try to stay trim or horizontal while performing exercises.

That also is unacceptable. I have gotten my students neutrally buoyant and trim in 4 feet of water. Swimming to maintain depth is a means of masking not having good neutral buoyancy.

I wish to emphasize that one of the signs of a good diver is being still and horizontal, stationary in the water column.

My suggestion for you is to take a course with @Jim Lapenta after you complete your course. He will get you properly weighted. Either that or UTD Essentials (Find an Instructor · UTD Scuba Diving) or GUE fundies (GUE Instructors). Any of these 3 options will be excellent and you will have an amazing time diving afterwards without any struggles.
 
I also was taught doing exercises while kneeling, but it was 1975. But we were also taught to make the same while horizontal, while vertical, and while upside down. We were asked to be able to evacuate our mask in any position, and mostly while free diving. We started using air bottles after 6 months. The first two months of the course were without any equipment (no fins, no mask, no suit, naked). The second two months were using mask, fins and snorkel. Months 5 and 6 were using ARO (a pure-oxygen CC rebreather, still widely used in Italy in those years). And only after those 6 months we were given air bottles (twin bottles, of course).
So at that point everyone was capable of evacuating the mask in every position, and with minimal air usage.
Back to kneeling: we were not allowed to use weights. So being able to stay on the bottom of pool or on the sand at the sea being stable on your knees was a good exercise of emptying your lungs, and getting a negative asset this way.
Of course at the end of such a course we were just 1/3 of the initial number, the others gave up!
I fully understand why nowadays training is so different, and why kneeling is considered a relic of the past.
 
Lots of great advice here. For what it's worth, the mask flooding and removal drills in my OW class were the most frightening thing I've experienced in the ~75 dives I've done over the last year. I had to do them again for a different class a few months ago--piece of cake. You'll get there. I think it's fine to practice in a shallow pool with just holding your breath (no tank or other gear, just you and the mask.) As long as you can stand up, you won't drown, and if you're not breathing compressed air, you won't embolize. Pick a pool with a lifeguard if you're nervous. Good luck!
 
Another thing to look at is a mask with a Purge valve in the nose. You look down to Purge the mask not up. I don't personally like them because of higher volume but I've seen them help people who just couldn't get comfortable with anything else. That's aren't that many in the market but you can still find them.

Whatever works for you.
 
Humming is a way to keep positive pressure in your sinuses. If you are looking down / ahead and humming, I don't think you'll get any water up your nose.
 
I didn't like the feeling of water around my nose, but I got used to it and you will too....just keep at it.

Once you're certified and have done a few dives you'll realise that bouyancy control is the hardest skill to master. That's why some instructors start with it from day one and don't teach with students kneeling.
 
Well, kneeling can be part of teaching buoyancy control, if done together to other exercises for forcing students to assume several other unnatural positions and to keep them stably.
Teaching only in horizontal position has the great problem that when the diver, for any reason, is forced to stay in a quite different orientation, he is not used anymore to control his asset and his buoyancy.
So, while definitely the capability of maintaining the body perfectly horizontal and to get minimal friction when kicking is one fundamental thing to learn, the student must be trained to do basic safety operations (such as clearing the mask or to alternate-breath with a buddy) and to adjust his buoyancy in every possible position (horizontal, vertical, kneeling, seating, facing up, upside down, etc.).
This is much easier, of course, if proper equipment is employed (a back-mounted BCD, weights properly distributed, a soft and not-too-thick wet suit, fins suited for specific anatomy of each subject, etc.).
But relying only on the equipment is not, in my opinion, a wise approach. It happens that you are given quite bad equipment when on holidays, depending on the diving center, and you must be able to manage also these situations. And I think that the basics of buoyancy control and asset management should be learned without any equipment (even without mask and fins), which automatically forces the students to get used to be underwater without mask, with eyes wide open, and using just their body and their lungs for assuming the required position and asset.
I fully understand that this approach is considered "old school" nowadays, and in most diving classes scuba equipment is given to students since lesson #1.
 
Just wanted to give everyone an update.
I practiced my mask clearing during my 3rd and final OW class. Our instructor asked the DM to help me and another girl who was struggling with mask clearing.
The DM noticed I had a larger mask, and she thought the larger volume inside the mask might be giving me issues. So she loaned me her smaller mask.
Then, the DM started us off with easy basic steps like having us fill our mask and clearing it above water. Then we moved to a partial clear, followed removing the mask completely and replacing it.

Additionally the DM noticed I was exhaling in short, quick bursts. I think this might have been preceded by a brief inhale or "gasp" feeling when the initial panic of water flooded my face happened. Then, when I opened my eyes, I noticed water was still in my mask, which increased my panic and probably made me try to inhale slightly again, and blow out in another quick burst. I believe this is probably one of the reasons I was getting water up my nose.
To Combat this, I tried controlling my breath, inhaling through my regulator, pausing for a second and doing a longer exhale until my mask was clear. I also think I've learned to not freak out as much when I still have water in my mask.

As soon as I figured that out, I was much more comfortable clearing my mask and I spent close to an hour swimming around the pool, practicing neutral Buoyancy and clearing my mask. I'm proud to say that I can now clear my mask while in motion, and as trim as I can manage.

Lastly, I would like to say that I'm feeling good about my buoyancy control as well. I was able to swim and stay fairly neutral, and I noticed I was able to rise or sink based on how much air was in my lungs. I also practiced swimming upside down (or face up), diving, spinning, turning, rotating and all kinds of fun maneuvers in the water.
 
Ghost 95 said: "Another thing to look at is a mask with a Purge valve in the nose. You look down to Purge the mask not up. I don't personally like them because of higher volume but I've seen them help people who just couldn't get comfortable with anything else. That's aren't that many in the market but you can still find them."

I have been teaching Scuba for a while and when you are under a time constraint to get stuff done You can only spend so much time with one student. So I always carried a mask with a purge valve. It just took a couple of minutes to show the student how to use the mask and they would easily clear the mask. I married a lady that used a purge valve for the first 5 years we were married and co taught scuba with me. There is nothing wrong with using a mask with a purge valve. Once the person overcomes the early challenges you can switch to a different mask that suits your needs. Aqualung still makes the mask my wife used in 1979.
pacifica.png
 
Mask Purge Valve

poke a hole, stretch to pull through, add aquarium-grade silicone if you want to be double-sure
 
https://www.shearwater.com/products/peregrine/

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